Ocean Diver
This course provides you with the essential knowledge and skills needed to prepare for open water diving. Learning to dive is all about learning to use your equipment properly and safely.
The Ocean Diver training course concentrates on preparing you for this in the safety of a swimming pool or sheltered water and then introducing you to open water in a controlled and safe manner. This also gives you the opportunity to practice safety skills in the company of a qualified instructor or experienced diver.
Course Outline
The Ocean Diver Course consists of the following elements:
- Seven classroom lessons
- A theory assessment
- A basic swimming assessment
- Five Sheltered Water lessons
- Five Open Water lessons.
All practical training in both Sheltered and Open Water includes the achievement of specific performance standards at appropriate points throughout the lessons.
Theory Lessons
Classroom Lessons are structured to provide prerequisite knowledge appropriate to different elements of the Sheltered and Open Water lessons.
OT1 Ocean Diver Training
OT2 Diving Equipment and Diving Signals
OT3 The Body and Effects of Diving
OT4 Planning to go Diving
OT5 Going Diving
OT6 What Happens If?
OT7 Enjoying Your Diving
Sheltered Water Lessons
The Ocean Diver lessons are structured very much on the 'less haste more speed' principle. The lessons concentrate on the students acquiring basic skills,
such as buoyancy control, finning etc, to a level where they become second nature, and students become relaxed underwater and develop confidence in their own abilities.
This builds a firm foundation on which other skills, such as navigation or the use of Surface Marker Buoys, can be overlaid in future Sports Diver training.
OS1 Being Underwater
OS2 Basic Skills
OS3 Developing Skills
OS4 Beyond the Basics
OS5 Safety Skills
Open Water Lessons
The emphasis on the Open Water dives is to take the skills already taught during the Sheltered Water lessons into the Open Water environment.
OO1 The First Open Water Dive
OO2 The Second Open Water Dive
OO3 The Third Open Water Dive
OO4 The Fourth Open Water Dive
OO5 The Fifth Open Water Dive
To ensure that students receive experience in a range of conditions, the Open Water dives must include four conditions from the following, appropriate to the local conditions in which they will subsequently be diving:
- Shore dive - dive commencing and ending on either a gently shelving shore or a deep water entry/exit
- Dive using a breathing gas mix - 32% or 36% O2
- Low visibility dive - dive in visibility in the range between 2 and 4 metres
- Drift dive - dive in moving water in the speed range between 0.25 and 0.5kn
- Small boat dive - dive from a boat of less than 8m overall length, where water entry is via a backward roll, and egress from the water requires removal of equipment in the water
- Large boat dive - dive from a boat of greater than 8m overall length, where the
- Water entered is via a stride entry, and egress from the water is accomplished via
- Ladder without removal of any equipment except, possibly, fins
- Wall dive - dive along a vertical or near vertical wall with no solid bottom closer than 4m below the divers
- Dive in protective clothing - dive wearing either a wet suit or dry suit
Only one of the above conditions may be logged per dive. The Ocean Diver syllabus includes five Open Water lessons which should total a minimum of 120 mins underwater time. Where conditions are suitable, the lessons may be condensed into four dives provided that no training elements are omitted and the total underwater time of 120 minutes is not reduced. The maximum depth to be attained during the above dives will be in the range 15 - 20m.