Rescue diver in UK or abroad?

[Poozer]

My husband & I are both qualified as Nitrox advanced open water divers in March 2006, & have only 9 dives each under our (weight) belts. He's got the opportunity to go to Egypt next month to do his rescue diver course for a subsidised price of GBP 190 (incl course, equipment, flights & accomodation), but I think the money would be better spent on us joining a club, buying fins/snorkel/flippers/maybe dry suit & getting some UK dives under our belts, or even paying to do a UK rescue diver course. We think we're primarily going to be UK divers, with some warm holiday diving 1-2 times a year of we're lucky.

If we're going to be mainly local divers, should we try to be doing our further training in local water? It seems logical to me, but the cheapness of that overseas training package IS tempting.

 

[TheTrickster]

Does that include the First Response CPR first Aid course too?

For £190 inc flights thats a real bargin!

 

[victor]

My opinion only
You are not ready to do a rescue class yet as you really do not have enough dives under your belt.
Rescue is a great class and you will learn a lot however diving is not just about taking classes, time in the water is very important.

A rescue course in the clear warm waters of the red sea is going to be completely different from a rescue course in the UK with 6ft visibility, 35 degree farenheit water.
I am not saying that you would not learn something from the course but I don't believe it would teach you to rescue someone under UK conditions while wearing a dry suit with 30lbs of lead on your weight belt and strong surge.

In my opinion the money would be much better spent joining a local club and getting in some dives in the conditions you are going to be diving.
If you are going to be doing the majority of your diving in the UK then dry/semi-dry suits are the only way to go.

Now spend the money going diving in the red sea, warm water, great reef's, sharks, now thats very tempting just don't bother with the course.
:lol:

 

[dougaldiver]

I have to agree with Victor. I've seen rescue courses run in the Red Sea and I don't think that people got as much from them as I did when I did mine in the UK (of course you need to have an instructor that will make you work for it either way).

I would also agree that you're probably not ready yet to get the best from the Rescue course and if you're going to do much diving in the UK then learn the rescue skills in the UK as well