This is the third in a five part post about learning to dive. In the previous posts I have discussed why you should learn to dive, is one training agency better than another and is it better to learn to dive at home or when on holiday?

This post will go further into the actual course you would do. As I said in a previous post I‘ve been a PADI instructor for a number of years and have taught in both the UK and in Thailand. The breakdown I’m about to talk about is from a typical PADI Open Water Diver Course regardless if it takes 4 days, 4weeks or 4months, what you learn is exactly the same.

A PADI Open Water Diver Course (OWD) is the first level at which, after qualification, you can dive independent of a dive instructor or professional guide. With this in mind you can understand that you will learn a lot on this course and it’s not until your Rescue Diver course will the learning curve be so step.

The OWD course is split into 3 sections knowledge development, confined water and open water. When you first sign up for your course you’ll be handed a load of stuff some of which will not make any sense to you yet. The book however will be your first introduction to the world of scuba diving and will be the focus your academic training.

Knowledge Development

Most schools now opt for their customers to do independent study and monitor how much they read and understood the chapter. Depending on where you learn to dive you may also get a DVD or video to take home that talks about each chapter and shows you examples of what it’s talking about. Your answers to the knowledge developments are used for monitoring how well you understood the topic and if you get stuck then the instructor only needs to go over that one area instead of waffling on about stuff you already understand. Good huh!!!

The five knowledge developments are broken down like this

KD 1

• Buoyancy
• Comfortable Ascents
• Comfortable Descents
• Breathing Underwater

KD2

• Staying Warm
• Streamlining Yourself
• Diving Together

KD3

• What’s It Like Where We’ll We Diving?
• Care For Yourself
• Care For Others
• Solution Thinking Underwater
• Offshore Adventures

KD4

• Nitrogen Narcosis
• Decompression Sickness
• Dive Table Introduction
• Using The Recreational Dive Planner (RDP)

KD5

• Making Safety Stops
• Emergency Decompression
• Altitude Considerations for divers
• Finding a minimum surface interval
• Electronic dive planning

There is no time limit on these chapters but to proceed onto the confined water sections you must have completed the appropriate chapter in the book, for example to start confined water one you must have completed KD1. In theory this is great, in practise in a holiday resort it doesn’t work. You may find yourself doing 2 chapters then 3 confined water sessions or maybe only 1 chapter than all confined session in a day. This is something you will work out with your instructor.

Confined Water

To most people confined water would be a swimming pool but you may find your first training session to be in the sea. What is meant by confined water is swimming pool or open sea area that offers swimming pool like conditions in respect of clarity, calmness and depth. As you begin your training it should first be conducted in waters shallow enough to stand up in to build your confidence and ability then move on to water to deep to stand up in.

The confined water session are spilt into 5 parts, each taking the training a step further. This is a breakdown of some of the main things you will learn in each part.

CW1

• Scuba Equipment & How To Put It Together & Put It On Safely
• Breathing Underwater
• Hand Signals
• Recovering & Clearing A Regulator
• Clearing A Partially Flooded Mask
• Swimming Underwater
• Using Your Submersible Pressure Gauge
• Locating & Using An Alternate Air Source (AAS)
• Ascents From Deep Water

CW2

• Pre-Dive Safety Check
• Deep Water Entry & Controlled Descents
• Mask Removal, Replacement & Clearing
• Air Depletion Exercise
• Surface Swimming In Scuba Gear
• Snorkel Clearing
• Scuba Equipment Removal On The Surface

CW3

• Fin Pivots, Neutral Buoyancy Skills & Swimming
• Air Depletion & AAS Location & Use
• Free Flowing Regulator
• Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)

CW4

• Mask Removal & Swim, Replace & Clear Mask
• Neutral Buoyancy Skills & Swim
• Buddy Breathing

CW5

• Scuba Unit Removal & Replacement Underwater
• Scuba Unit Removal & Replacement On The Surface

Open Water Sessions

Now for the real fun parts with four dives in the open water. You are limited to only 2 training dives in any one day so these dives have to be conducted over 2 days. On your first day you will not go deeper than 12m and on the second day you will go no deeper than 18m. How these dives are conducted is where there is a big variation in the PADI courses around the world. Some will be done in fresh water quarry pits, some will be done from the shore of a quite bay, some from a busy beach or from a boat. What ever the location or type of water, there is still a standardised way in which the dives will be done.

The skills you trained for in the pool will now be practised again but this time in deeper waters but like the pool you will have time to get confident in your surroundings before you do any skills.

Ideally your first dive should only include skills that you would do in every dive anyway. The breakdown listed here is only what you may do on any specific dive and the actual dive you do the skill on may vary, so this is just an idea of what you may do.

OW1

• Equipment Preparation Putting It On & Adjustment
• Pre-Dive Safety Check (BWRAF)
• Entry Appropriate To Location
• Weight Check
• Controlled Descent & Swimming
• Ascent & Exit
• Logging The Dive

OW 2

• Buoyancy Control
• Partial & Complete Mask Flood & Clear
• Regulator Recovery & Clearing
• Alternate Air Source Use Stationary & Assisted Ascent
• Weight Removal At The Surface
• Snorkel/Regulator Exchange
• 25 m/yard Tired Diver Tow

OW 3

• Cramp Removal Self & Buddy
• 50 m/yard Straight Line Surface Swim With Compass
• Free Descent With Reference
• Buoyancy Control
• Complete Mask Flood & Clear
• Buddy Breathing
• Underwater Exploration
• Remove & Replace Weight System At The Surface
• Remove & Replace Scuba Unit At The Surface
• Debrief & Log Dive

Ow4

• Free Descent Without Reference
• Buoyancy Control
• Mask Removal, Replacement & Clearing
• Underwater Navigation With Compass
• CESA

Now you have the full breakdown of what you will do on your PADI Open Water Course you should be rushing out to book yours or start to look for dive operators at your next holiday destination. In the next post I will be talking about what to do after you have finished your course. Many people learn to dive on holiday and only ever do the four dives required for the course, so I’ll talk about what to do to get the best from your new skill.

Learn To Dive – Part 1 Why Learn To Dive?

Learn To Dive – Part 2 Where To Learn To Dive

Learn To Dive – Part 3 What Will I do On The Course

With Thailand offered as an all year round holiday destination, I thought it would be best to point out that although you can pretty much dive all year round this is not possable or practical at the same location. The best time to dive in Thailand depends on where you want your topside holiday to be and what else you want to do, if anything, while there.

For example maybe you want to do a jungle trek in the northern hills of Chiang Mai then a dive trip in the south. The favourite time for many visitors to Chiang Mai is in winter between November and February when temperatures drop to a pleasant cool. The bright sunshine and clear blue skies along with the abundance of flowers, means that the city is at her prettiest for visitors.

With the southern monsoon building up however, many of the dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand are not suitable to dive around winter time. In contrast, the west coast peak dive season coincides with this winter break so if it was a trek/dive holiday you wanted then you would be best to choose Krabi, Phuket or any of the other west coast dive destinations for your holiday.

So although Thailand is an all year round holiday destination it really does depend on where you want to dive to find out the best time to dive in Thailand. Maybe that is a perfect excuse to visit the Land of Smiles many times, to dive and visit the variety of locations on offer at different times of the year. Although the best time to visit Chiang Mai maybe November to February it can be equally beautiful in the monsoon season with full rivers and lush jungles, if you get some nice weather for the day that is. But such trips are worth the gamble in my opinion, do you agree?

Hi, this is the second part of what is or will be a five part post on how to learn to dive. Part one introduced you to the attractions of diving, namely learning a new skill, meeting new people and travelling to different places. This second part will go on to discuss where should you learn to dive and what is the difference between the training agencies.

Home or Away?

As mentioned in the previous learn to dive post it is only after your first introduction to diving that you would even look at your home town for a dive shop, if you live in-land like I do. You will be surprised however at the number of dive locations that can be a few hundred miles (or km) from the sea. You would also be surprised that regardless of the temperature people still learn to dive. I have found myself in waters as low as 5degreeC teaching people to dive!! So it’s not only holiday makers that learn to dive, many people take up the sport as a hobby while still in their home country.

Obviously whether you should learn to dive at home or away is defiantly a personal choice, diving in 5degreeC isn’t for everyone, but there are a few considerations before you make the decision. The main benefit I see from people who learn to dive while still at home is time. Dive courses are split into 3 segments, pool training, open water training and academic training. This last part I think is best done over a longer period than the 2-3 days you get while on holiday.

My reason for saying this is that when you have more time people will actually read the stuff you have asked them to, but on holiday many people will read only what they need to know to get through the exam. This doesn’t make them bad divers just not fully informed in my opinion.

The main advantage of learning to dive when on holiday is variety. Depending on where you live and how far from the sea you are will depend on the number of dive schools in your area. You may only have the one school who only teaches from one agency and the dive school may not really be that good. On holiday to most beach destinations, however, you will find at least 6 dive schools or as many as 200, teaching all the main agency standards. With these types of place you literally have the dive world to choose from.

What Dive Training Agency Is Best?

Short answer, None!

I have trained under only 2 different agencies but looked at the other agencies training programmes and to be honest now they are all pretty similar in their structure. It wasn’t always like this though and when I learned to dive with BSAC (British Sub-Aqu-Club) training was a lot different then. Academic and pool sessions lasted for about 6 months before we were allowed into ‘real’ water and we ridiculed PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) trained divers, for their short inadequate training. Today however, things have changed and most training agencies now have a 4 day course that you can learn while on holiday.

I am now a PADI instructor teaching these 4 day courses and can say that people are trained well enough to become certified divers, and PADI’s wishes to get people in the water as soon as possible is the right way to do it. If you talk about it so much people can get a little apprehensive but if you get in the water the day you book your course or the day after you feel great.

Before I finish I would like to point out that PADI (not sure about other agencies) have a course that does allow you the advantage of learning the academics and pool stuff while you’re at home. You then can go on holiday and finish your Open Water Diver Course in the open sea. These referral courses are a great way to learn to dive as it allows you the time to read and understand the academics and gives you more time to play in the pool. Just don’t do the course so early before your holiday you need a refresher before the next part or so late you fly the day after you complete it.

You should now have an idea why it would be good to learn to dive from post one, now you have something to think about, regarding what agency you should choose and if you can wait till your next holiday to learn to dive. Personally I enjoy diving regardeless of location or weather, so I always advise people to take up the challenge of learning to dive sooner rather than later. In the next part of this post series you will get to know what happens on a typical dive course.