PADI Open Water Diver Certification

This weekend I and Vlad were at Dutch Springs, PA, finishing the second part of Open Water Diver certification. We did total of 5 dives over two days , the 4 of them are required for the certification and the 5th was just a fun dive after we got the certification and a permission to dive on our own.

We used our local dive shop "Sterling Silver Scuba" http://www.silverdivers.com , the guys are great there. My special thanks to Jason and Carl for helping as with the whole open-water certification process, to Kevin and Rob for very helpful practice at the pool and to Dan for his sense of humor :) They are really great guys.

One of my friends got interested in the whole certification process and asked me to send him some details, just to get an idea what is involved and how much it might cost. I thought that this information might be helpful to anybody who might be interested to get some scuba diving experience and maybe find another passion in his life.


Here is the list of expenses you might find on your way to PADI Open Water Certified Diver certification:

1. $250 - self-study classes, you do most of the study yourself and come two evenings for the tests and discuss any questions you have. This amount includes the two days (~4hours+ each) pool session and the gear rent.
You get to swim 200 meters (~656 feet) first without any gear, no stops allowed. Then practice all the different stuff, like clearing your mask under water, remove and put back weight belt and BCD, ascent descent, buoyancy control, swim without the mask, swim for 30 secs+ on one breath slowly breathing out, etc.

2. $250 - certification - requires 4 open water dives and we got 5th "fun dive" after we get the certification. The gear and air tanks are included.
We went to Dutch Springs, PA (http://www.dutchsprings.com/). The water was really cold after more than 40 feet deep even in the 7mm thick wet suit. It might get better in the summer, but still be prepared. The visibility under water there >50 ft is the reason why local people travel to PA. You can pay $40 referral fee instead and do the certification somewhere else (Key Largo, Cayman Islands ...etc.) and pay the certification and the rest of the fees there, whatever they charge.

3. The rental gear that you get includes:
* wet suit
* BCD with regulator/octopus and air tanks
* hood and gloves for the open water dives if it is too cold
* weight belt and weights


The list of personal gear that you would have to buy:
* mask - ~$60-80
* snorkel - ~$20
* boots - ~$35
* fins - ~ $40-80

As you can see this all is more affordable than you might think and after all you get the experience that is worth much more than you are actually paying for.

Happy Scuba Diving ! :)