She is excited... Wife and I are excited to show her some of what we have seen the last 8 years underwater.

If all goes will she will be Certified Dec. 1st.

Good stuff!

My daughter was certified at 14.
She was a handful at times back then...always swimming off.

Now, she is midway through her Scientific Diver training.  Very proud.

What company is she going through?

Dive shop in Lakeland, Deep Six Divers. Very good at training and don't rush it.

Agency certified through is IANTD. Will Probably get her a second NAUI card too just because.

That's awesome.

The second card ain't a bad idea, either.

Great to hear! Need some more chick divers! How old is she?

She is 10... 11 in Jan. We will keep her in beach and spring dives for a while.

She has snorkeled several carribean islands now and ready to stay underwater longer than 30 seconds.

Spring dives will definitely help get her ready for boat diving (removing fins and maybe BCD in a non-dynamic environment- no rocking boat swim step).

Take her on a beach dive somewhere to introduce her to saltwater diving (unless its already part of her curriculum); as you know, salt water introduces a stresser (stings eyes and the taste) that can cause consternation in new divers unfamiliar with it (I've seen it lots of times with land-locked divers doing their first ocean dive).

Once you are comfortable with her exit skills in a spring, take her on a boat drift dive and really get her enthused!

She will do quite a few large strides into the pool during class. After pool and class time she will do two dives in a lake, then down to the keys for four dives off a boat.

In the keys... 2 dives with be checkout and if it all goes well then 2 dives while certified the next day. This shop is pretty thorough with their training. Keys dives are anchoring the boat and staying around the boat in the water... not like east coast where it's all drift diving.

Like I said above, after that will be combination of springs and beach dives (Venice to hunt for sharks teeth and Blue Heron Bridge in West Palm) for a while.

Perfect!

2nd day done... physiology class and then pool time with mask, snorkel, and fins.

Mask clears (floods and removals), snorkel clearing, and proper fin technique.

3rd and 4th classes this week... Equipment and first time in pool in gear.





First "giant" stride.


Rescue off the bottom.

Daughter finally got done with her certification. Tried to do her final checkout dives in Islamorada (Florida Keys) last weekend but the 7 ft seas put the stop to that. She did get to see what seasickness was all about. I was afraid she would want anything to do with it the next day, but she was ready to give it a try again then. The boat ended up not even going out the second day so they said everyone had to wait for the checkout dives for the next trip down which is in Feb. or can do their final dives in the lake again. She was the only one that opted to get it done in the lake the next weekend. So two days ago she did her last two checkout dives in the lake to finish it up.

Told her if she passed her test and her final two checkout dives we would take her down to Blue Heron Bridge (West Palm Beach) to see the tropical fish. Ended up having to get up at 4am for the drive down there to hit high tide. She had a great time! Could hear her screaming in the water looking at all the new stuff. We are taking her back down to the keys on the Feb. dive trip with the dive shop since we didn't get to dive 2 weekends ago ad we have already paid for it (the trip that didn't happen). Just have to pay for her as a certified diver this time ($120 to piggy back on their checkout trip with students - 2 days/4dives).

Last bit of classroom and pool time.



First checkout dives in the lake. Instructor used me as a prop and she had to rescue me off the bottom then pull me to the edge of the lake.


Second set of checkout dives in the lake since we missed the Keys dives. Instructor likes to bring a can of vienna sausages to the lake to feed the fish.




All done and certified!


Blue Heron Bridge yesterday morning.




This is going to get (more) expensive... She already asking for full face masks like my wife and I have.

Congrats!

Here they like to bring cheap hot dogs to feed the catfish at the quarry here. Not during classes.

Congrats to your daughter!

BTW- there's some nice specks in that lake- I'm surprised there wasn't any fishing line.

Yeah, and at the end of the first dive I caught just out of the corner of my eye a bass swallow one.

Watched him swim off with the tail sticking out of his mouth.