and the pool work is valid for 12 months iirc

Cool that defintaely sounds like a plan! Worried I do that freak out thing when I try to breathe under water, should be fun though. Cheapest flights are with Jet Airlines … anyone heard of them? Or would you pay a bit more and go with someone like Qatar airlines, at least I’ve heard of them!!

Doctors concerns are valid. Any hyperbaric doctor would be concerned about the possibility of scar tissue creating a nucleus for bubble formation during decompression – predisposing you to “bends”. Shallow diving is no safer. Bubbles form in your bloodstream on EVERY dive -if you stick to the decompression tables they’re just more likely to be non-pathogenic. Get clearance from a hyperbaric doctor – check with local dive shops. If you just want to see the reef/fishes go snorkelling. The visibility in most tropical waters lets you see everything just snorkelling(there’s bugger all extra below 20m – yes, a generalisation, but trust me on this that’s what years in marine science teaches you!). If you’re fit, snorkelling is heaps easier (less equipment)and safer – if you’re unfit… dive snorkelling deaths here in Oz are split about 50/50 – mostly snorkellers having heart attacks…If you feel you must dive please get hyperbaric medical clearance before you leave home. Assuming you get clearance (quite likely) speak to the instructors and find one you trust will look after you, not just your money, and have a ball! To (hopefully :D) dispel any thoughts that this is a random internet opinion I’ll point to 34 years diving experience (including mixed gas commercial),30 years marine science diving (half in tropical waters – Great Barrier reef, a horrible job, but somebody’s got to do it :D), and 20 years as a Dive Medical Technician.

Ooo Bampot, you make it sound quite scary. Don’t worry I am not going to be naive and stupid in this. Now to find a hyherbaric or whatever it was Dr!!!! mmmmmm the choices.

wrt the wetsuit for triathleting

I believe they’re no use – they’re made super flexible for swimming but that means they get compressed at depth so don’t keep you warm diving.

Nevertheless, some pics of m_c in her wetsuit might help. A shower would do fine to simulate diving conditions. That would work for me.

More seriously, bampot’s post (and he clearly knows more about this than I do) is why I suggested speaking to a dive doctor. A surgeon will tell you all you need to know about how to behave on land but won’t know about diving. Ask your own consultant if he can refer you to someone who knows about diving, or use your local BSAC/PADI communities if they can recommend one.

LOL @ BBSB I like your subtle style but shame I don’t know how to post pics 😉

Sorry…. not meant to be scarey. Diving is brilliant (and sure beats working for a living :D). Just wanted to make sure that you got clearance from a doctor that actually understands what the issues are. BBSB’s on the money with finding one through a local dive club/agency (I’m sure you can find details of the BSAC – British Sub Aqua Club on t’web). The snorkelling reccomendation is if you want to have a holiday and have the “swum on coral reef” lifebox ticked off, it’s a hell of a lot easier than going through the diving training rigmarole. If you’re wanting a few days of “underwater exploring” then go diving – and only dive as much as you feel comfortable doing. It’s no fun to push out the maximum number of dives in a day just because the trip offers them (and you need to tell mates about how EXTREME! DUDE! – sorry to shout – you were :-)). You’re on holiday, RELAX, do a few dives, graze the smorgasbord, lie in the sun, have another dive, RELAX 😀

Cheers for that Bampot. HEre’s a question if you qualify to do open water PADI how many dives a year do you have to do to keep your qualification up and running? As next thought was am I going to fork out £350 for learning to dive and hvaing a great time to never use it again? When I could potentially go snorkelling and see some cool stuff, then maybe do some sea kayaking etc. I would love to go scuba diving but now just thinking if it’s worth it with all the money? I am heading off to ScubaDucks later to ask some questions!

Most diving certs (not sure about GUE) don’t have an expiration date. Foreign dive centres will generally do a ‘check out’ dive for your first dive of a trip where you’re in a relatively benign setting and monitored closely. That means that you/they have a chance to make sure you’re competent in the water and take steps to sort anything out. That happens all over, from PADI splash & dash type stuff to more advanced technical trips.

OO looked at both Dive Masters on Koh Tao and Blue Planet Divers on Koh Lanta. Anyone got any preferences? So say I did course on Ko Lanta, should I stay there and do more diving, or do you recommend trying a different island/different sites? It is about £100 cheaper to do the whole OW 4 day course in Thailand, which I could be tempted with as not in a hurry to get it all done. it’s really expensive to do just the OW Referral in the UK and transfer it over. Thikn I need serious chat with Mr MC tonight (not his anaesthetic has worn off!)

i did my open water in Ko Tao about 7 years ago at Big Blue, no idea if it’s still there but seemed ok to me. My sister had done her dive masters there a couple of years before i think. They didn’t have a pool, but it meant you did the pool stuff at a shallow beach which was prob more fun. If you time your trip to ko tao to coincide with a full moon party on ko phangan then you’ll find that clears out most of the backpackers…

Having dived other places since, i’d say i probably wouldn’t go back there again for diving, but it’s a good (cheap) place to learn. Now, if you want fantastic diving nearish to there head to sipidan!

It is about £100 cheaper to do the whole OW 4 day

’nuff said, especially if

They didn’t have a pool, but it meant you did the pool stuff at a shallow beach

Blue Planet Divers were brilliant for us: really well organised, small group (just the 2 of us) nice boat, great dive sites. If you fancy another dive site while you’re there, you could take the boat down to Koh Lipe. Tiny island with a backpacker vibe – you dive off a longtail! There’s even a speedboat service to Langkawi, which is in Malaysia.

Ransos now you are beginning to suggest things that I would love to do but is turning this trip into a mammoth trip away that will cost a bob or too (I know it’s not going to be “cheap”). think i’ll just stick to Thailand. My only query was whether to lean on say Ko Lanta do a few dives then move to another site say Ko Phi Phi or Koh Tao????

Just spent more time with the guidebook! Didn’t realise Koh Tao was other side in Gulf of Thailand. I have a vague plan, 2 days in Bangkok fly down to Krabi, then over to Koh Phi Phi and Ko Lanta, doing OW cert on one with a few dives then a few days of diving on the other. Back to Phuket for a day then fly up to Chiang Mai before back to Bangkok and home. Now just need to get the 2 weeks of leave from work that’s probably the biggest hurdle for Mr MC and me!!!! So next thing will be to purchase our own masks. Thanks for all the advice guys, any more is ace but this was brilliant. Now just got to pick which dive school to do it with and whether to pre-book or wait until we arrive.

Nothing wrong with doing all your training in Thailand (especially with the savings – it’s a supply and demand thing compared to the UK :D). You may find you love diving and want to keep going in the UK… but it will be very different diving in the UK! Not neccesarily worse, just different – but probably not the kind of “glamourous” tropical diving everybody imagines is “normal” diving…Maybe another option is: We get a LOT of people who come to the Great Barrier Reef and “need” to go home saying they’ve dived it.. they do the PADI “Resort Diver” (IIRC) which gives them a few dives with minimal instruction, escorted by an instructor. If you love it, the couple of days spent doing it count towards upgrading to Open Water Diver later on at another PADI schol elsewhere in the world (don’t personally like PADI, but will resist a rant :-), the important thing is to find an instructor you feel you can trust).

Looking at your tentative plan… please be aware you should not fly within 24 hours (preferably 48 – that’s the rule I enforce here at work)of diving. Cabin pressure is lower than sea level (especially at night when they drop the pressure to send everybody off to sleep – or to stun the pi$$ed football team…), so there’s a further chance of getting the “bends”. I know airlines here in Oz will not let you fly if they suspect you’ve been diving within 24 hours (a mate was kicked off a flight 23:50 after a dive – and that was into the departure lounge, not even onto the plane!).

Oh dear, it’s starting to sound scarey again… sorry, I work managing divers now and OH&S is at the top of my list ALL the time… You will love diving – I’m probably getting a bit old and jaded on it :D, so have to keep reminding myself how awesome the early days were! Get to the warm water and indulge yourselves!

One thing I will say about costs – most foreign dive operators will have headline prices that seem very cheap compared to the UK. They then charge extra for everything – manuals, kit hire, air fills, certification fees, etc.

UK places usually charge one flat fee which covers absolutely everything you’ll need. Certainly based on typical Egypt prices, you’re barely saving anything once it’s all added up.

WEll you save about £100 when I looked into it, and it works out way more expensive to do the OW referral bit over here before you go. I have been sending out e-mails to the dive companies to ensure the price I’m looking at is everything included rather than extras and so far it is. Good point BAmpot, I did know that (Mr MC had mentioned it), well plan will be finish diving on one of the islands, get a boat to Phuket and spent 1 day 1 1/2 days there before flying up to Chiang Mai. Right I’m at work now so time to put the annual leave in as that’s probably the biggest hurdle since I’ve done all my research!

Oh the Padi resort diver, is that mind basically where you swim with the instructor (paired up, so one on one) and they do all the inflating of BCD’s and other stuff? or is it slightly more technical than that?

Never done the “Resort Diver myself”… but have seen flocks of chinese doing it on Green Island, off Cairns. My feelings go out to the instructors – most chinese don’t swim (apparently), so it’s a real challenge. Looked to me like you do a mornings training in the pool, and then the instuctor escorts you on your dive, but you are expected to be able to look after yourself (while the instructor looks after the really wobbly ones…)

MMM think i’ll just do the full thing as it’s part of the challenge. So now to decide when to go, was going to go end of nov into beginning of Dec but wondering whether to go end of Oct into Nov so slightly quieter. Can’t get a definitive answer as to whether the rainy season at end of Oct would ruin the diving??

A bit off topic, but went for a dive this weekend. This wasn’t the dive, but was the same place with the same people. Viz was slightly better and there were more critters. Good fun. One of them rolled over and one of the boys did some serious tummy tickling. And this is the east coast of Scotland, not the world’s top dive destination
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxWejnY4RII[/video]

If you go a bit later, you can go to DIVE 2011 where there will be loads of operators who will give you good discounts for booking with them:

http://www.diveshows.co.uk/

We booked at a stand there and got great prices for a Dahab dive centre a few years back. If you go armed with a knowledge of what things cost standard you can haggle a bit and get some deals.

Unfortunately TooTall I think that’s leaving it a bit late, we need to go before Christmas and as December is high season we need to book earlier. Thanks for the help though!

Get in flights to Thailand are booked end Nov into Dec!!!! Whoop whoop.

good grief, look at that, I’m turning green

have fun

Live aboard dive boat in the Maldives or Ladshadweep islands?

Thanks what I am doing next month 🙂

Ha ha sorry BigButSlimmerBloke…don’t know if I can contain my excitement until November is the next problem! Now all the bits inbetween to sort out, which dive company, what to to do in Bangkok and Chiang Mai! Yeah..

So we have now just arrived back from our trip to Thailand! What a fantastic holiday we had, probably the best we have ever had. Wespent 2 days in Bangkok and did some touristy stuff, Wat Po etc, and we walked everywhere! Went to see Khao San Road .. not what I expected at all, I thought it would’ve been full of more crack heads a la The Beach 😉 (stereotypical I know!!!). Wasn’t a fan of Bangkok originally but I think heading there straight off the plane isn’t the best idea, when we returned there yesterday having to kill 12 hours I liked it a whole lot better!!

Then we flew up to Chiang Mai and did a 3 day trek which included elephant trekking (fun for 1/2 hour but I wouldn’t do it again!! They do look after the animals well though), Then bamboo rafting which was fun.

Done to Koh Lanta where we finished our OW qualification and dived for an additional 4 days. It was awesome, loved every minute of it we saw turtles, leopard sharks, all kinds of awesome fish! Octpus fighting with a moray eel, it was such a fantastic experience we have now discovered a new additional expensive hobby to add to MTBing, although diving will purely be in warmer climes! I cannot fault the company we dived with http://www.diveandrelax.com they were brilliant, friendly, enthusiastic, professional, saftey conscious. Defiantely worth a trip with them.

SO next question is where shall we dive in 2012?

Thanks for all the adivce and help. LOVED IT!!!!

Just take up skiing and you’ll have the perfect trio. Sounds like you had a great time.

Maldives is the best diving I’ve done if you can afford it (live aboard the way to go and they look really expensive nowadays). Pulau Weh (off Banda Aceh Indonesia) if you want to explore more of Asia (check out Lumba Lumba dive centre). Can go elsewhere in info or Malaysia afterwards.

Central America? Belize (incredible reefs), Honduras?

Simons I like it .. we are already snow board (I can’t ski due to knee injury!). So now juggling MTB, dive and boarding holidays is a mare!! 2012 we are having to forego snowboarding as Mr MC has a big “0” holiday in Jan and we are MTBing in India, Bike Verbier in June then was thinking a dive trip SEpt/Oct! Thanks for the suggestions a few of those had been mentioned and TBH I had already started reading about Belize on lonely planet.. not even in the UK 5 hours and I was looking up other places!!