From: carl@Cayman.COM (Carl Heinzl)
Newsgroups: rec.scuba
Subject: Re: Open Water II
Date: 3 Sep 92 21:39:32 GMT
Organization: Cayman Systems Inc., Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: goldstei@shrike.und.ac.za's message of 3 Sep 92 12:55:29 GMT
bcc: carl


>I have my Open Water I and am thinking about doing the Open Water II
>course.  Is it worth the money/time etc.?

I assume you mean NAUI OW II.  The best answer that I can give is "it
depends".  If you're looking to find new dive buddies or some new dive
sites it's probably worthwhile.  If you're a fairly active diver
anyway I don't think that it's worth it, especially if you're fairly
current and up to date.  If this is the case I'd advise you to jump
into an advanced class (a *real* advanced class - not PADI advanced
which is equivalent to NAUI OW II).

>Also, for those of you who have done it, what is involved and is it
>fun etc...

Here's the saga...

I started an OW II class back in June.  We did a 2 hour class session
for review and covering some basics of navigation (that we would use
in our first day of open water diving).  There were 8 dives planned
over a 4 day period.  The first day consisted of two dives in fairly
calm water with an easy entry.  The first dive was a review of OWI
skills including rescuing an unconscious victim from the bottom (10
ft).  The second dive was navigation.  We has to do various patterns
with increasingly longer distances.  We then went off with our buddies
(it was a pretty enclosed cove) for some general looking around and
were told to navigate back in under water.  Water temp was ~60 degrees
at the surface down to 51 degrees on the bottom (35 feet).

The second day's dives were a lot nicer.  The entry was harder
(Cathedral Rocks, still pretty easy) and the first dive was a "deep"
dive.  Our maximum depth was 78 feet.  Since several of the people in
the class were relative novices (i.e. they had just recently done OWI
and weren't as comfortable as my buddy and I) we were only down about
27 minutes due to the others air consumption.  The second dive we had
to switch buddies and each got a flag/float and got to go out and look
around (depth was limited to 50 feet).  Water temp was ~60 degrees
on the surface and 45 at depth.

At this point I dislocated my elbow and couldn't continue, but a very
good friend of mine finished the class.  From what he reported, the
third day was boat diving.  The first dive was on a wreck in about 80
feet of water (the Chester Polling).  The stern is considerably deeper
so they were limited to what they could see.  The second dive was a
search and recovery dive in which they had to drop down and swim
toward a buoy (that they could see when they were above water), find
it underwater and use a lift bag to bring it to the top.

The last day of diving was two night dives.  I don't know what skills
they covered on the first dive, but once again the second dive was a
"go out and have fun" dive.  My friend was upset because the person he
was teamed with didn't like the dark (sheesh).

I just did the boat dives (with *different instructors* but still MIT
affiliated) and next Friday I do the night dives to finish up my OWII
course.  Unfortunately we didn't get to dive the wreck (not sure why)
and just had a "deep (~80 feet) boat dive".  I was concerned that no
one seemed to be checking their air so when I got down to 2000 psi (I
had an AL 80) I asked my buddy for an air check and was suprised to
learn that he was down to 750 (he had a steel 72).  The instructor had
told us that we should be on the line at 1000 and exit with 500 psi.
I don't know why the other buddy pair hadn't alerted the instructor as
to their air situation.  Two of us (the four students) exited with
less than 500 (400 and 450?), the third with 750 and myself with 1800
(the instructor had 1600).

Our second dive (search and recovery) was less well organized and
frustrating.  There was no buoy for us to see on the surface and we
were given very vague instructions.  We were also given incorrect
current readings (135 degrees off!) by the boat Captain which royally
screwed us.  It also didn't help that 3 out of 4 of us were very
novice divers.

I think that the OWII course gave me a much better perspective on the
wide range of abilities of divers out there.  Many of us on the net
are probably fairly experienced, very self assured, and very capable
but there are a LOT of divers out there that are not at our level
(yet?)  and you must constantly remain aware of that (especially when
diving with an unknown buddy).  Remember when you dive with a buddy,
not only is your life in their hands, their life is in your hands.

-Carl-
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