[Closed] anyone dive?

only muff

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you need to add a drogba shot now to balance that one mrsparkle!

yes i do - sort of
did my openwater earlier in the year and my advanced openwater last weekend
its great but will never become my main sport/hobby just something to do while travelling other parts of the world

Some great deals to Egypt where you can get your open water certificate in a week. Been toying with that one myself for some time. Did a guided (5m) dive in Kenya in 2006 and it was absolutely amazing.

Recommended! Got to PADI Advanced and haven't dived for years for a variety of reasons.

PADI Open Water is only a five day course anyway and can obviously be done entirely in this country. You could find a school which will do your pool and classroom work in this country and then allow you to do the open water dives abroad, then you don't waste three days of your holiday in the classroom...

That's what I would do if I were doing it over again.

I did a 5 day open water course (SSI) in Egypt (bloody hell 10 years ago now). Recommended. Not dived since though, I'd love to though but time, money, sprogs etc have got in the way.

I must admit to not really fancying diving in Brit waters.

I must admit to not really fancying diving in Brit waters.

Nah.

do it, it is absolutely fantastic.
two options
bsac - british clubs, very thorough training, you'll learn here, in a drysuit in the cold
padi - commercial organisation, as good as you want to make it, learn in the sun, in a wetsuit.

go to egypt and do your open water (max depth 18m) in sharm el sheikh, if you go june, july time you will have the most chance of seeing big stuff.
people with good reputations are
red sea college
camel
ocean college

i have been twice with ocean college, staying at the ocean club and they are great, good crowd of people, everyone very friendly, great atmosphere at hotel and on boats. look here for discounts:
[url= http://www.explorers.co.uk/RedSeaHotel.aspx?ID=10&DestID=1 ]explorers[/url]

best website for info is
[url= http://www.divernet.com ]www.divernet.com
[/url]

its great fun, and i have found it very addictive to the point where i am doing my drysuit course here.
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To begin with you'll either have to do PADI Open Water, BSAC Club Diver/Ocean Diver or the equivalent SSI/CMAS level.

The way it works with PADI is thus (I am not debating the merits of either system):

Open water diver, requires small amount of pool work, 5 confined water dives and 5 open water (I think) and some class work. Qualifies you to dive with another qualified diver to max 18M.

Advanced Open Water, requires 5 dives, qualifies you to dive to the max depth attained on the course, usually (and to a maximum of) 30M.

BSAC/CMAS etc are usually done on a club basis, you'll have to attend regular pool sessions then open water sessions.

BSAC takes longer but may give you better skills. There's certainly more of an emphasis on skills. PADI is much quicker and some say less thorough. Personally I think it depends on the diver, I'm a PADI diver but I'm very cautious and would never do anything stupid or beyond my capabilities.

It's good fun, even in this country sometimes.

Used to do loads until a few years ago - had been diving for 20 years routinely doing 70m+ wrecks on silly gas mixtures, then nearly killed myself in less than 4m of water which caused a bit of a re-evaluation of my priorities...

Anyhow - yes, the advice up there is all very good except the one place you need to visit is the diving equivalent of STW - [url= http://www.yorkshire-divers.com/ ]Yorkshire Divers[/url]. And (on the right day) diving in the UK is still some of the best in the world - you just have to be prepared to take the bad days to get the good ones. I've been diving all over the world and many of my best memories are from the UK.

There is a third way

[url= http://www.saa.org.uk/ ]Sub Aqua Association[/url]

Not so regimented as BSAC, but a collection of local clubs training to a national standard. Training tends to lean more on self reliance, rather than making one think in terms of people with titles and badges being responsible for your safety. Had some great times with the Middlesbrough and Ackworth groups many years ago, but my dive kit hasn't moved out of the cellar since I moved house ten years ago, pesky children have eaten my weekends.

Go for it. I did my training in Honduras and then did some more in Belize. All good. That was a while ago, mind, and I've never felt the urge to dive over here since then. As others have said, if you're going to learn and you've got the opportunity, go somewhere where the sea is warm; I don't know if I could be bothered with practicing in a swimming pool at home.

But in murky UK waters...

not an issue, i live in the far west of cornwall. very clear water here.

i did'nt realise there were two ways to learn, just googled the local school and its a padi one with the 5 day open water course costing 290quid. may pop down and have a chat.

i did my OW in Egypt, then back in the UK did my advanced at Stoney Cove - cold freshwater quarry! - so that when i got out to Western Australia on a holiday i wouldn't have to do any lessons there. learning in this country is undoubtedly cold and different experience to the crystal blue water of the red sea and the austrlian coasts, but it's not so bad, and bit of variety's always good!

i'd like to go to this place:

[url= http://nurkowanie.czest.pl/galeria/060119nemo/nemo33_07.jp g" target="_blank">http://nurkowanie.czest.pl/galeria/060119nemo/nemo33_07.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

just for the experience!

would probably be a decent place to learn as well.

Gav - if you're in Cornwall then show your face on the [url= http://www.southwestmafia.com/forumswm/ ]South West Mafia[/url] forums. Similar to YD, but maybe a bit more mleh...

then nearly killed myself in less than 4m of water

how so thepurist?

Short version is that I passed out about 90 seconds after entering the water. Fortunately I'd just told my buddy I wasn't feeling well and wanted to abort the dive so he reacted immediately, lifted me to the surface & got back to the waters edge where I was unconscious, blue, not breathing & had no detectable pulse. I was at an inland site where another group had just finished doing some rescue training so they were on me like a shot, and the site's rescue boat was over about 30 seconds later. I came to with an O2 mask on my face while they were doing CPR on me, then was taken to hospital by ambulance & discharged later that night.

At the time I put it down to complacency and assumed that I'd effectively been breathing a gas mix that was only 10% oxygen and so had passed out as a result, but about 9 months later I had a migraine type attack that left me curled up in a ball, gasping for breath and twitching and then realised that a lot of the symptoms and after effects of that were the same as when I had my accident. I'd never had that before or since, but it seems the more likely explanation now.

Don't let that put you off though! 'Normal' diving is pretty safe these days and the training will teach you how to react in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong. If you're comfortable flying downhill on a bike then the underwater world has way less hazards than that! 😉

theflatboy, where/what is that?

click the pic 🙂

I did my PADI OWD in Lanazarote when we had bad weather years ago. I didn't dive again for 5 years, but then went on honeymoon to the Maldives a couple of years ago and did some fantastic dives. Considered doing more qualifications, but decided it wasn't worth it for the amount of times I was going to be able to go given that JnrI was on the way...

Learned to dive in the UK (Dosthill) about 5 years ago, prior to a holiday in Egypt. Had a great time, did a couple more inland UK dives and some at Poor Knights in NZ before an Egypt liveaboard and took up UK diving last year.

Sadly I was spoiled on my first UK weekend with glorious weather and 15m+ vis off Plymouth. Hasn't been that good since but have done loads of good wreck dives since. Off to Cornwall this weekend to kick off the season properly (only dives so far were in Capernwray at 3 degrees!).

I'd recommend learning in the UK, cost isn't very different (UK schools generally give an "all inclusive" fee, in Egypt it'll be really low but then there's course materials, kit hire, fills, etc), the teaching tends to be a bit more thorough and you won't waste holiday dives doing drills and stuff when you could be enjoying yourself. Plus if you do dive somewhere a little more challenging (like Poor Knights for instance), or even get silt kicked up and sudden poor vis you'll be better prepared from the UK experience!

just in case you couldn't be bothered to click the pic, by the way, it's nemo 33 - the world's deepest pool (i think) where you can learn to dive. it's in belgium.

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well done sfb.

specifically checked this thread for muff releated comment, you win sir with your timely and direct reply. 🙂

I am a Padi trained Advanced diver. I did start studying for my Rescue diver, but never got around to completing it. I only started diving because it was something to do when the missus was laying by the pool on holidays. Decided I d open water in the uk and the dives were in a murky reservoir in the middle of a very cold November month. It was bloody freezing, but the instructor said that if you could dive their, there weren't many places on earth you couldn't!
Done my advanced while on holiday in Gran Canaria. The advanced is more dive experience based so nicer to do it somewhere warm in my opinion.
The benefits of PADI is that is quicker and recognised everywhere apart from Cuba! The negatives are that you dont get as much training before being set loose and they dont train you to do recompression diving (deep and long).
BSAC provide a more in depth training, but this takes a lot longer. You need to be part of a club and dive with them. They do teach recompression diving (or they did).
I started out with the idea that I was only ever going to dive abroad, but have ended up diving quite lot down West Wales which has some fantastic dives.
The only problem with it is it takes a lot of time and be quite expsensive to get the kit.
I haven't dived this year yet, but will probably start diving again next year.

I was a PADI Divemaster, until I had children and stopped having hobbies. As other people have said, if you can learn to dive in the UK, you can dive anywhere. And UK diving can be stunning. I've dived on 100yr old wrecks in Oban in crystal-clear water, and it's one of the best experiences I've ever had. I couldn't feel my fingers for about 3 days, but it was well worth it. And it's not cheap, but neither is mountain-biking!

anyone here dived at silfra? now that is somewhere i'd also love to go...

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