PADI Open Water Diver Referral Course

Can’t decide whether to get your scuba certification while on holiday or at home before you travel? With a PADI Open Water referral, you don’t have to choose.

A PADI referral allows you to complete most of your scuba training at home and finish your certification dives anywhere in the world. Avoid studying during your holiday and support your local dive centre at the same time.

What is a PADI Referral Course?

With an open water referral, you’ll complete some or all of the dive theory and pool sessions before leaving home. You can finish the final part of your scuba course, the open water dives, anywhere in the world.

To put it another way, instead of spending 4 to 5 days of your holiday studying and practicing skills in a pool, you’ll arrive with the majority of your open water course done. The final portion of the course typically takes a day and a half to complete. Once certified, you can spend the rest of your time exploring with your dive buddy and gaining additional dive experience.

The Hidden Depths Difference

We have a team full of knowledgeable, passionate and supportive dive professionals ready to teach you how to scuba dive. We love nothing more than starting your course as your dive instructor and ending the course with a new dive buddy to go exploring with!

There are many great places to learn to dive around the world, but once qualified you need people to go diving with and who share your new passion. When learning to dive with Hidden Depths Scuba School you also get access to our supportive local dive club full of active divers. As a member of our club you can enjoy access to great local dive trips, reduced rates on kit hire and regular social events.

What You Learn

The PADI Open Water Referral course consists of two out of the three main phases of the Open Water Diver Course:

• Knowledge Development (online or home study) to understand basic principles of scuba diving
• Confined Water Dives in a heated swimming pool to learn basic scuba skills

This leaves your final four open water dives to complete at your chosen dive destination.

Prerequisites

To sign up for the PADI Open Water Referral course you must be:

• 10 years or older
• Be able to swim 200m and tread water for 10 minutes
• Complete a Diver Medical Form, which can be viewed here, and may need signing by a physician depending on your medical history. Please check this prior to booking your course

The Fun Part

The fun part about this course is...well, just about all of it because learning to dive is incredible. You breathe underwater for the first time (something you'll never forget) and learn what you need to know to become a certified diver.

During the course, you’ll make at least five pool dives under the supervision of your PADI Instructor. Your pool dives can be scheduled across a five week period at our weekly pool dive, or arranged as a whole day intensive course if this suits your schedule better.

The Gear You Will Use

In the PADI Open Water Referral course you will learn to assemble, use, disassemble and care for basic scuba gear, including a dive computer. Your course will focus on training you to dive comfortably and confidently, and be able to deal with any emergency that may arise underwater. All our training equipment is thouroughly cleaned and disinfected between uses for your piece of mind.

The Learning Materials You Will Use

PADI’s Open Water Diver course materials cover everything you need to know about basic scuba diving skills, terminology and safety procedures. For each concept you’ll read a description and watch a video demonstration. Then you’ll jump in the pool to practice these skills with your instructor.

You have two options when it comes to selecting the best course materials for you - either the PADI eLearning programme or the the traditional paper manual and DVD. The Open Water Diver eLearning is a brilliant programme which integrates the course manual and DVD into one seamless programme, with interactive quizzes as you progress. You can get a free trial of the eLearning programme by follwing this link and creating your PADI account.

You need an internet connection to download the PADI App and course content, but after that you can work on the materials at any time, on any device, without connecting to the internet. When you sign up for the course you can choose the best course materials to suit your learning style and preference.

Later, as a certified diver, use these course materials as a reference guide for future diving adventures and to review what you learned.