About Scuba Certification

Certification for first time scuba divers involves learning a lot of new skills, but the feeling of accomplishment at the end can be deeply satisfying. A student can get certified at a resort while on vacation or at one of the numerous dive training centers that are located throughout America.

  1. Certification Programs

    • To become a scuba diver, a student must go through a certification process. There are a several well-known agencies which provide certification. PADI (the Professional Association of Diving Instructors) is the most well known agency with offices worldwide. In 2007 alone, PADI certified 536, 580 new divers worldwide. For this reason, this article will focus primarily on the PADI program). Scuba Schools international has over 90 offices worldwide while the National Association of Underwater Instructors can be found primarily in the U.S. PADI, SSI and NAUI all have similar certification programs. In addition, YMCA Scuba also provides certification in the U.S. In the U.K., the British Sub Aqua Club is England's most popular scuba certification body.

    Pre-requisites

    • PADI has certain age restriction depending on the type of dive certification. For Junior Open Water and Junior Scuba Diver, the minimum age for certification is 10. However, this certification requires an adult to supervise the dive. For their standard Open Water and Scuba Diver certifications the minimum age is 15. In addition, a person wishing to take the course must show certain water skills. These skills are: the ability to float or tread water for 10 minutes and the ability to swim for 200 meters with no gear or 300 meters with mask, fins and snorkel. A medical statement will also need to be completed prior to training.

    Bookwork

    • There is a large amount of bookwork that students will need to study during the certification process. The bookwork will cover the skills the students will learn, as well as information regarding choosing and caring for dive equipment; learning about buoyancy, pressure and "the bends;" dive planning; what to do in an emergency; and dive tables. Depending on the way a particular dive shop runs the course, most students either study the bookwork beforehand and show up for a weekend to take tests on the bookwork and begin the scuba skills, or a student may do the bookwork and confined water dives with an instructor throughout the course of a week.

    Confined and Open Water Dives

    • Your dive instructor will first begin to teach students scuba skills in a pool or other confined space. For PADI Open Water certification, there are 5 confined water dives that a student will have to do. In these confined water dives, students will learn important skills such as clearing a flooded mask; recovering and clearing a regulator; performing a snorkel/regulator exchange; reacting to an out of air emergency; buoyancy control; and removing and replacing scuba unit and weights on the surface of the water. Once the student has completed these confined water dives satisfactorily, the student is ready for the open water dives. To gain the PADI Open Water certification a diver has to complete 4 open water dives (however for those choosing to do the Scuba Diver certification, they only have to complete 3 confined water dives and 2 open water dives). During the open water dives, the student will have to demonstrate the skills learned during the confined water dives. In addition, the student will learn to evaluate dive conditions, making exits and entries in surf, and descending and ascending in open water.

    Further Education

    • The PADI Open Water certification allows divers to dive as deep as 60 feet (or 40 feet for PADI Scuba Diver certifications). However, there are numerous other specialty courses that a diver can take following the completion of their Open Water certification. These courses include underwater photographer and night diver. In addition, PADI also has Advanced Open Water Diver, Rescue Diver and Master Scuba Diver courses.