What is involved in the stages of scuba diver instruction? Is it all only jumping into the water or is there too much to discover?
Theory course
Your diver training will probably start with a brief prologue to how the classes will be structured and then you will be shown a sequence of tutorial DVDs about all of the skills you will be studying during the training. After each DVD segment, your teacher will then spend time talking you through what you have seen, making sure that you understood what was mentioned and ending with a brief multiple choice examination to confirm that it has all sunk in.
All aspects of the instruction are mentioned in the classroom based work, from how to kit up, the safety drills and methods and a few dos and don'ts.
Pool training
After the classroom work you are prepared to advance to the pool work. You will be handed for the first time the gear that you will be diving in and taken to a suitable swimming pool to learn how to safely use it. But, there is something to do before you start to kit up and that is the swimming assessments! Nothing complicated - you merely have to show that you can propel yourself through the water for a approved distance and then float for a prescribed amount of time. It does not matter whether you are a fast or slow swimmer.
Once this is completed, you could then assemble your diving equipment with the help of your teacher. There is a set order to put everything together in and you will need to discover this. Next you will enter the water, maybe with just the mask and snorkel, and start the basic exercises.
These start with mask clearing. It is important that you might clear water out of your mask whilst still underwater and you will learn and practice this technique. Once you and your teacher are happy, you will then completely remove the mask and replace and clear it.
There are then several exercises to carry out with the full scuba gear, for instance taking your first breaths under water, practicing altering your buoyancy to get it unquestionably spot on and buddy breathing. They are all a fun afternoon in the pool!
Open Water instruction
Finally you are ready to take your scuba gear into the water for real. The first dive will be quite shallow and you will begin with practising several of those exercises again - mask clearing in the sea and so on. After that your instructor will take you on your first dive followed by logging it and then using the tables to calculate your nitrogen saturation.
After a suitable break you will return to the water for a further 3 dives, each one taking you deeper until on dive 4 you should reach around 18 metres.
Final Exam
The final exam can follow the classroom work, but finishing with it is better as there are several aspects to the examination that you might only fully remember when you have tried them out. It is a straightforward multiple choice examination and once all of these stages are complete, it is photograph time and you are a qualified diver!
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