Now An Open Water Diver

Taken by Pawel, my instructor at scubadivers.ie


On Sunday just gone, we went to Portroe quarry to do our final dive of the course. Actually we did two dives that day. I'll post pics at a later stage but for now, I'll just talk about the experience.
At this stage, we had all of our equipment except tanks and weights. I picked up tanks last night and I expect to have weights by our next dive.

Portroe quarry is a great place for beginners and probably advanced divers too because it has all the depths you would expect in recreational diving and since there's no current, it's a much easier experience. There's also the fact that since it's fresh water, you don't get salt water all over everything and sometimes in your nose/mouth. There might not be much wildlife down there, just some tiny fish and probably invertebrates but there is plenty to see. There are man made walls, which are cooler looking than you might think. There are also sunken things ranging in size from a can of budweiser to a boat. There's also a sunken VW bus like the mystery machine, as well as an old kayak. There was even a sort of a decorated Christmas tree, it wasn't a real Christmas tree, just a plant that was decorated with tinsel and bows. Keep an eye out for the pictures over the coming days.

The first dive was our last open water dive of the course. We did our skills and then went off for a dive. The second one was just for fun. Since the water is pretty cold at 7c, we limited both dives to about 30 minutes. I was perfectly warm in my cheap pegaso wetsuit from lidl so it's pretty good in my view. I would have been perfectly comfortable staying down a lot longer.



I used my dive computer for the first time, a suunto vyper. Above is the first dive where we went to a maximum of 13.7m


On the second dive, we went a little deeper to 17.1m and for non divers reading; 18m is the maximum we can go as open water divers. We intend to do Advanced Open Water which allows for up to 30m and since we own all of our own equipment, we are not limited by courses. We can go diving with any group or even on our own, though it will be a while before we go on our own and only once we are confident we know the area we are diving in. I will want to be at least advanced open water level because that includes an underwater navigation module.

I look forward to getting my open water certificate from PADI and continuing the adventure.

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