Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

continuing education

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The Special Classroom Sessions

Did your Spring Break plans change or so you need something different for Spring Break? We have a solution — Some evening Specialty classes!

DayTimeProgramDescription
Monday6:30 – 9:00Night
& Limited Visibility		Some of the ocean’s most amazing creatures only come out at night, so your dive doesn’t have to end when the sun goes down. You will learn how to enter and exit the water, use specialized equipment, and how to communicate and dive with a buddy at night or in limited visibility.
Tuesday6:30 – 9:00NavigationYou will learn how to use a compass and natural navigation techniques, estimate distance, basic navigation patterns and how to leave and return to a designated point.
Wednesday6:30 – 9:00Search &
Relocation		You will learn about search patterns, specialized dive plans, underwater communication, and how to recover small to medium-sized objects using specialized equipment like lift bags.
Thursday6:30 – 9:00Equipment
Maintenance		You will learn how your equipment works, ways to care for it and how to make simple repairs at the dive destination.
Friday   
Saturday10:30 – 2:00Stress
& Rescue		This program teaches you the skills and knowledge required to recognize and deal with stress, prevent accidents and properly deal with emergency situations encountered by divers.

This is the classroom portion for the classes, the pool and open water sessions will be scheduled for May and another one for June. The cost of the combination of Night & Limited Visibility, Navigation and Search & Relocation is $395 ($425 for non-Club members). Contact Dive Mom so she can open the digital kits for you and send you the codes and instructions for our digital classroom.

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Dive Mom, What's Next For Me?

“My course is done, what do I do next?” This is a question I am asked all of them time and the answer is dependent on a number of things. Where are you in your diving? In other words, are you a new diver, someone with a little diving experience or someone with years of experience? This is the first step in finding a pathway into your diving future. Another question to ask yourself is what do I really want to do? Do I want to enjoy the fish or dive deep into wrecks?
If you remember from your Open Water class, there are four things that help make you a safe comfortable diver. We called this the Diver Diamond. The four parts of the diamond are proper knowledge, skills, equipment and experience. Every level of diving requires a balance of these four things. So let’s look at some possible pathways.

New Open Water Diver

Lift Bag by Chuck GerlneuchYou have completed your open water program and if you took it from Oceanic Ventures, your program probably included a Computer Diving Specialty and a Nitrox specialty. These two specialties along with twelve dives qualify you as a Specialty Diver.

To help you progress in your diving, enrolling in one of our Specialty Diver Weekends will let you continue to work on your buoyancy and diving skills with one of our diving professionals and will give you more knowledge of diving. This program includes the following specialties:

  • Navigation
  • Search & Relocation
  • Night & Limited Visibility Diving

You may also want to enroll in a Deep Diver specialty which you can complete on a trip. Completing this weekend will qualify you for your Advanced Open Water card (along with 24 logged dives).  We offer this the second week/weekend of the month.

Again, this program is designed to help you develop additional skills and knowledge to make diving more fun and to let you gain a little more experience underwater. And let’s not forget, it is a fun weekend! The water stays relatively warm in Houston through November so it is great to do in the fall. While we continue to offer the programs during the winter months, you will have to add a Dry Suit Specialty to your Course selection.

Advanced Open Water Diver

Ok, you have some specialties and some diving under your belt so, where do you go from here? My recommendation is to enroll in a Stress & Rescue class. This program will help you build more confidence in your diving abilities and to recognize problems before the dive begins. One of our clients even commented that it “was worth the price of admission.”

Another factor is that with fifty logged dives, four specialties and Stress & Rescue you will be qualified for your Master Diver card!

Other Diving Interests

Eric Keibler in a cave
Eric Keibler in a cave

You may also be thinking about getting involved in more specialized diving areas like wreck or cave diving, Extended Range diving (staying down longer or going a little deeper) or going all out for Technical Diving. Each of these programs has a progression of courses that build on your advanced open water knowledge and skills. We offer these courses throughout the year so if you are interested, contact me and I will help you get enrolled in the proper set of courses.  A good place to start this program is to enroll in a recreational side-mount program/advanced buoyancy class.  It is the first step down the extended range path.

Other programs like photography can be done by divers at all levels. The main diving skill for photography is buoyancy – it is bad form to kill the coral around your subject. There are various levels of equipment which enable you to capture those memories and it depends on how technical you want to be (i.e. point-n-shoot vs housed SLR) and how much you want to invest. We can help you evaluate your wants and desires.

Some people want to get more involved in working with certified divers or new divers. Like technical diving, there is a progression of courses leading from Dive Guide to Dive Master to Specialty Instructor to Assistant Instructor to Open Water Instructor all the way up to an Instructor Trainer.

Conclusion

No matter where you are in your diving skills and education there are programs to help take you to the next level. The important thing is to keep diving and keep learning in order to maintain and improve your skills. If I can help in anyway, please leave me a comment or drop me a line.

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Wade's Excellent Scuba Diver Specialty Weekend

Wade in Truck with Snorkel
Let’s Go Diving!

Wade is hosting a Specialty Diver Weekend!  Now, before you tune it out, it isn’t until May so the water will be warm and the weather will be stunning (ok, the water will be warmer, we can’t guarantee the weather).  This is the perfect opportunity to improve your diving skills, become more confident in your diving and learn some valuable diving skills while having fun!

If it is in May, why mention it now?

I can hear you asking, “if it is not until May, why should I sign-up now?”  Because “now” is the perfect time to start reading the material; it is cold outside!  One of the requirements for a Specialty Diver Weekend is that you must complete all of the educational materials before you show up. By enrolling now, you

  1. Have time to complete your reading;
  2. Guarantee your space;
  3. Have time to make sure you have the required equipment for the program;
  4. Have time to purchase what you are missing; and
  5. Plan your contribution to the “Pot Luck Dinner” (remember as Eric says, Texas Diving is a BarBQ interrupted by diving).

What specialties can I take?

You can participate in a number of specialty programs this weekend including,

How Do I sign-up?

Enrolling in a class is “as easy as squeezy” as they say in Trinidad.  You can either call Dive Mom to sign-up or simply, click a button below, which will take you to the product to purchase it.  Either way, we will open up the training materials so you can get started and be ready for diving in May.