January 1, 2010
My two sons (in their early 20’s) and I decided to to take scuba lessons for our Open Water Dive certification. None of us had ever scuba dived before. After careful research and calling around in advance, we booked our instruction with Ron of Private Diving. He and Martin were so incredibly professional, friendly and patient that we breezed through the OWD certification and went on to get our Advanced OWD certification, all in 10 days.
Ron and Martin had us diving the first day, after some technical instruction and lagoon training. We really were amazed at how quickly we felt comfortable with the skills necessary for the first dive, and grew our knowledge, learning from the instruction and skills training before each successive dive. We were briefed before dives, briefed and carefully watched during dives and debriefed afterwards.
I am a bit of an A personality, but I was very confident in their knowledge and safety that I relaxed and truly enjoyed the scenery and the accomplishment. Ron was also great at giving us dive site options, and blending them well with our skill tests. The diving in Aruba was beautiful and varied, with great visibility every day, though the east side of the island we avoided due to high chop and strong currents while we were there.
Needless to say, we have found our divemaster for our future dives in Aruba, and I would highly recommend that you e-mail/call Private Diving with your questions, they were very patient with me as I was choosing. Enjoy!
Update: I went back to Aruba in February 2010 as I just had to get back in the water, dove with Ron, Martin and Mark and had 4 great dives in 3 days. Same great experience. My wife also had her first dive. Grant
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