archiebald
Contributor
Let me share my recent experience.
My daughter and I did a "discover" dive in 7 meters on a house reef at a PADI certified resort in 2010. She was 11 at the time. We loved it so much that we did a 12 meter (limit) dive the next day, the resort calls this "discover II".
We sort of made up our minds that this was what we wanted to do next summer, so for 2011 we booked up at the same resort. In the 3-4 months before the vacation, we both took the PADI-elearning course which i found generally interesting and well structured. We both passed all the academic work with 100%. During this time, there was no opportunity to do any practical work because we live in the mountains of Japan, nearest dive shop is 60km away and the nearest ocean is 150km away.
On arrival at the resort, we passed a simple knowledge review test that included some RDP tests, then we started the practical. The schedule was light and easy over a 3 day period. We did 2 pool dives on the first day, 2 pool + 2 open water on the second, and the final 2 open water on the 3rd day and achieved our certification.
On the 4th 5th and 6th days we did another 6 dives to 15 to 20 meters. Since we had done the course with them, we got those dives at a highly discounted rate from their normal prices. Full set of rental gear, guides, boat dive for approx. US$25 per dive
Getting the academic work out of the way was the best way in my opinion, there is simply too much to learn during the vacation time. Plus, as we read through the manual, we mentally prepared ourselves for the tasks such as swimming without mask, mask clearing etc. that many people find challenging. We even practised at our local swimming pool with using a snorkel only for 30 seconds etc.
My daughter and I did a "discover" dive in 7 meters on a house reef at a PADI certified resort in 2010. She was 11 at the time. We loved it so much that we did a 12 meter (limit) dive the next day, the resort calls this "discover II".
We sort of made up our minds that this was what we wanted to do next summer, so for 2011 we booked up at the same resort. In the 3-4 months before the vacation, we both took the PADI-elearning course which i found generally interesting and well structured. We both passed all the academic work with 100%. During this time, there was no opportunity to do any practical work because we live in the mountains of Japan, nearest dive shop is 60km away and the nearest ocean is 150km away.
On arrival at the resort, we passed a simple knowledge review test that included some RDP tests, then we started the practical. The schedule was light and easy over a 3 day period. We did 2 pool dives on the first day, 2 pool + 2 open water on the second, and the final 2 open water on the 3rd day and achieved our certification.
On the 4th 5th and 6th days we did another 6 dives to 15 to 20 meters. Since we had done the course with them, we got those dives at a highly discounted rate from their normal prices. Full set of rental gear, guides, boat dive for approx. US$25 per dive
Getting the academic work out of the way was the best way in my opinion, there is simply too much to learn during the vacation time. Plus, as we read through the manual, we mentally prepared ourselves for the tasks such as swimming without mask, mask clearing etc. that many people find challenging. We even practised at our local swimming pool with using a snorkel only for 30 seconds etc.
