Last weekend was one of those scuba diving weekends that I always hoped for as an instructor. DWF and 4 other students headed up to Dutch Springs for a weekend of the PADI Advanced Open Water (AOW) course as well as a dive from the PADI Wreck Diver specialty course.
On Saturday morning we trekked up to Dutch Springs in Bethlehem, PA. The AOW class is a veritable buffet of specialty dives. Allowing my students to sample one dive each from five different specialties.
I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t cold this weekend. On Saturday it rained all day! I’m so glad I brought my rain shelter. The air temperature started at 50 degrees F and finally made it up to a balmy 52 degrees :/
The surface of the water was about 55 degrees F, and was down to 50 degrees at the first thermocline at 20 feet. Despite all that we had an amazing time, with a great group of divers.
Between my two AOW students they chose 6 different specialty dives.
On Saturday, we did 4 different dives:
(To be clear each student did a max of 3, but between them all 4 were done)
I should also probably mention that one of our divers was camping at Dutch and decided to bust out his cooking gear and make us all dinner while we waited for the sun to go down for our night dive. That’s some good eatin!
I love night diving. I enjoy the challenge and I also really like how the very same stuff that we saw earlier in the afternoon during our Underwater Navigation dive can seem so different once the lights go out.
On Sunday morning the rain dried up and the air warmed up to 70 degrees F. The water was still pretty frikkin’ cold tho.
On Sunday, we did 2 different dives
During our deep dive our dive computers measured something in the low 40s at about 80 feet. Fortunately, we weren’t down there for too long. It was great to take my divers on their very first deep dives.
During the weekend I was also able to knock out a wreck dive for two of my students who will be finishing up their wreck certification during our Wreck and Meg Tooth trip down to North Carolina next weekend.
So congratulations to Columbia Scuba‘s newest PADI Advanced Open Water divers! You did a great job this weekend.
