Discovering Scuba

The question I had been pondering for some time now was how I would enter the world of the sea. From my early childhood memories of watching TV shows like Sea Hunt and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, I have been fascinated by the marine life and ecosystems of the oceans. Now I have several friend in the Texas Chapter of the Explorers Club that are accomplished divers. I’ve been sailing several times, I snorkeled once in Hawaii and even had scuba tanks on my back on one occasion. These feeble attempts were many years ago.

I learned of a one-day mini-course dive shops offer called “Discovering Scuba.” I contacted my local dive shop, Dive World Austin and found out that they offered the course. They offer PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) courses from this beginner’s course to the Open Water Certification course and many other advanced technical diving courses. PADI defines the program I was interested in as follows: “The PADI Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) program is a non-certification experience designed to introduce beginners to scuba diving in a safe, supervised environment. It’s often a half-day session and does not result in a certification, but it does give you a taste of what scuba diving is like.” This was perfect for me!

In order to take even this basic introduction to scuba, we had to complete a medical form with the catch being that if any of certain boxes were checked, we would need a doctor to attest to the fact that we were able to dive from a health standpoint. Being a very senior citizen, I had many of the boxes checked. Fortunately, my doctor felt that there was no danger in me diving and he gladly signed off on it.

The course consisted of three parts. The first was a short eLearning course that culminated in taking and passing a brief quiz. The course covered these essentials:

• Brief introduction to scuba diving and the equipment used.
• Basic safety rules and equalization techniques.
• Understanding hand signals for underwater communication.
• Breathing rules and pressure effects.
• Overview of the dive plan and what to expect.
• Emphasis on staying close to the instructor and following directions

Next, I headed to the dive shop for the second part of the course which was when I met my PADI Certified Instructor and her assistant, a PADI Certified Divemaster. In this phase, we reviewed the material from the eLearning course and another test to ensure we knew the material. Safety was stressed and we practiced hand-signals that we were to use in the next phase.

Our last phase was what I was super-excited about. We were about to take our first breaths under water. This phase was conducted in an indoor heated pool that we were to learn and practice “Confined Water Skills.”  The pool dropped off to a depth of 12 feet. We learned and practiced basic scuba skills such as:

• Breathing underwater using scuba gear.
• Regulator recovery and clearing.
• Mask clearing.
• Equalizing pressure in ears and mask.
• Basic buoyancy control using a BCD (Buoyancy Control Device).
• Finning and moving underwater.
• Emergency procedures (like inflating the BCD and locating the alternate air source).

There was only one other student, so we had incredible one-on-one supervision. We repeated each exercise until the instructor agreed we did it correctly.

From there, we descended to the bottom of the pool at 12’. We played games underwater that tested what we learned in the shallow water. We worked on decompression and equalizing pressure as we descended down.

As the session concluded, I felt very good about how I was able to grasp the material and execute in the water. Our instructors were very patient and thorough. They answered the million questions I had about taking the next step, that of becoming a certified open water diver.

Even though the next step for me was not part of the course, being someone that likes to really understand the next steps, the instructor told me about the dive shop’s weekly dives and invited me to show up and observe what takes place prior to an actual dive. On Wednesdays, at Mansfield Dam Park, there is an area cordoned off for divers. I went to one just to get a feel for what it would be like.

The Discovering Scuba course was $100. If I were to take the certification course, they would credit me $50 towards it providing I take the it within 6 months. The parting question you might ask, are you going ahead and taking the certification course? Stay tuned for a future blog to find out.