Open Water Diver

About the course

This course is taught in English by a native English-speaking SSI Instructor.

No overcrowded groups and no course run on the principle of 'we just need to finish by Sunday'. Our Open Water Diver course is taught with a maximum of two students per instructor, so we have time to adapt the pace and genuinely teach you how to dive - not simply hand you a certification.

Most often, we meet for an intensive three-day stay that includes online theory, training in our own pool and four open-water dives. And because your real opinion of diving only develops once you are actually in the water, you can decide by Saturday lunchtime that it is not for you. We will end the course and refund your money. No persuasion and no emotional blackmail involving a regulator.

After the course, you will receive the internationally recognised SSI Open Water Diver certification, allowing you to dive with a buddy to a maximum depth of 18 metres. And quite possibly a new problem as well: when choosing your next holiday, you will suddenly care mainly about what is below the surface.

What will you learn?

• Prepare, use and check scuba equipment until all the hoses, buckles and valves stop looking like the engineering department of a spacecraft.
• Breathe properly underwater, equalise pressure, and descend and ascend safely - without frantic arm-waving or hoping gravity somehow works differently underwater.
• Control your buoyancy and move underwater calmly and efficiently instead of travelling up, down and sideways according to the equipment's current mood.
• Clear your mask, recover a lost regulator and handle other common situations that are much nicer to practise calmly than to improvise later as your own underwater performance art.
• Communicate with your buddy, plan a dive and follow safety procedures. A buddy check is not a pointless pre-dive ritual; it is the moment when you might discover that you forgot to turn your air on. And that is useful information to have while you are still on shore.

Why take it?

Our Open Water Diver course most often runs as an intensive three-day stay from Friday to Sunday. No several weeks of commuting, packing and hunting for a free evening in your calendar. Weekends do not work for you? We can arrange another three consecutive days.

Accommodation, food, equipment and entry fees to the dive site are included. And because your real opinion of diving only develops once you are actually in the water, you can decide by Saturday lunchtime that it is not for you. We will end the course and refund your money. No persuasion and no emotional blackmail involving a regulator.

You will be taught in English by a native English-speaking SSI Instructor, in a group of no more than two students per instructor. That means we can adapt the pace to you, answer your questions properly and make sure you are learning to dive — not just being pushed through a certification production line.

Requirements

• Minimum age is 15. If you are under 18, we require written consent from a parent or legal guardian. Because diving has paperwork too. Unfortunately.
• For children aged 10 to 14, we offer the Open Water Diver Junior course.
• No previous certification is required. We start with the basics, not by asking why you cannot already do something nobody has taught you yet.
• You need to be able to swim and complete a simple assessment of swimming ability. We will not be asking for an Olympic record.
• Before the course, you will complete the SSI medical questionnaire. A doctor's clearance is only required if your answers indicate that it is necessary.
• You can take the course in a wetsuit or a dry suit. The dry-suit option is with additional cost. Staying dry underwater is, after all, a slightly more advanced form of diving magic.

Course structure

The course lasts at least three consecutive days. We most often run it from Friday to Sunday, but you can arrive on Thursday evening so that your first challenge in the morning is not a logistics Olympics. If a weekend does not suit you, we can arrange another three consecutive days.

You can expect:

• 5-6 sessions in our own pool with related theory,

• 4 open-water dives at a quarry,

• a final theory exam.

How long each part takes depends on your pace and your agreement with the instructor. We do not train against a stopwatch or just tick boxes. If something needs more time, it gets more time. A certificate may look nice, but it will not do anything for you underwater.

You study the theory online at your own pace. The instructor then goes through the important parts with you, answers your questions and untangles anything that still sounds like the diving version of a nuclear reactor manual. The better prepared you are, the more time remains for the reason you came - being in the water and genuinely learning to dive.