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My wife and I are planning a two week trip to San Pedor in May/June. While there we have decided why not get scuba certified. Any recommendtations? Thanx for all your help. By reading the post on this board I feel like I have already been to the island once and can't wait to return for the first time. keith

I know there are some good dive shops out there, but in my opinion, I'm giving a plug to Protech. They are on the docks of the Belize Yacht Club. I really enjoyed diving with them. Very professional and personable too! Israel is a really cool divemaster. I think that if you were to have any jitters about the open water certification, he would be the one to put your fears to rest. JMHO.

I would recommend doing your book work and written tests (first half of certification)with a dive shop in your neighborhood first then when you are in Belize, you only need to do the actual open water dives to complete your certification. When you are here, even for 2 wks, you will find it hard to focus on the studying part. Chances are will be to anxious about getting in the ocean. And who wants to spend their vacation reading boring technical and stafety stuff?

JZB, beat me to it.

For that matter, I'd recommend that you get fully certified at home, if at all possible.

This applies to all, after you have received your certification but haven't been diving for some time, always take a refresher lesson, before hitting the open seas. You want to keep on top of your skills.

you can do what JZB said and do dives here that you use for your cert. so do that book work there and come diving here!!!

I got certified while i was there in may with Reef Adventures. My dive master was Ched. He was very knowledgable and patient. We did all the classroom instruction in the water, much more interesting than doing it at home in a classroom. He went over the hand signals for about 1/2 hour, until we were comfortable, then we decended into 10 ft deep water to practice proper breething techniques and as soon as were were ready we were able to do our first 30 ft dive. I would highly recommend to anyone getting there certification to do the whole thing while in belize. You can read each chapter on your own back at your hotel and answer the questions at the end of the chapter and then you quickly go over them the next day before getting into the water again.

Nothing against Ched, cuz I think he's great, but this is your life we are talking about here.

IMNSHO no one should be taking something this serious with a grain of beach salt. Scuba is a safe sport, but only when done after proper training and proper retention and implementation of that training.

People learn and retain that learning better when it is taken over a bit more time, like the 6 week courses. I am not a proponent of the weekend courses either. Nor do I particularly care for resort courses.

The reason that I recommend that people complete their training at home is threefold. First, you will complete your training with the instructor with whom you have already been working. Second, if you learn to dive at home, considering where most of us live and the dive conditions near us, you will have had more exposure to worse conditions than you will likely encounter at your travel destination. Third, it's less expensive.

I second that! Me and the MR got our certification in Lake Travis in Austin while it was flooding. By the time we surfaced the lake was 2 feet higher than when we went down. Needless to say, I was not hooked on diving after wearing a 5 ml wetsuit in 6 inch visibility with giant catfish mistaking my fingers for hotdogs. Our first ocean dive after that was tahiti. Talk about night and day. After Lake Travis, we were prepared for anything!

JZB you are right when you talk about getting open water certified in a lake. I got mine 4 years ago at Medina lake during Mother's Day Weekend. It was cold and vis was about 6 ft. I swore I'd NEVER do a lake again. But I've done Travis and Canyon since then. I still stand on my first opinion though. I don't care for lakes. But you are right, if you can handle a lake and keep your wits about you, you can handle ANYTHING! But give me water you can see in!

As a former Dive instructor, as many other have said, do as much of it as you can at your home.

It will be a better expirence for you, you will have the option to get your own equipment (as much of as little as you want) and you will know how the equipment workd FOR YOU. Diving sucks if you have equipment that doesn't work... leaking mask? seems simple... Not at 60 foot... Yea, you will learn how to "fix" that problem, but after a couple of times, you'll wish you had good equipment.

You can do your open water check out dives in Belize with a simple referal from your local dive shop.