Greetings from London

[Blindsided]

Hello everyone!

Always wanted to dive and in a recent holiday to Cuba our hotel was offering a free lesson (5min ) tried it, did two dives a few days later and hooked.

Just this week I did a pool dive in Cornwall and booked to do my PADI OW, well, paid for it, need to find a few days out to do it.

Looking forward to getting to know a few folk!

 

[TMHeimer]

Welcome to the Board. What did you learn in 5 minutes?

 

[drrich2]

Welcome! Hope you find scuba everything you hoped it would be. It's been a game changer for many.

Richard.

 

[Blindsided]

Welcome to the Board. What did you learn in 5 minutes?

- up
- down
- all ok
- something's not right

Inflating my bcd, deflating, breathing through the reg, clearing the reg by blowing or the purge button.

Equalising. And that's about it.

In the lesson I did Wednesday, all of that in an hour.

So now I read my coursework, try remember the figures and pass my course

 

[Blindsided]

Welcome! Hope you find scuba everything you hoped it would be. It's been a game changer for many.

Richard.

Thanks! It's been a bucket list item for some time. Always worried about my eye (implant, no one could tell me if it would explode or not).

Looking forward to it!

 

[scubadiver888]

Hi @Blindsided. Welcome to the wonderful world of scuba diving. A word of warning, OW diving in England will be a bit different from OW diving in Cuba. Not sure if you plan on doing the OW portion in England or if you are going to get a referral letter and finish your training in warmer water.

Some people in my area do all their training here in Canada but some people do the class and pool work in Canada then finish their training in the Caribbean (Cuba in a number of cases).

Good luck with training and hope everything goes well.

Darrell

 

[Blindsided]

Hi @Blindsided. Welcome to the wonderful world of scuba diving. A word of warning, OW diving in England will be a bit different from OW diving in Cuba. Not sure if you plan on doing the OW portion in England or if you are going to get a referral letter and finish your training in warmer water.

Some people in my area do all their training here in Canada but some people do the class and pool work in Canada then finish their training in the Caribbean (Cuba in a number of cases).

Good luck with training and hope everything goes well.

Darrell

Hi Darrell

Thanks! Yeah, I've been told it's going to be a whole lot different! Out of interest, no one says what differences there will be though?! Lots to learn and scary! But also exciting.

I'll be doing my entire course here in the UK. Cuba was a taster and I'm pretty hooked!

Set myself a target. I'm going tuna fishing in the Azores in June, so want to be ready and have a few dives under my belt by then.

 

[KenGordon]

Join a local club. See Find a club or centre

If you would rather pay someone then talk to Toni at Purple Turtle Diving (she is based at Amphibian in West Norwood) http://www.purpleturtlediving.com/

You can do both, Toni will teach BSAC courses as well as PADI ones and the clubs are happy with PADI qualifications as well as th8er own. Croydon is quite a busy club. My club is based in Bermondsey so unless you work somewhere on the Jubilee line it is not so handy for you.

 

[Blindsided]

Join a local club. See Find a club or centre

If you would rather pay someone then talk to Toni at Purple Turtle Diving (she is based at Amphibian in West Norwood) http://www.purpleturtlediving.com/

You can do both, Toni will teach BSAC courses as well as PADI ones and the clubs are happy with PADI qualifications as well as th8er own. Croydon is quite a busy club. My club is based in Bermondsey so unless you work somewhere on the Jubilee line it is not so handy for you.

@KenGordon Thanks!

I've paid for my course at Dive Newquay, mostly because that's the only way I'll have time to do it is if I leave London. My nephew is also there and he is starting ranger classes on 8th of Jan (he's 9) so it's something we'll do together in the pool and when he's older we'll go out on trips.

Thanks for the link to Purple Turtle! I'll look them up, fairly close by. Hadn't even thought of clubs yet!

 

[KenGordon]

@KenGordon Thanks!

I've paid for my course at Dive Newquay, mostly because that's the only way I'll have time to do it is if I leave London. My nephew is also there and he is starting ranger classes on 8th of Jan (he's 9) so it's something we'll do together in the pool and when he's older we'll go out on trips.

Thanks for the link to Purple Turtle! I'll look them up, fairly close by. Hadn't even thought of clubs yet!

There is some very good diving out of Newquay. Have fun. Given the choice do the course in a drysuit if you are doing it in the first half of the year.

My son did bubblemaker with Toni and Amphibian is an excellent shop.