If you've ever hiked into the wildest places in the world, climbed its peaks at the edge of your fingertips, and sailed through its shores and skies through ships and planes, it's time to explore the depths of its waters. The best way to do that is to learn to scuba dive, unless, of course, you want to try cave exploration, but that's a different story. Scuba diving is very popular. More than 3.1 million Americans took part in diving in 2016 alone, according to a report from the American Association of sports and fitness industries. It's good for us to have enough space to explore, especially considering that the ocean covers more than 70% of the earth's surface.
To learn how to join the scuba enthusiast team, we invited the chief of Malibu divas company, which is a step-by-step guide to learn how to obtain scuba diving certificate. This is what every beginner needs to know. Where can I find a reputable diving center? Yale says the first step in getting scuba certification is to find a diving center that offers professional scuba certification. While there are other certification programs, including the National Association of underwater coaches and the British underwater club, the Professional Diving Coaches Association is the most widely recognized certification. Open water diver certification is a beginner certification, Yale explained.
He joked that it was a bit like a snorkeling express card. It will allow you to dive around the world because it's accepted almost everywhere. The certificate is open to anyone over the age of 15. If you travel with kids under the age of 15 who want to be certified, they can get a so-called junior diving license, and they can only dive to 40 feet. The length and time vary greatly depending on the location and time of the class. But in theory, if you play it right, you can finish a course in just three to four days. The certification is divided into three parts: theoretical knowledge development, pressure diving and open water diving.
To speed up this process, Yale suggests finding a certification program that allows you to learn theory through e-learning. This means that you will be responsible for reading books, taking online courses, and independently completing online exams. Yale points out that this part may take eight to 12 hours. Of course, if you are the kind of person who needs face-to-face training from start to finish, there are similar courses. These people usually meet once or twice a week for about a month. After the knowledge development part of the course, students take part in limited diving activities in the local swimming pool, whether face-to-face or online.
We will stay there for a few hours, we will discuss the physical principles of diving, how to calculate diving time, decompression limit, etc. After limiting diving, the rest is jumping on the open water. How many times do I need to dive in the top 10 diving destinations to get certification? Here comes the interesting part. To get a certificate, you need to complete a series of four open water dives. You can choose to do these dives with your instructor in any large water area, ocean, lake or quarry. Once you have completed these four dives, you will be officially certified, which means you can dive all over the world on your own.
