Underwater Wakulla

Enhanced certification

By RUSTY MILLER

Let’s look at how you can enhance your scuba skills beyond your Open Water certification. Various agencies have different ideas on what you need to further you’re under water experience. The basic progression from open water certification is to the advanced level.
The advanced certification gives you the opportunity to continue on with what you have learned from your open water cert. It may sound intimidating but it’s not, it gives you the opportunity to get more diving and enhance your knowledge and skills.
For the advanced certification you are required to be 15 years or older, open water certified / Jr. Open water 10-14 accompanied by a parent or guardian.
  In the advanced course you will be required to make (6) dives, (3) required dives; (1) navigation (use of a compass under water), (1) night dive, and (1) deep dive (below 80 feet) not to exceed 130 feet.
 Now the other (3) dives that are given (my personal favorites); (1) boat diving, (1) intro in to wreck diving (no penetration), and (1) Eco or under water marine life observation. There are a few more to choose from but I would like to touch on the required dives.
The deep dive; that sounds scary but it’s not if you are properly trained on what to look for as you descend into the abyss. When you took your open water I hope your instructor really focused on the physics and physiological aspect of diving. The physics help you deal with the pressures at the various depths and the physiological deals with your body’s reaction to those pressures at different depths. When you’re dealing with 4-5 atmospheres below it sounds scary but in all honesty you really don’t notice any change in pressure (once you have gone deeper than 70-80 feet your ears will generally clear on their own), the thing you need to watch for is the narcosis. The way I train my advance students to keep most of the effects of narcosis away is to do simple math problems once they get past 60 feet.
Before you are aware of it you’re at 100-130 feet and then you need to monitor your gas, bottom time, and O2 levels (if you’re using 32% Nitrox). It’s that simple and fun especially if you go to PCB and dive the Accokeek or the twin tugs, both are in 110 feet of water.
You can also go diving on several of the bridge spans that used to be the old Hathaway Bridge that connected Panama City Beach to the mainland. Several of those are in 80-100 feet of water.
Intro into wreck diving; this one is especially fun because of the various types of wrecks that are available in the Gulf around Panama City. With this specialty you will have the opportunity to see the parts of a large boat that is sitting at the bottom of the ocean like you’ve not seen before. My advice is to look online and go to one of the several dive shops websites in PCB and go on the “Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail. It consists of 12 unique shipwrecks along Florida’s Panhandle.
Until then leave nothing but bubbles.

Russell Miller is the service tech and scuba instructor at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999

Russell Miller is away this week. This is a repeat of a column that originally appeared in April 2022.