So you want to learn to dive?

The best way to learn to dive is to enroll in a course such as the PADI Open Water Course which is specially designed for those who want to learn to dive. You don't have to be an expert swimmer nor do you have to have had any experience of diving.

The PADI Open Water Course assumes you have no prior experience of diving. There are three parts to the course:

• Theory - there is a course manual to read, quizes to complete and videos to watch, and at the end you must sit an exam which is really easy.
• Confined water sessions - there are five confined sessions which are normally undertaken in a swimming pool or a sheltered area in the sea. In each of these sessions you will be taught various skills which are designed to get you familiar with your equipment and to be comfortable underwater.
• Open water skills - there are four open water dives that you go on as part of the course. Your instructor should make sure that the dive sites are different, this makes it more fun.

There are two options to do the course, the Traditional Option and the new eLearning Option:

Option 1 - Traditional Option - With this option you take the whole course when you arrive and it takes 4 days.

What does the schedule look like? During the 4 days you will be watching videos, reading your course manual, and undertaking six training sessions. These training sessions will cover your 5 confined water training sessions and the 4 open water dives. We will mix up your theory and training sessions so that you will get at least one training session every day.

Option 2 - Open Water with eLearning - With eLearning all the theory can be done online at PADI.com before you get here, then the practical part of the course will take just 3 days when you are here. This allows you to take your time to do the theory at home (days or weeks or months), and you will get more time for fun diving/relaxing when you are here.

What does the schedule look like? Since all the theory will have been completed by the time you get here, the practical part of the course will be completed in 3 days. You'll complete two training sessions every day over the 3 days, these will cover your 5 confined water training sessions and the 4 open water dives.

Register for Open Water with eLearning - To start eLearning, you need to register by clicking on the eLearning link on the left, this will take you to our page on www.PADI.com. When you register for the first time, there will be a registration fee of USD120 payable to PADI with your credit card (we refund part of this registration fee).

Great fun

Learning to dive can be great fun - you are going into inner space and its the closest that you will get to outer space - and its even more fun with Two Fish Divers.

We have no swimming pool so we conduct the course over 6 water sessions at real dive sites. At the end if each session we make a dive, so during the open water course with us you will make 6 dives. It is not uncommon to see turtles and shark on your training dives, and last week one of our students spotted a dugong and an eagle ray on her first session!

Your Progress

We limit our class sizes to a maximum of four. Also, because we do not schedule courses but run them on demand, courses are frequently run with 1 or 2 students. It is therefore likely that you will be on your own with the instructor, we believe that you get more out of your course this way and it will run according to your progress.