Posted by Walt on December 23, 2004 at 09:08:09:
In Reply to: LA County ADP posted by Aaron on December 22, 2004 at 20:50:29:
I took the ADP course last summer with my wife. I was already PADI Rescue certified and had about 300 dives. My wife had about 150 dives and was PADI "Advanced".
Simply put, there is no comparison of ADP to PADI.
I beleive PADI has excellent training materials and some good instructors (first question: were they LA County UICC trained? (answer should be 'yes'); second question: how many logged dives? (should be in the thousands) If you will be a casual "boat" or "warm water" diver, then at least get to the PADI Rescue level.
But if you want to dive California's best beaches and really understand diving, then ADP is your program.
ADP has great instructors and a program that, if you stick with it, you'll become a proficient diver.
You will be expected to excel - they require that you swim 300 meters in under 15 minutes, put your gear on underwater ('bailout'), rescue a diver from real surf conditions (and not a pool or inland bay), beach dive in various conditions, understand dive physics, tow your buddy...the list goes on. Be prepared for 10 weekends of training (Saturday AND Sunday 7:30 AM to 3 to 6 PM) and be prepared to start swimming and diving.
What will you get out of ADP (assuming you work at it)? Your air consumption will dramatically improve, you'll know your gear instinctively, you'll learn to recognize gear that won't fail, you'll learn correct surf entry and exit, you'll become more confident in your diving, you'll really understand dive physics. For example, I used to dive with a HP120, now I dive with a short steel 80 and stay underwater longer - and no longer have backaches!; another example, I had a gear problem in the Bahamas underwater, so I took off my BC at 60 feet, turned off the air, dealt with the problem, put the air back on and finished my dive...I was confident in my skills.
You'll also have a lot of fun and meet some really nice people...there is a pot luck barbecue each weekend and you'll rotate dive buddies.
You can also get your NAUI Rescue and Master certification with ADP, but, to be honest, I treasure my gold LACounty ADP card above anything.