What to Do After You’re Certified
Congratulations on your Open Water Diver certification! Now that you can rent equipment, book charters and go diving, what’s next? I’ve outlined the 3 most common and important steps after getting certified in South Florida.
1 Go Diving
This is crucial. Go diving after your certification. You should try and log 15-20 dives with friends before the next two suggestions. Diving without an instructor helps build confidence and independence. It will also help you figure out what you like and don’t like about diving. The South Florida coast has tons of dive sites to explore. Start simple, like the Blue Heron Bridge, and move to boat charters. The dive sites in Jupiter are markedly different than the sites in Pompano so moving up and down the coast will give you different experiences and wildlife interactions. Driving down to the keys for a weekend is a great way to experience different dive sites and operators for beginners as well.
2 Buy Gear
Owning equipment takes away the mystery and stress of renting from a dive shop. It’s important to not buy equipment right after the course. The different styles and manufacturers of equipment lend themselves to different diving environments and styles. Building base level experience will ensure you purchase what’s right for you. This article breaks down what order you should buy equipment.
3 Continue Learning
The Open Water Course is the entry level course for divers. It trains you in the basics of diving within certain limitations. To move outside of those limitations, or into specialty areas of diving, you can take additional training courses. There are literally hundreds of specialty courses. Some are environment specific, and others are applicable to general diving. As a beginner diver with some experience I suggest the below 3 programs. This isn’t a complete list of classes you can take, but for diving in South Florida these are the most beneficial.
Nitrox Diver
Remember how nitrogen in our scuba tank gets absorbed into our tissues and creates the NDLs on our computers? Nitrox is a mixture of gas where the oxygen is higher and the Nitrogen is lower. This gives us longer NDLs and is ideal for multiple dives in a day, or diving to the 60-90ft depth range. In South Florida, nitrox is almost a requirement because of how beneficial it is. The Nitrox Diver certification is a classroom only certification. After you complete the online study we’ll meet up for a few hours to review, and practice analyzing cylinders and planning dives.
Deep Diver
Shipwrecks, big critters, and untouched reefs lie beyond the 60ft depth limit of Open Water. Learning the techniques of diving deeper will unlock a new level of adventure and tons of other dive sites. This is usually a 2 day class, conducted over a weekend. Nitrox certification is required.
Wreck Diver
South Florida is known for it’s abundance of shipwrecks. Some are sunk on purpose to give wildlife a new home, others on accident. Learning to navigate shipwrecks, and enter the labyrinth and hallways, allows you to catch a glimpse of history. The wreck diver course can be conducted in the Keys or Pompano area and is a 2 day long course. Sometimes it’s paired with a deep diver course.