Adventures in Scuba Diving Part 2

So Saturday comes, and finds us at Robin Hood Watersports for the first half of our PADI Open Water Course – the ‘confined’ element ie done in a pool.  Part classroom, part practical, these two days let you get to grips with all the skills you need to complete your Open Water Certification – the second half of which is done in true ‘open water’ at a old quarry at Capernwray near Carnforth.

By the end of the two days, we would have covered (this isn’t an exhaustive list by the way…) :

• How to set up and breakdown your kit
• Breathing underwater
• How to purge your regulator
• Regulator removal and recovery
• Clearing of a half and fully flooded mask
• Sharing air with your buddy via your spare regulator
• Swimming with your buddy while they’re using your spare regulator
• Swimming underwater without a mask
• Fin pivots
• Neutral buoyancy
• Hovering
• Removing your weights whilst at the surface and underwater
• Removing your BCD and putting it back on, both at the surface and underwater
• Safe Ascending and Descending
• plus many other skills and techniques!

My biggest worries were around filling and clearing my mask – or more specifically, breathing underwater with either my mask full of water or indeed, without my mask at all.

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