CONTINUING YOUR DIVER EDUCATION
Many new Open Water graduates wonder what their next step should be. Here's some information on the different courses and a good order to look at them:
Perfect Buoyancy is the ideal next class for a new diver (or an experienced one who wants to improve their skills). The coures focuses on the three core components of control in the water: buoyancy, trim, and propulsion. We proceed in that order, first working on techniques to maintain a fixed depth in the water, then the divers orientation, and finally effective movement. You will learn advanced finning techniques and build a framework to continuosly improve your buoyancy for the rest of your dives!
CORE DIVE SKILLS
There are a few courses you can take after Perfect Buoyancy to develop your general dive skills. The specialties below will work on a particular set of dive skills, but those skills can be applied to many types of diving, so we call them the Core Dive Skills. These specialties can be taken in any order. We have listed them below in the order we find the easiest for a new diver, but we strongly encourage divers to follow their passion!
Many new divers describe worrying about being able to get back to the dive boat or to their entry point as a reason they do not go out to dive. The Navigation class focuses on developing on the basic skills learend during the Open Water course. You will learn to navigate a multi-point course, how to utilize natural and compass navigation together, and how to build your "mental map" underwater.
Enriched Air or Nitrox refers to diving with gasses with a higher percentage of oxygen than in regular air. The advantage of diving nitrox is increased bottom time and the potential to make more dives in a day. Nitrox is very popular on liveaboard dive boats and at dive resorts where divers can make up to 5 dives per day, but is also used by many divers to increase the safety margin of their regular diving.
Diving deeper allows you to explore new dive sites and see more of the dive sites you already frequent. While the fundamentals of diving do not change when we dive deeper, we do have to monitor for certain conditions and considerations that are more likely to affect us on deeper dives. You will learn how to precisely predict your gas consumption, plan a deep dive, monitor for gas narcosis, and how to use a DSMB to create an ascent line.
Night Diving is incredibly popular around the world because much of the ocean's life is nocturnal. Here in San Diego, night diving gives us the chance to see horn sharks and octopus out and about! You can also often find a sea lion hunting for food on night dives and see squid runs during certain times of year. Learning to night dive teaches about planning safe night dives and communicating at night. You will also learn how navigation changes in a limited visibility environment. Locally, many divers love a post-work night dive to get more bubbles in their lives!
Stress & Rescue is a great step for divers seeking to become more confident and comfortable underwater. The first part of the course focuses on self-rescue skills and managing stress underwater. You then progress into assisting tired divers, distressed divers, panicked divers, and unconscious divers. The goal of this course is to allow all divers, regardless of their individual , to do the best they can to assist other divers in the unlikely event of a diver emergency.
If you are ready to go with all of these courses, you can grab the Core Dive Skills package and get a discount on your training!
ADVENTURE SPECIALTIES
These specialties focus on a particular type of diving and teach advanced skills for everything from diving inside shipwrecks to searching for treasure!
Wreck Diving marries history and diving to create great opportunities to explore and learn all across the world. Ranging from ships that went down due to storms to those that were intentionally sunk to create the foundation of a new reef system, there are wrecks almost everywhere there is diving! The Wreck Diving course teaches how to navigate on a wreck (where compasses often do not work) and how to dive safely near wrecks.
Search & Recovery begins with how to conduct effective search patterns for objects of different sizes. We learn and practice multiple search patterns, including the expanding square, expanding circle, U-Pattern, and the jackstay. We also explore using surface and underwater tools to aid with our search. The next part of the course is how to bring objects up safely. We learn to use lift bags to lift heavy objects from the ocean floor, while maintaining safety and control.
Advanced Wreck Diving is all about wreck penetration. As part of this program, you will learn how to run lines inside a wreck so you can explore the inside of a wreck, while maintaining a guideline leading out for safety. This course is a must for anyone who sees a photo of an underwater wreck and immediately thinks "what's inside there?"
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT DIVE PROFESSIONAL TRANING