Just got my PADI OWC yesterday!

I took it with Mrs wKkaY at Kon-Tiki in Krabi, and our instructor was Felicia. We did our confined dive in a random swimming pool, and the open water dives around the Phi Phi islands.

My best moments were 1) seeing the reefs, 2) seeing large schools of fish... and turtles, 3) feeling myself improve with every dive.

I'm happy with the very professional service we got, and I feel that the PADI OWC syllabus is well-structured with a challenging learning curve. The e-learning modules upsell PADI courses and scuba gear a loooot though.

Is it too late for me to enrol into the May 24-26 dive? I am most probably coming by myself.

No, we only had a day to spare between our course dive and our flight, so we went kayaking instead in the mangroves. My body is really battered now

No problem, I can see that you've been organizing this trip for the past few months and I understand my request is a real last minute one

I will see if I can attend the TT this Friday.

Fixed that

I see, so the main problem is that Abdul's Chalets are out of rooms?

Haha really, I didn't know that. Yeah we were on the big boat (Champlee 10 or something like that) on both days. There was also a video guy on board on the first day so we got a few seconds of footage of ourselves doing our first dives

After watching the video I realize there's so much stuff in the sea that I didn't see!

I found the food alright, it's not gourmet standard; more like home-cooked food. They had fried rice, meat, mixed vegs, mixed fruits, cinnamon roll, and free flow soda.

I'll be having dinner around Bangsar tonight and will probably be on time @ Devi's.

I'm wearing the blue LYN tshirt.

Post #2

I'm here and have no idea if anyone's here lol. I'm wearing a light blue lowyat.net tshirt.

Pictchars

Yup mailed them last night - haven't received any response tho gonna call them instead..

mmm!

I found an awesome collection of scuba diving accident stories here: http://www.scubadiving.com/training/lessons-life

It's a good resource for understanding the dangers of the sport.

It is the size of the collection that is awesome (100 stories).

The accidents themselves are not awesome

Yes, accident analysis makes for macabre reading... but the wisdom they impart is priceless.

There were a few exciting ones, like a rebreather getting smashed and filling the diver's mouth with a caustic cocktail.

Generally though, you won't find anything like this


Most of the stories have extraordinary outcomes, but when you decompose them into a chain of events, each individual event turns out to be very ordinary. Some are anticipated for in training. While some others - like panic - is very common and I'm not sure what kind of training can mitigate this...

Can you share what to expect at MIDE? I haven't been there before.

Oh dear

For entry-level gear, is it worth attending MIDE, or should I just get it outside?