Chatting to well known dive author and Asia-Pacific technical diving pioneer Simon Pridmore about my first dives out of my open water course, I was surprised to find that my first two dives were to 22 metres. I had always remembered my first non-training dive lasted for a duration of 35 minutes and the second dive was 40 minutes. I was told during the course to breathe normally, I soon learned that was bad advice and I learned to skip breathe to increase my time under water.

Author of Scuba Confidential, Scuba Professional and co-author of the Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bali, we were discussing training standards as I also thought the safety stops I did after these dives were decompression stops as I had never performed any safety stops on my training dives. This was poor practice, the instructor had the opportunity to instill in me an important safety aspect, fortunately, I picked this up later on, but it should have never happened this way.

Fortunately I was talked into undertaking an Advanced Open Water course directly after my entry-level course, I told my instructor I wanted to go out and gain some experience before undertaking a series of courses. I am glad I did as I had plenty to learn and I am a believer in experimental learning methodologies. I learned ascent rates, buoyancy control, dive computer use and finally stopped my carbon dioxide headaches after learning improved breathing techniques from fellow divers.