Open Water Certification Is The Kindergarten Of The Scuba Diving Education Process
In every new adventure through life we start at a beginning point, and learn our way to skilled success through experience and formal education.
The first formal learning experience for most of us comes at the age of five or so when our parents enroll us into kindergarten class. It’s our first structured step for gaining social skills, and preparing our minds for the educational process.
When we leave the kindergarten phase we start into the school levels where we receive the basic knowledge necessary to enter into our working lives as accepted members of the community.
Scuba diving is no different. Our kindergarten is the open water certification class, and it’s only the beginning of our intelligence-gathering endeavor. Much more knowledge awaits those who wish to become skilled and responsible divers.
Open water certification teaches the student minimal safety requirements that keep you alive while exploring underwater. Successful completion of the open water course tells dive operations all over the world that you are a beginner.
After you receive your certification card your responsibilities begin. Now it’s time to learn how to sharpen those skills you just gained, and show the diving world that you care for the underwater environment.
Sea life depends on your advanced skills so it thrives, and lives to thrill the next diver who comes along. Consider that one touch of your fingertip kills the coral where you make contact. New underwater divers are often clumsy in the skill of buoyancy control, and often fall into, or collide, with the reef – destroying the living coral with every impact.
Your fellow divers depend on your diving technique to allow them an enjoyable, and long dive. Most beginners suck air from a scuba tank faster than a moray eel chomping down on a reef shrimp for his evening appetizer. That means a short dive, and a disappointing one for your dive buddy.
New divers often chase after the sea life, thinking to get a close look, but actually scaring that life away from them and all the other divers in their group. Admiring the sea life is a major reason for diving.
Only through an ongoing learning process do you learn about the needs of the underwater environment, and how to improve the quality of your dive along with those who dive with you. By taking additional scuba classes you learn how to practice your skills, and diving techniques, so you turn yourself into a better diver.
All the scuba diving educational institutions provide the classes you need to grow yourself into that skillful and responsible diver.
An advanced open water class is first on the list. It builds on the skills and knowledge you gain in the basic open water course, and you come out of this class more qualified for diving deeper than recommended for the basic open water diver.
Rescue diver classes teach you how to help a fellow diver, in the case of an emergency, until medical personnel arrive.
A class in underwater nature helps you understand, and interact responsibly with the sea life. These are just a few of the advanced learning opportunities that exist to turn you into a diver that other scuba adventurers will respect, and happily pair up with for a diving event.
Open water certification opens a door for you. Your responsibility is to step through that door, and begin your true scuba learning experience.
