Do traning and vacations mix well?

Does mixing of training and your vacation make sense?

Do you fall into the category of "NO WORK ALLOWED...its my vacation and training is too much like work!"

Or do you resemble those who like to "Maximize the value of your vacation by squeezing in some training and other things you never have time to do otherwise?"

Or are you somewhere in between???

Tell us what you think!

Does mixing of training and your vacation make sense?

Do you fall into the category of "NO WORK ALLOWED...its my vacation and training is too much like work!"

Or do you resemble those who like to "Maximize the value of your vacation by squeezing in some training and other things you never have time to do otherwise?"

Or are you somewhere in between???

Tell us what you think!

Depends on the trip and the focus. I have traveled to do training. So I have gone on that trip specifically to take a certain class. Everything else becomes secondary to taking the class which is the primary focus. It was a 10 day intensive class where I didn't get any free dives in until the class was over. It allowed me to focus on the learning without the distractions of trying to do it part time at home. I learned more in those 10 days of dive planning and execution than in any time in my 200+ dives. It was worth it and I would do it again.

I think the challenge comes in when you have signed up for an SD trip that offers 3-5 dives a day as part of the paid package. Then you want a class on top of that. Well, how does the class time fit in with the dives? Is it intergrated? Is it in your spare time between dives? What about the homework/classwork? When do you fit that in? Are you willing to skip planned dives in order to get the classwork done that is required for the course? I remember a Nitrox class that was done at night and didn't finish till after midnight. Is that how you want to spend your vacation? Would you allow someone taking a class to pay a non diver price and then pay for the any non class dives after the fact? Most times when I am paying for a class it includes the dives. If I am doing a class with a SD instructor do I get a discount if I am paying for the dives through the trip?

My preference is to save my classes for non SD trips because of the logistics. Now if a trip was offered specifically around a class, where the cost of the course was included in the package, I may be more interested.

Does mixing of training and your vacation make sense?

Do you fall into the category of "NO WORK ALLOWED...its my vacation and training is too much like work!"

Or do you resemble those who like to "Maximize the value of your vacation by squeezing in some training and other things you never have time to do otherwise?"

Or are you somewhere in between???

Tell us what you think!

If I go for training, it's to focus on the training. I spent two months in Oz for that purpose, but was also lucky enough to get some personal time in between sessions, enhancing the training experience beyond what I could have gotten otherwise. I am a better diver because of it...but the training comes first.

PPM

Good insight so far...

Very well with live-aboards I would say. The surface intervals with little to distract you are perfect opportunities to get your homework done, or squeeze in a quick lesson. And since I am unlikely to get in diving under similar conditions, I don't get upset about losing a leisure dive to a lesson dive.

Kamala,
As George points out"My preference is to save my classes for non SD trips because of the logistics. Now if a trip was offered specifically around a class, where the cost of the course was included in the package, I may be more interested."I would agree

A good example is the Cayman trip that Tina & I are doing the photo shop.I know the 1st 2 days that will be class & workshop.I'm hoping I don't miss out on diving on those days,or it will be part of the class...

Kamala,
As George points out"My preference is to save my classes for non SD trips because of the logistics. Now if a trip was offered specifically around a class, where the cost of the course was included in the package, I may be more interested."I would agree

A good example is the Cayman trip that Tina & I are doing the photo shop.I know the 1st 2 days that will be class & workshop.I'm hoping I don't miss out on diving on those days,or it will be part of the class...

Greg since we only scheduled 2 boat dives daily you should not miss a boat dive on our pkg leaving you the afternoons to do Cathy's classes.

Sadly we try to offer lots of boat dives as this is what our members want...did not know I was squeezing out the chance for training UNLESS we offered it as part of the trip.

I think the challenge comes in when you have signed up for an SD trip that offers 3-5 dives a day as part of the paid package. Then you want a class on top of that. Well, how does the class time fit in with the dives? Is it intergrated? Is it in your spare time between dives? What about the homework/classwork? When do you fit that in? Are you willing to skip planned dives in order to get the classwork done that is required for the course? I remember a Nitrox class that was done at night and didn't finish till after midnight. Is that how you want to spend your vacation? Would you allow someone taking a class to pay a non diver price and then pay for the any non class dives after the fact? Most times when I am paying for a class it includes the dives. If I am doing a class with a SD instructor do I get a discount if I am paying for the dives through the trip?

Usually the class is designed to work AROUND your trip dives. You do the bookwork BEFORE the trip. You do the classwork BETWEEN DIVES and you use your pkg dives as your training dives.

In the case of technical training you need to do a few shore dives FIRST. Usually we try to allow you to slip your boat dives to the afternoon or the last day...in the case of Roatan the price of the dives is so cheap that we did not worry about factoring them out. However I will check with OTWDiver and see how many boat dives he thinks will need to be missed if any and we can credit those back in some way. The amt will not be great but every little bit helps.

Now if a trip was offered specifically around a class, where the cost of the course was included in the package, I may be more interested.

We have thought about this but to make this cost effective we'd need a lot of people doing training and I have never seen that many people interested...but I may be wrong. It might be a good topic to see what classes people want to take and if we could get enough to offer a trip that included that training.

I don't think technical training can be merged into a standard dive trip. Technical training is so performance-dependent that people would proceed at different rates and I just don't see how it could work. Even dedicated classes with two students are usually fraught and the students don't progress at the same pace.

I don't think technical training can be merged into a standard dive trip. Technical training is so performance-dependent that people would proceed at different rates and I just don't see how it could work. Even dedicated classes with two students are usually fraught and the students don't progress at the same pace.

Peter we've done it before in Bonaire and soon Roatan. I'd be happy to share OTWDiver's schedule with you if you like. PM me and I'll get it to you.

The other challenge of mixing tech divers with non tech on the same boat. We were doing a variety of ways to make it work, from dropping in early, then being picked up after the rest of the boat completed its Surface Interval and then hung out on the boat while the other divers did their 2nd dives, or hung out on the boat until the non tech divers completed their first dive, drove to the site and immediately dropped in while the other divers were doing their SI from the first dive depending on whether our tech dive site was closer to the 1st or 2nd dive site for the non tech divers.

I know during my tech training we were doing one dive a day while non tech divers were doing 3. The other 1/2 of the day was devoted to dive planning and preperation, including tank fills, etc. We started with shore dives in 20 feet, and gradually worked deeper till the time we got to dives 13 & 14, we were headed to 160 feet.

So the people on the trip have to realize that if they are doing this type of training, that they aren't going to get in as many dives as the non tech divers. One thing that was great about roatan at least is that since it was lots of wall diving, we could drop down on the same wall as the non tech divers, and had the entire wall to look at while doing our deco stops. So it wasn't like doing hangs over pure blue water, the top of the reef was almost always between 15-25 feet, so you had a great places to do your last stop.

The challenge that might exist on a November Roatan trip is that the winds aren't nearly as consistent as they are during the time I did it in May (which is more like Bonaire). So now you don't know going into each day which side of the island you are diving with much different reef system on the south side vs the northwest side. What the locals I talked to say its 50/50 on which side, and in their case, only 2 dives are offered on South side days, vs 4 on Northwest side days. Its more like the El Nortes they have in Cozumel.

When I went rebreather diving for fun I usually went out with the first dive of the day, stayed underwater when the boat recovered those divers and went back to land for a SI, and met them (by arrangement of course) when they exited from the second dive. Sometimes if I fancied a really long dive (4 hours +) I went out with the second dive trip of the morning, stayed out while the others had their lunch break, and met then at the end of their first afternoon dive. Worked very well. Those dives were always on trimix so I often spent time well below 200ft. I had enough OC gas with me to abort at any stage of the dive, but I never had to do it.

I still don't see how tech training can be combined satisfactorily with a rec holiday so yes, I would be interested to see how OTW does it.

Edited by peterbj7, 02 August 2011 - 04:59 PM.

I did Extended range in Bonaire on a SD trip with OTWDiver and It worked out fine. We splashed first and on the deepest dives our run times were about an hour. We were on the boat before the best of the SAC rated recreational divers were done with an AL80. I did 10 dives deeper than 100 and 6 of those deeper than 130. Going into this trip we knew what we were up against and had the books well before hand and OTWDiver was creative with having class at meal time, prior to the boat leaving and after we came in from the dives. Whenever we had time. Plus OTWDiver had sidemount, Deco, and basic Nitrox classes that week. He was busy. I only missed two day dives that week as I was beat! and jet lagged. I'm an out of shape government guy, I can't hang like I used to

Doing training on a trip gave me the uninterrupted time to focus on diving and not get distracted by all the things at home that would interrupt the flow. I read, did dive plans, took tests and quizzes, wrote in my log book while sitting in a recliner ocean side at the bar while sipping a margarita watching the sun set. I attended all the "functions" including some time in club Chaz and took a prize in the costume contest. I had an awesome time. From my experience I would take classes on trips.

My 2psi

Peter I would not at this point suggest rebreather training in general (they have not made a proof rebreather) nor would I suggest it for one of our trips. OTWDiver is not a rebreather instructor. He agrees with me that they are not idiot proof enough for mass consumption.

He will however teach PADI or TDI tech classes as well as sidemount as Jerrymxz mentioned. Those are the classes he is teaching in Roatan.

And of course 'tech' training includes the gamut from nitrox to rebreather with a WHOLE LOT IN BETWEEN!

I run the gamut - for my friends, family, dive shop clients - I strongly advise NOT taking their OW on vacation. If they insist, then I advise they take the course work and confined water here then add the referral - I think the opportunity to screw up the vacation, the training or both is quite high.

I took a spur-of-the-moment training course while on a trip - and it was excellent except other people on the trip - who weren't paying - were sitting in on the class and even interrupting with questions !!!!! I figured jail time was not worth the joy of tossing one of my fellow travelers overboard so they're here, and they know who they are, and they can hug their kids thanks to my patience and good nature.

I did take one more-or-less dedicated to training trip coincident with the SD July 4th NC Wreck trip - we wrapped up the diving portion of Advanced Nitrox and Deco & it was awesome - can't say enough good about OTW. I do want to revisit the wrecks sometime since I did spend a lot of time on drills & skills (as planned) and didn't get enough time to suit my curiosity.