resort dive - Cairns diving

Resort Dive

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Resort Diving- Introduction To Scuba Diving

Resort Dives have become the first scuba diving experience for many people. It gives those who are curious an opportunity to give scuba diving a try with the major expense of certification.  Often they will see divers at a vacation resort and a notice stating that resort dives are available. Many times a resort dive will start them on the road to become a certified scuba diver. Simply put, a resort dive is an abbreviated first lesson, it covers the important safety rules and basic skills a student diver will learn in an open water certification class followed by a practice session and an escorted shallow dive on a scuba divers dive site. Most resort dive programs are designed to be half day long.

Resort Diving Theory Instructions

When you take an open water certification course there is a portion of the class that is classroom or online training. This material covers the physics of diving and some of the critical information that you will need. For the resort course the physics that you will need to understand is a much narrower scope than the requirement for certification. Even the big bad physics you need to learn for certification is not that difficult. Remember even 12 year olds can be certified. Most people

there are a few fool proof methods to locate the hose and have the regulator back in your hand in two seconds.

One of the basic skills needed of a scuba diver and the hardest to learn is maintaining neutral buoyancy. A diver will wear a vest like device called a buoyancy control device, BCD in common lingo, the air cylinders are attached to it and a hose from the cylinder will connect to the BCD. The diver will have a button to press to add more air to the BCD giving you a greater buoyancy or a release valve that will allow air to escape. The goal is to maintain neutral Buoyancy, meaning you neither float up to the surface nor sink into the depths. It is an average condition as you will rise slightly as you breath in and sink slightly as you exhale. A Resort diver will only need to be able to perform the basics of buoyancy control.

Once you have practiced the skills dry, you will enter what is referred to as confined water and practice the skills until both you and the dive instructor are confident that you can do them by second nature. When you practice on the dry run you may think you will never get it right, but the task are much easier in the water. Most people can complete the task by the second attempt and within three or four additional practices feel like they been doing it for years. Confined water is often a swimming pool but it can be any shallow calm waters.

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can complete the theory instructions in about ten minutes.

Introduction To Scuba Diving Skills

Scuba diving is one of the safest sports that exist. Your chance of a serious injury is greater horseback riding than scuba diving. One of the main reasons for this is that every recreational scuba diver has completed a course of instructions that has created an awareness of the risk involved and certain skill sets are learned and practiced until they become second nature. The resort diver will also need to learn some of these basic skills before they proceed to the actual dive.

The first skill you will most likely learn is how to replace your mask underwater. While diving you might accidentally dislodge your mask either completely or enough to allow water to enter the mask. The instructor will show you the proper procedure to replace it and to expel the water. You will do a few “dry” runs before practicing it in the water.  Sometimes water will seep in under a seal, the same procedure will allow you to expel that little bit of water as well.

It is also possible that the regulator will come out of your mouth and you will need to recover it and place it back into your mouth. Can happen if the hose catches on something but it happens mostly when posing for photos. Instead of trying to look around for the hose

Your Practical Experience

When you are comfortable with the basic skills, you and your dive instructor is ready to do the resort dive. Resort diving instructions is always small groups. In the practical experience, he instructor will only have one or two resort divers with him at a time. While the requirement is that the instructor must remain in contact with the resort diver, in practice they just stay within arms reach.

Most of the time the practical experience is done at the same time and location that certified divers are using. The resort dive is shorter than what a certified diver would do and the depth may be shallower than the certified diver is diving. Resort dives are generally done in about 5 meters of water. Which is an excellent depth for many reefs. At that depth a certified dive could stay an hour but the resort diver will stay about 15 to 20 minutes.

Where To Find A Resort Course

Most PADI and SSI facilities offer these programs, depending on the location  and the facility cost vary greatly. $50 to $80 is a common range.  The Cairns based Liveaboard vessel MV Reef Encounter and the daily dive vessel MV Reef Experience offer complementary resort diving to their on-board guest who are not certified divers.

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