How it all began
Disclaimer: In the beginning I only talk about what motivated me to do the Scuba Diving license. If that’s of no interest to you and you are only here for my tips and insights, you are welcome to skip this part and scroll directly to „1. Why do I need a diving license and which one should I get?“
Scuba Diving has been one of my oldest childhood dreams. I remember a family vacation in Spain, I must have been five or six years old. I spent all day in the pool, trying to swim from one end to the other under water without resurfacing. My grandpa told me that eating a lot of cereal would help me hold my breath. So that’s all I ate the entire week. Cereals. While everyone was tanning or going to the beach, I was in the pool, practicing, and by the end of the week, I had made it!
Then, at the beach one day, we saw scuba divers walk into the water in full gear, including harpoons. I was so fascinated, I tried to follow them with my eyes under water until my eyes hurt. A dream was born.
After that, I read up on scuba diving wherever I could. I knew all the gear by heart, would scroll through scuba diving magazines for hours, looking at various diving knives and other diving gear and imagining myself a scuba diver. We had a diving school in town with a very deep “diving tower” with glass walls and I used to go there to watch scuba divers practice. When you have seven siblings, you don’t get all your wants fulfilled. And this was just another dream that I had to put on hold.
So, when I was finally making my own money and had some time to spare, it just came naturally that I would finally fulfill this ancient dream of mine. The question was just when and where and with whom.
As is usually the case, if you really have your eyes set on something in life, things just happen that answer your questions. Just as I was thinking when and where and with whom to do my scuba diving license, and looking at diving schools in and around Frankfurt, a good friend of mine from university, J, came to visit. We got to talk about all that’s new in our lives and our next plans and I told her that I really want to do a scuba diving license. Her eyes lit up as she told me she had already bought the theory course online and had already started looking for scuba diving schools for the practical part. We thought why not do the practical part together at some exciting location. A plan was born.
As J returned home, we both started doing more research on diving schools, reading reviews and making sure it would be in a nice location. We also asked around to see if anyone else would like to join us. Finally, we decided on Diveshack Malta because it is very close to the sea but still inside a city with things to do in the evenings. Plus, Malta is also a popular diving site with a rich marine flora and fauna and even shipwrecks that are accessible to beginners. So here are 5 things that I learned in the course of acquiring my first scuba diving license that I wish I had already known before.
1. Why do I need a diving license and which one should I get?
If you have ever thought about scuba diving before, you will probably have found out that you don’t necessarily need a diving license in order to go scuba diving. You can also just go to a diving center, rent the equipment and go diving with an instructor. I had done this before twice in the Red Sea in Israel and even though marine life there is astonishingly beautiful, I just found it annoying to have to hold hands with an instructor all the time and have no idea what he is doing and why I am sinking or rising now.
Diving always comes with rules and restrictions and each diving license expands at least one of the following three limitations: costs, depth/diving environment, and equipment. If you want to dive without equipment, you don’t need a license at all, of course. If you want to dive with equipment, you can do that without a license as well, but it will be more expensive because there will have to be a scuba diving instructor holding your hands throughout the entire dive. You also won’t be allowed to go as deep without a scuba diving license. So, if you really want to experience the freedom and joy that scuba diving can give you to the full extent, you will most likely need to do a license.
But which license do you get? There are two major scuba diving schools that are accredited internationally: the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) and Scuba Schools International (SSI). Both offer a very similar program, so it really just depends on your preferred location and the price, which one you choose. To a minor extent maybe also the program your friends go through, as you may want to continue diving education together.
The beginners’ scuba diving courses are called PADI Open Water Diver or SSI Open Water Diver (both abbreviated with OWD) and allow you to go scuba diving with a buddy of the same qualification in open water (i.e. not in caves or other enclosed environments like wrecks) to depths of up to 18m without an instructor. You will begin with one of these two programs if you are planning to start your diving “career” and can continue to acquire additional certifications, such as “Wreck Diver”, “Enriched Air Diver”, etc. to expand your limits after that.
2. How much does a diving license cost?
The cost of a PADI Open Water Diver license or the SSI Open Water Diver license for that matter is very homogenous in most places in Europe and in fact most parts of the world. For this beginners’ course you can expect to pay approximately €475. It can be cheaper in Asia and I have also heard that SSI schools in Asia are generally cheaper than PADI schools there, so you will have to do your own research depending on where it is you want to go get your scuba diving license, but generally speaking, you can expect to not pay much more than €475. Having said that, here’s one thing I really wish I had known before signing up for my PADI Open Water Diver course:
Tip: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT BUY THE THEORY PACKAGE DIRECTLY FROM PADI OR SSI! I made this mistake and it made me over €100 poorer. When you buy the theory package directly from PADI, for example, it will cost you €175.24. Scuba diving schools buy them in bulk and are thus able to offer you a massive discount. Diveshack Malta, for example, the school where I did my PADI Open Water Diver with my friends, offered us the theory package for just €75 per person, plus a free adventure dive after the course if we finished the theory before arrival to Malta. So just make sure you really do your research and ask a few different local schools what they can offer you before booking anything.
3. What does the practical course look like and how long does it take?
The practical part of the OWD course consists of 9 dives (“sessions”), of which 5 take place in confined water (“confined water sessions”) and 4 take place in open water (“open water sessions”). Confined water is usually a swimming pool, or any water reservoir with swimming pool like conditions. Open water, on the other hand, is the sea or a lake or any other “natural” water reservoir. You can normally fit up to 3 dives into a day, which means that you can finish the entire practical course in just three days. Bear in mind, however, that you cannot fly on an airplane for at least 18 hours after a dive because that may cause decompression sickness, so you should plan your diving vacation accordingly.
We finished our course in three days but stayed in the water literally all day from 8am to 5, 6 and one day even 7pm in order to achieve this.
4. How long does the theoretical part take?
I really wish I had known this earlier. You should really account for at least 60 hours to complete the entire theoretical part for the OWD course, if you really want to study it thoroughly and learn something for your life. I started studying the theory about 2 weeks ahead of the trip to Malta and only managed to finish 2 out of the 5 parts of the course material, so that I had to just skim through more than half of the course on the last day and guess most of the answers in the quizzes that you need to submit in order for the theory to be credited towards the completion of your course.
Unfortunately, this means that I am still missing a lot of the material that I should actually know by now, especially since you will be asked to sit another theoretical exam physically at the scuba diving school. I am still planning to go through the material at some point because I am really interested in the subject and want to know all about it. However, it is just unpleasant that I did not close with it already before going to Malta.
Tip: Start studying the theoretical part of the OWD at least one month ahead of the practical course.
5. Where do I get it?
There are several considerations that may go into this decision. You may want to integrate your scuba diving course into a longer vacation, explore a new destination or just get it over with. Of course, you can look for a scuba school close to where you live. But where’s the fun in that?
We were lucky in only considering scuba diving schools in direct proximity of the sea. This meant that we were able to do all of the confined water sessions in the sea as well, which is, of course, much cooler than seeing the sea but chilling in a pool all day. If you want to enjoy the same perk, just look for scuba diving schools that are located right on the beach and with no swimming pool anywhere near to be seen. It is highly likely that this scuba diving school will also find it too much of a hassle taking you to some far away swimming pool when there is water right under their noses.
Summary
So, to summarize, here are the 5 key takeaways from my first scuba diving experience.
1. Start with a PADI or SSI OWD but really do your research of schools and programs in the area you want to travel to before booking anything.
2. Never book the theory package directly from the program website. Ask the local scuba diving schools for offers.
3. Plan your diving trip with enough time (min 18h) for decompression before flying.
4. Start studying the OWD theory at least a month ahead of the practical course.
5. If you look for diving schools in direct proximity to the sea and without a swimming pool, it is highly likely you will benefit from confined water sessions being held in the sea, as well.
I hope you enjoyed reading this far and will love to hear you share your experiences. To another adventure!
chri7im 