Wet & Wild! (Padi Open Water Diver)

Member Name: huddro

Product:	Padi Open Water Diver
Date:	16/07/01 (6548 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: required to dive anywhere

Disadvantages: Hard work

I have just completed my PADI Open Water certificate and have to say WOW what a feeling you get when you experience the sensation of weightlessness (is that a word) under water. Hanging there watching the fish go by as you breathe underwater is like nothing I have ever experienced before it is totally amazing.

This is to introduce you to the PADI Open Water qualification that allows you to travel the world and scuba dive to a recommended maximum depth of 18 metres using compressed air with a buddy (friend or partner) of the same standard or higher.

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors)

PADI is the worlds largest diving organisation, although the others such as BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) are just as professional and train to a similar standard. I chose PADI just because the certification is so internationally recognised and anywhere in the world, even if the guys at a dive centre cannot speak very good English, they understand the word PADI.

Although I learnt through a dive school based in London they are registered by PADI and all the training and course materials are supplied by PADI. The best thing to do is ensure the centre you are planning to learn to dive through is a 5 star, registered centre. This means that not only are the instructors trained and regularly examined by a PADI professional but all the kit and facilities are inspected as well.

PADI OPEN WATER

This is the first major instructional level for scuba diving. Before embarking on a full course if you have never tried the sport, and I thoroughly recommend it, you should go for the PADI Discover Scuba Diving Experience that gives you a chance to wear the kit and go for an accompanied dive to 12 metres just to give you a taste for diving.

Sorry enough of me waffling lets get on with how the training works. The open water course is divided into five modules and combines course work, confined dives, and open water dive
s to put into practise the theory and a final exam (don’t panic more later)

Course Work

If on holiday and learning to dive you will probably cover the theory in a classroom environment. At the end of each module you will almost certainly take a confined water dive to put into practise that module. Learning as I did I studied the book and educational video at home in the evenings before attending my confined water practise sessions. Don’t worry you don’t need to be an academic to understand dive theory this is the man who hasn’t taken an exam since he passed his driving test 14 years ago and even I managed to pass.

Each model covers the basic diving principles to be applied and introduces you to the kit you will be wearing. There are some facts and figures to remember as you work through, such as the pre-dive buddy check (you always check your buddies equipment and then they check yours before a dive) :

BCD (Buoyancy control Device)
Weights (to help you descend)
Releases (to get rid of the kit in an emergency)
Air (to breathe!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Final Check

So how do you remember that order for the test ?…how about Bruce Willis Ruins All Films or Blonde Women Really Are Fun (apologies to Bruce Willis fans and Blonde Women who are not fun)

As you can see pretty simple stuff so far! At the end of each module is a knowledge review, a kind of self-test with questions that prepare you for your final exam.

The book and video (typical cheesy American training type video) take you from an introduction to the sport through to planning your dive, calculating your dive plan, looking after your equipment, reading the currents, and most important of all how to ensure that you and your buddy remain safe at all times

Exam

The exam is in the form of 100 multiple choice questions broken down into 5 sets of ten questions that are basically to test your knowledg
e of each individual module in the course. The remaining 50 questions ask a general mixture of questions across the entire 5 modules. Not too hard even I scored 98% at the end of the day.

Confined Water Dives

So now we move onto the fun part getting wet. Please note that you only have to complete the first module of the manual in order to start your confined water diving it was just easy for the purposes of this review to put the course details in this order.

This part of the course normally takes place in a swimming pool or a very sheltered piece of water. You will be accompanied at all times by an instructor and a dive master and usually with PADI there are no more than 6 people to a group. In our case we took over the swimming pool at a girls school in Baker Street which was fine for the ladies in the group but us guys and the instructors had one gents toilet cubicle between us to change in believe me it makes you very good friends!

The instructors will get you to take a swimming test to ensure you can swim 200 metres and float / tread water for 10 minutes. Obviously if you cannot swim there is no point diving, as swimming like a brick will always take you to the bottom but never up again!

During these sessions you will practise assembling the kit, wearing it, and most importantly moving through the water in it. Other skills taught are emergency procedures such as mask removal and refitting underwater, sharing air, emergency ascents, and getting another diver to the surface.

The 2 most important skills you learn to achieve at this stage are the never hold your breath underwater rule and how to achieve neutral buoyancy with the aid of your buoyancy control device. Getting this right means you can hang weightless with no effort whatsoever the most amazing feeling ever.

So you have mastered all the skills and now you only have the final task to complete, this is it from now on it’s real.


Open Water Dives

To gain your PADI Open Water Certificate you now need to make 4 open water dives in lakes, quarries, or the sea. This is still under the supervision of an instructor and is fantastic.

You can either do these dives in England with your existing school or after completing the modules and confined water dives receive a referral certificate and finish your diving in a nice warm sea at a holiday resort. Now being the foolhardy sort and not being able to afford a holiday just yet I decided on diving in good old Blighty.

So off we set to Leicestershire, of all places to Stoney Cove a purpose built quarry for diving (ooh another op there methinks). My thanks here go to Scuba Zone my dive school for providing very thick semi dry suits to keep us warm. The dark murky waters were not only freezing cold but visibility was about 6 metres meaning basically you could see nothing!

The open water part of the course again gets you to practise all the skills you learnt in the pool but in a much harsher environment especially in England.

At the end of all this you are a Diver, congratulations. Now one word of warning on exiting the water be very careful as a small slip by me ended with a dislocated thumb fractured in two places!!

Cost

Most dive schools will provide you with a wet suit or a semi dry suit, buoyancy control device, air tank, and regulator. You will need a mask, snorkel, and fins, how much you spend on these is entirely up to you. I bought my mask for about £5 a few years back just to do some snorkelling and have since found it is a proper dive mask, so a great cost saving there. The best thing to do is consult your dive instructor and take his / her advice on kit.

The Open water course itself costs approximately £200 this includes all your diving fees, the equipment (supplied as listed above), course workbook, manual, video (refund of cost on return of video), divers
log book, and dive charts and manual.

The time taken to do the actual dives for me was 2 evenings for about 3 hours each, the studying I did in my own time took about 5 hours, and the open water dives were conducted over one weekend.

Conclusion

All of this seems exceedingly like hard work and believe me when the cold water in England hit I did wonder what the hell I was doing, but thoughts of swimming in the red sea in crystal clear waters with an abundance of wildlife (her indoors heehee) and beautiful coral made it all worth it.

The instructors are all very professional and make the learning easy and most of all great fun. I learnt with Scuba Zone in the Kings Road but that is a whole different review. I am off to do the advanced course in July that means I can dive to 40 metres and dive wrecks so I will tell you all about once I have completed that course.

So it’s now off to get the brochures and head off to see friends who run a dive club in Dahab at the end of the year for some warm diving. Then next year South Africa to see some friends who run a dive club, and then after that Australia to my brothers old dive club honestly this sport is not addictive!!

A cautionary note

If you do learn to dive abroad in warm waters then decide to venture in to colder waters please talk to a local dive master and learn the kind of adjustments you need to make to dive in colder waters with less visibility and remain safe.

Info

PADI information can be found at www.padi.com
Scuba Zone can be found at www.scuba-zone.co.uk

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