The Fun Part
The fun part about this course is...well, just about all of it because learning to dive is incredible. You breathe underwater for the first time (something you'll never forget) and learn what you need to know to become a certified diver. During the course, you'll make at least five pool dives and four dives at local dive sites under the supervision of your PADI Instructor.

What You Learn
The PADI Open Water Diver course consists of three main phases:

• Knowledge Development (online, home study or in a classroom ) to understand basic principles of scuba diving,
• Confined Water Dives (in a swimming pool) to learn basic scuba skills,
• Open Water Dives to review your skills and explore!

If you've participated in a Discover Scuba Diving experience, the skills you learned may be credited towards a portion of the full PADI Open Water Diver course certification.

Prerequisites
To enroll in the PADI Open Diver course or Junior Open Water Diver course, you must be:

• 15 years old (or 12 years old for Junior Scuba Diver certification). PADI eLearning requires a minimum age of 13 years due to international internet laws.

When and Where
Once you have booked the Open Water Diver Course with DV Diving we will contact you to find the best method of getting your knowledge development materials (PADI's Ultimate Crewpack) to you, whether you pick up the pack in store, require it be posted to you or if you decide to go with PADI eLearning instead. 

The underwater section of this course begins with your confined water dives in a swimming pool during either our weekly pool session on Wednesday evenings at 8pm in the Ards Blair Mayne Wellbeing and Lesiure Complex or, if you choose to upgrade your package to VIP, a flexible private pool session booked to suit your own schedule.

The four Open Water dives are completed based on your availibility and are of course weather dependent. For the Open Water dives we meet at the DV Diving centre in Carrowdore, gather any equipment needed and head in various directions to a suitable site. See our dive sites for more information.

The Scuba Gear You Use
You'll use all the basic scuba gear and some of it may be included with your course. You may want to invest in your own mask, snorkel and fins since these personal items are a lot more fun to use when they fit properly. A buoyancy compensating jacket that holds your scuba tank, a scuba regulator that delivers air, a weight system and instrumentation to monitor depth and air supply will also be used. In the PADI Open Water Diver course, you learn to use basic scuba gear including a dive computer, and standard accessories. The equipment you wear will be chosen by a DV DIVING Representative to ensure your comfort throughout the course.

The Learning Materials You Need
PADI offers a variety of home-study materials for the Open Water Diver course - book and DVD package or a multimedia DVD. Recently PADI has enhanced this program by offering the learning material in an Elearning environment via the internet.

Contact DV DIVING to personalise the best study option for you!

PADI's Open Water Diver materials cover what you need to know about basic scuba diving skills, terminology and safety procedures. For each concept you'll read a description and watch a video demonstration. Then you'll jump in the pool (or pool-like environment) to practice these skills with your instructor.

Your Next Adventure
Once you have completed your Open Water Diver Certification, you'll want to check out: Adventure Diver and Advanced Open Water certification courses.