SSRCFAN

There's no excuse for you not knowing you weren't going to pass until you were back on the boat. An instructor certainly has an obligation not to certify a student who has failed to complete the skills - although it's a difficult part of the instructor's job - but implicit in that obligation is the understanding that the student will be advised of the deficiency at a point where correction can be accomplished.

Not only did she wait until we were back onboard the ship, but I passed and was signed off on ALL of the skills. I passed the 200M swim, mask off/clear, out-of-air drills, etc. All of them. She just made a “judgement call” after the first day of Open Water dives.

When we were in the pool, I asked my instructor if I could remove some weights from my belt and add them to the integrated BCD. She promised that she would do just that when we got to open water. Well, that didn’t happen. While in St. Maarten on dive #2, my weight belt slipped off. When I stopped to unbuckled and redo (which I’ve had to do several times before), I began feeling queasy when I pitched forward. The current underwater felt like a washing machine. The next thing I know, my PADI instructor was face-to-face with me. I was so relieved and began signaling her that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to ascend. (We did not discuss the possibility of becoming sick when below surface until AFTER this dive, so I didn’t know what to do. Do I take my regulator out? Do I leave it in? By this time, I’m already checking on my backup regulator just in case I plugged up the main....) However, she proceeds to ignore my hand signals and focuses on the weight belt in my hand. She’s grabbing my BCD and trying to pitch me forward which is compounding my nausea. I signal again right in front of her mask. She ignores my signals again and is determined to teach me a lesson. When she reached for my weight belt, I pulled away. Finally she got frustrated, grabbed my BCD and began to ascend. Not once did I panic, but I was indeed finished with that dive. My instructor clearly did not care about my communications or my safety. After feeding the fish, I surface swam back to the dive boat.

Thankfully the dive experiences in Puerto Rico were awesome with an awesome local instructor, even though I didn’t get credit for them.

Hi all,

 

My husband has been trying to look into the scuba certification course on our upcoming cruise. Every where we see everyone keeps saying it takes up a ton of time but is vague about what that means. Does anyone know actual hours? Does that mean 5 hours in the ship pool 10 hours at port etc.? Or has anyone done this and have an exact schedule?

 

Thank you!

My wife and I just returned from a RC Scuba Certification aboard the Harmony of the Seas. Specific to your question, there are several hours of online PADI course work that is required to be completed prior to sail date. Then there are several hours of pool time once onboard (in a 5' deep pool). Sail day 1 & Sail day 2 = 6:45am until around 10:30 to complete skills training. First dive port was St. Maarten (known for making divers sick, and lived up to the reputation). This was two dives from a boat and lasted most of the time in port. The second dive was in San Juan and was two shore dives and lasted most of the time in port.

There were three couples in our class and two individuals. One couple dropped out completely prior to the second Open Water dive (she quit prior to the first Open Water dive because she couldn't complete the basic skills in the pool and he dropped due to an ear injury after the first Open Water Dive). A guy in the second couple ruptured his ear drum on the first Open Water dive and dropped out. After arriving back onboard the Harmony after the first Open Water dive in St. Maarten, the instructor informed me that she was refusing my certification because I "looked around too much" during the dives that day. In the end, there were 8 people trying to get Open Water certification and only half reached certification. I'm confident that there are competent instructors on other RC boats, but that was NOT my experience.