Recently I had a chance to take a revamped PADI adventure course with GoodLife Divers that focused…read moremainly on skills needed for Northeast diving. Obviously, when presented with this opportunity, I jumped at the chance. After all, most of my diving would be in this exact environment. I'm a new diver, but already I know that I want to dive more then once or twice a year on a trip somewhere. I want to dive in my own backyard (back-sound? back-ocean?).
The class touched upon different specialties, Deep, Wreck, Bouyancy, Navigation and Nitrox. In addition, my instructor, Danny, made sure to touch upon reel use, SMB deployment and pony bottle deployment.
The course was structured with lots of home study, one full day of classroom teaching (lecture/videos), one day of 3 dives in a local quarry and 2 days of shore dives.
Myself and another student met at Danny's place where we did one of my favorite things. Talked math, physics and equations. Today was the day of all of our theory and textbook learning. Oh, I forgot to mention. In addition to the standard padi workbooks, Danny also hand made an additional textbook that covered a ton of knowledge NOT covered in the course. So while we were learning all about nitrox, MOD and EAD tables, we were also learning about SAC rates and RMV. Between HIS textbook, the padi textbook, a few videos and discussion we really went in depth into all the equations and their uses. I felt it was really described in a way that was very helpful and nothing was rushed or forced. He even explained not only how some equations work but also why they do which is a good trait in an instructor. I find that too many times various teachers will teach you a formula but not WHY that formula occurs the way it does.
I would say that during the classroom part of things GoodLife divers exceeded my expectations. With the exception of a few typos (and one section where he left out a distinction between psi and 100psi) I felt that the classroom training part was top notch and near-flawless and with the exception of clarifying the hand made textbook, I really don't know where there would be room for improvement.
At the end of the night we took a few tests and then reconvened a few days later at the rock quarry for 3 dives.
The day we chose sadly was a very cold day and the other students had cancelled which worked out well for me as it meant I had Danny's undivided attention. We did some diving where we went over reel use and also SMB deployment. We also worked on my trim, my frog kicks and bouyancy. Each time We dove, Danny kept challenging me in new ways that may occur in a real world situation. You just set up a reel line? Now take off your mask and find your way out using that line.
Little touches like that to show how the skills we were using would be useful in a real world environment were fantastic. We did 3 dives total that freezing day at Dutch springs working on wreck, deep and various other skills.
The next time we met was in Bayville for a shore dive. We were initially going to work on navigation skills but with our timing to the water it was late at night and instead we turned it into a night dive class. Going over light signals and working on buoyancy more we touched slightly upon navigation also. After a good dive we made plans for our next and final dive.
The next time we dove we decided to focus on navigation. This is where my one criticism of the course comes. After going over proper setting of the compass and taking headings we went underwater. It was very hard for me to get a reading and I felt that after a few minutes of fumbling, Danny would then take the lead where I should have been learning my compass. A few times he got us back on course and then when I fumbled with my navigation skills, he would take lead and correct the situation instead of allowing me to correct it myself. This may not be an accurate recollection but it's how I felt at the time. (Also, after mentioning this to my instructor after the course, Goodlife has given me extra dives to work on my navigation skills. It says alot for a company that takes critiscim constructively and then offers a way to make up for that.)
And that's my review of the course! Many, many pros! Danny is great and I felt he really explained things in easy to understand ways and went above just "book learning" and showed me how these skills are used in real world situations. Also the additional real world skills were completely an asset! His training style also meshed well the way he built upon previous skills.
I'd absolutely recommend Good Life diving to anyone looking to build upon their knowledge and skills.
