canasia.org

First, It helps to know where you are located so that we can recommed a beginning point. From the IP address, the post seems to be originating in northern Kalifornia, in the Bay Area, southeast of Oakland...

First, It helps to know where you are located so that we can recommed a beginning point. From the IP address, the post seems to be originating in northern Kalifornia, in the Bay Area, southeast of Oakland... Oh.  In that case, he should take his open water training in the city of Solana Beach, a holiday resort about 14 miles north of San Diego.  There are some recent reports of interesting sea life in that area. Lee

I got totally confused about the prerequisites: some websites say it is 500 yards swim w/out any equipment (I can't do that), bot others say it is 300 meters swim with snorkel and fins (can do it easily ). Which ones are correct ? Thanks. When I did the SSI course a couple of years ago, the swim requirement was 200 yards (might have been 300... ) in the pool, no gear, not timed.  I could do that, but just barely.  What  I couldn't do was the second part of the test: ten minutes treading water.  So I practiced, and passed the test later in on the course.  It took a little effort, but it was worth it. I'm a lousy swimmer.  Clumsy.  Fresh water

Grumman-581 wrote First, It helps to know where you are located so that we can recommed a beginning point. From the IP address, the post seems to be originating in northern Kalifornia, in the Bay Area, southeast of Oakland... Oh.  In that case, he should take his open water training in the city of Solana Beach, a holiday resort about 14 miles north of San Diego.  There are some recent reports of interesting sea life in that area. This sad attempt at humor wouldn't fall so flat if it weren't for several facts:  (a) the Farallons are much closer and much more dependable for great white sightings, (b) Solana Beach is about 500 miles away from where Grumman think the OP lives (though I doubt that, since we don't routinely use meters in California) and is a very unlikely place for dive training especially for someone from Northern California who would be much closer to much better diving in the Monterey area, and (c) Solana Beach isn't a holiday resort whatever that is - it's a California beach town where people live, some of whom likely commute south to work. Maybe you should stick with reposting e-mail propaganda.  You do that much better.

PADI requires you do 200m swim without equipment (8 lengths of average pool) plus 10 minute tread water/float. Good thing I certified SSI. I can not swim a stroke. No one asked, and I did not tell. David Edmonton, Alberta

Consider why you could not do a 500 yard swim. I can't swim 500m, or even 100m, in fresh water or in choppy seas without any equipment, because my natural buoyancy is lousy and I have to spend too much effort keeping my head above the water. If this disqualifies me from scuba diving, then it certainly should've disqualified me from snorkelling, but nobody told me about it. When snorkelling, I had a deflated vest on me, and I would inflated it had I lost the mask and fins, or snorkel and fins. I would not survive if I lost all the equipment, including the vest. But this seems to me like requiring a sailor to be able to swim to a shore from any place in the ocean... Yes, I do live in Bay Area, 30 miles from SF and 80 from Monterey.