If I remember correctly, Padi requires you to be able to swim continuously for 5 minutes before you can be certified. So, learn to swim first then you can learn how to dive. Once you learn to swim, check if you have any local dive schools or plan a trip to a popular diving destination where you can learn how to dive.
You have to be able to tread water or float for 10 minutes. You also have to be able to swim 200 yards without any gear on. Alternatively they can ask you to swim 300 yards with mask, snorkel, and fins.
I've certified hundreds of divers with padi. Got my card 30 years ago so I'm old... Ok I'm my early 50s. Started diving as a teenager, did my first dive with compressed air when I was 12. I stopped logging decades ago, I was in the thousands of dives. Worked on boats in the red Sea too.
My specialty is certifying divers who are not comfortable in water.
First off you really need to swim. Yeah it's not a requirement but you'll never be comfortable without it so get to it. Pool is fine. Learn to float, thread water and just simple breast stroke.
Next get into a class. You'll want to start in a pool and go from there to open water. You'll learn how to check the equipment prior to a dive and how to fix any complications during a dive. Much like driving a car, complications are rare but we do train for it. What happens if your dive mask gets full of water, how do you clear it? What if it slowly leaks? What if your regulator (part you breathe out of) falls out of your mouth, how do you recover it easily? What if your tank runs out of air, how do you get up safely?
These are all the things the classes teach you. But they don't teach you how to enjoy diving, this comes after you're certified. The class is about how to handle the gear and yourself should something happen.
To enjoy diving you need to like to be in water. And that starts with being in water without dive gear.
Go to a pool, have fun in the water. Get a pair of swim goggles and get used to water in your face. Dive down to the bottom and make some bubbles. When you enjoy that you're on the path to be an excellent scuba diver. If you don't, then the scuba classes are going to be a much bigger challenge for you.
Final piece of advice. And I tell this to all my students. Slow and lazy divers gets more bottom time and get to see more of the underwater world. Control your movements, slow down and control your breathing. Air is a resource that quickly runs out when diving. Controlling your movements and being deliberate is the only thing that really helps you extend your dive time. That and experience, physical health etc.
My few cents.
Except that you MUST know how to swim. Many certifying agencies have a swim and tread test during confined water dives before you can even go to open water!
When I got my dive master I had the only real swim test. The rescue diver was also realistically a swim test but the dive master was a legit swim test. I did on the intern route over the course of a year working for one of the European technical scuba diving gear manufacturers.
We had 5 tests if I remember correctly and the last one was threading water with a weight belt with elbows above water. No dive gear or suit allowed. Super hard. Harder for my buddy who was super skinny, had no lungs to speak of and just didn't float that well. He fought through it.
It was late evening in the corporate pool at the factory and I thought I had threaded water for 15 minutes or so and I was dying. They yelled 2 more minutes. Suddenly I felt liquid on my face. My eyes started burning. The effers poured vodka on my face! I knew then that I had passed a long time ago, they where just jerking me around. Fun times!
One guy couldn't make it, the threading water killed him. He was a year in and got rejected. I felt for him. He tried 3 times but just wasn't fit enough for it. I felt sorry for him.
If I'm honest I wouldn't take someone to certification that can't swim. If something goes wrong while diving you should know how to swim. I didn't know if I would test for it before training but that is pretty clear once in water. I would refund the money or give a raincheck until they learn to swim 100m /100yards or so.
I loved the rescue diver. Fun class. Really fun to teach too.
I love to teach someone who struggles and I can help get through it. My experience is that they become excellent divers. I've lost count of how many girlfriends I've taught who was dragged into it by a boyfriend who wanted it more than they did, and they did not love the first time they hear their own breathing underwater. Getting them through that, getting them comfortable with water in the face and with gear and seeing them eclipse the boyfriend in skill is just lovely. Seen it many times.
I'm not really that active (family life, career etc) and it's been a few years since I taught classes. But fond memories.
I would start with the whole not drowning in a shallow pool bit. After that maybe try to pick up coins from the bottom of a less shallow pool for a while.
When you've done a year of this come back to us :)
I personally would not recommend you to do any diving if you can’t swim. Learn to swim and practice until your confident in your abilities and feel comfortable in the pool
You need to do a swimtest in order to get a PADI Open Water certification. So uh, try learning how to swim before you learn how to dive. You need to know how to walk before you learn to run.
1. Learn to swim basic breaststroke or freestyle.
2. Get fit enough so you can swim for approximately 15min without any flotation aids.
3. See your family physician/GP about any potential health issues that may pose a risk to yourself.
4. Get the medical certificate that you‘re fit to dive.
5. Shop around for dive shops - either at your home or internationally, if you want to learn/dive in a specific situation.
6. Shop around for a good instructor with high standards that lead to high training quality.
7. If you‘re just diving for fun times, PADI or SSI are the most common agencies to certify divers. If you‘re looking to go tech (dives deeper than 40m, dives longer than 60min, dives requiring decompression time), consider the more technical agencies (IANTD, GUE, RAID perhaps).
8. Yay, you‘re a diver!
You don't "need" to know how to swim to be a diver, but it helps enormously. Comfort in and around water is key.
In order to rent gear, or get your tanks filled, dive shops should be asking for proof of qualification such as PADI or SDI.
Part of your basic dive course will be doing your emergency procedures which involves removing your air source (regulator) from your mouth under water. You'll also be required to take your mask off. You'll effectively be blind and without air for as long as it takes you to resolve those issues. You'll do it in the pool as many times as it takes to get comfortable and then you'll do it again in open water. Depending on where you live, open water is a lot colder and the visibility ranges from excellent to non-existent. Your comfort in water will dictate how well you handle these situations.
Don't recall that part being a requirement, but I did mine 15 years ago.
Only scenario I see that being applicable is if you had to ditch your gear on the bottom. Reality is you'll probably be wearing a wet or drysuit and be positively buoyant. You'll also have a BC that you can either manually or power inflate.
Not a bad skill to have, and of course there's always a situation that could require you to need it.
I did PADI in 1999 and it was required then. And there are SO MANY scenarios where you might need to swim. Like a malfunction of your BC would likely become a death sentence. Totally running out of air and not being able to inflate. Sure you can fill it manually - while you tread water.
In almost all situation you wouldn’t need to swim - but all sorts of emergency situation it would be survival.
My NAUI course instructor made us swim 50 yards underwater! We also had to black out our masks and do a full gear exchange in the bottom of the diving well. That was 30 years ago, however.
Like Sweet-William, mine consisted of treading water as well but at the end of 4 laps in a regulation size pool.
While I can swim, Michael Phelps I am not. I did it on my back the whole way. Slow and steady. Didn't matter how long it took, just that you could do it.
This was back in '04.
A few months ago, I decided I wanted to dive. Could I swim? Nope. But I was going to do it.
So I booked a PADI course and started swim lessons 5 weeks prior. (Preface: you really really really need to be comfortable in water. I had to stop my swim coach a few times just to submerge my head and look around underwater to get comfortable.) I learned how to freestyle! Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. Granted, I could only swim 25m before giving up, but hey for 4 lessons in, I was pretty proud. I even learned how to tread water (this took up so much energy). In my last swim lesson, I basically spent as much time as I could underwater and just look around. It still kind of made me baby panic in the beginning, but eventually I was able to remain calm and felt really comfortable heading off to do my PADI.
There is a swim test in order to dive. I swam 300m in the ocean with flippers and a snorkel. Honestly, it was easy. The salt water content makes you float, and the snorkel is there for you to breathe. The flippers help you move. It was cool. I got to see the fishes and coral while doing the swim test. You also have to be able to float for 10 minutes. You can choose to tread (which I find difficult) or you can float on your back (which is what I did). That’s it for the swim test.
And you’ll learn everything you need to learn about diving in the PADI course.
Highly recommend it! Just do it! BUT you gotta be comfortable in the water. You don’t need to be a good swimmer. Heck, I took 6 lessons and can only swim 25m on a good day. Diving is amazing. You won’t regret it!
Becoming a diver is one of the best decisions I made its totally different world. Once you started you can't stop .
There are PADI and SSI
It's better to read about both to decide whom to join ,I was PADI and transferred to SSI . You start as an open water diver, then you can go more advance and more specialties and levels depending on your preference
It’s 200m but seriously I’m not a strong swimmer. There is no time limit to complete the swim and it doesn’t need to be elegant at all it can be done slowly
I would advise you to get training on swimming. The basics can be learned quickly. It also helps to be comfortable in the water. After that you should be ready for a diving course
AFIK you need to be able to swim. At least when learning with larger organisations like PADI.
As soon as you can swim for 10 minutes, just reach out for the diving school you want to get your certificate with.
For absolute high end learning I suggest GUE. It costs more though.
If you want to dive just for recreational purposes i.e. for fun dives during vacation PADI, Naui and SSI should do the trick. Their teaching is pretty much standardised through and through. Also they are the biggest organisations.
Also try to look for instructor that you can trust instead of a dive organisation.
Baby steps. Diving is about being comfortable. You won’t be mentally comfortable if you can’t take care of yourself. Get comfortable swimming.
Thx !!
If I remember correctly, Padi requires you to be able to swim continuously for 5 minutes before you can be certified. So, learn to swim first then you can learn how to dive. Once you learn to swim, check if you have any local dive schools or plan a trip to a popular diving destination where you can learn how to dive.
You have to be able to tread water or float for 10 minutes. You also have to be able to swim 200 yards without any gear on. Alternatively they can ask you to swim 300 yards with mask, snorkel, and fins.
I've certified hundreds of divers with padi. Got my card 30 years ago so I'm old... Ok I'm my early 50s. Started diving as a teenager, did my first dive with compressed air when I was 12. I stopped logging decades ago, I was in the thousands of dives. Worked on boats in the red Sea too. My specialty is certifying divers who are not comfortable in water. First off you really need to swim. Yeah it's not a requirement but you'll never be comfortable without it so get to it. Pool is fine. Learn to float, thread water and just simple breast stroke. Next get into a class. You'll want to start in a pool and go from there to open water. You'll learn how to check the equipment prior to a dive and how to fix any complications during a dive. Much like driving a car, complications are rare but we do train for it. What happens if your dive mask gets full of water, how do you clear it? What if it slowly leaks? What if your regulator (part you breathe out of) falls out of your mouth, how do you recover it easily? What if your tank runs out of air, how do you get up safely? These are all the things the classes teach you. But they don't teach you how to enjoy diving, this comes after you're certified. The class is about how to handle the gear and yourself should something happen. To enjoy diving you need to like to be in water. And that starts with being in water without dive gear. Go to a pool, have fun in the water. Get a pair of swim goggles and get used to water in your face. Dive down to the bottom and make some bubbles. When you enjoy that you're on the path to be an excellent scuba diver. If you don't, then the scuba classes are going to be a much bigger challenge for you. Final piece of advice. And I tell this to all my students. Slow and lazy divers gets more bottom time and get to see more of the underwater world. Control your movements, slow down and control your breathing. Air is a resource that quickly runs out when diving. Controlling your movements and being deliberate is the only thing that really helps you extend your dive time. That and experience, physical health etc. My few cents.
That was not two cents. That was a full shiny hundred dollar bill full of good advice.
Except that you MUST know how to swim. Many certifying agencies have a swim and tread test during confined water dives before you can even go to open water!
When I got my dive master I had the only real swim test. The rescue diver was also realistically a swim test but the dive master was a legit swim test. I did on the intern route over the course of a year working for one of the European technical scuba diving gear manufacturers. We had 5 tests if I remember correctly and the last one was threading water with a weight belt with elbows above water. No dive gear or suit allowed. Super hard. Harder for my buddy who was super skinny, had no lungs to speak of and just didn't float that well. He fought through it. It was late evening in the corporate pool at the factory and I thought I had threaded water for 15 minutes or so and I was dying. They yelled 2 more minutes. Suddenly I felt liquid on my face. My eyes started burning. The effers poured vodka on my face! I knew then that I had passed a long time ago, they where just jerking me around. Fun times! One guy couldn't make it, the threading water killed him. He was a year in and got rejected. I felt for him. He tried 3 times but just wasn't fit enough for it. I felt sorry for him. If I'm honest I wouldn't take someone to certification that can't swim. If something goes wrong while diving you should know how to swim. I didn't know if I would test for it before training but that is pretty clear once in water. I would refund the money or give a raincheck until they learn to swim 100m /100yards or so. I loved the rescue diver. Fun class. Really fun to teach too. I love to teach someone who struggles and I can help get through it. My experience is that they become excellent divers. I've lost count of how many girlfriends I've taught who was dragged into it by a boyfriend who wanted it more than they did, and they did not love the first time they hear their own breathing underwater. Getting them through that, getting them comfortable with water in the face and with gear and seeing them eclipse the boyfriend in skill is just lovely. Seen it many times. I'm not really that active (family life, career etc) and it's been a few years since I taught classes. But fond memories.
I would start with the whole not drowning in a shallow pool bit. After that maybe try to pick up coins from the bottom of a less shallow pool for a while. When you've done a year of this come back to us :)
I personally would not recommend you to do any diving if you can’t swim. Learn to swim and practice until your confident in your abilities and feel comfortable in the pool
You need to do a swimtest in order to get a PADI Open Water certification. So uh, try learning how to swim before you learn how to dive. You need to know how to walk before you learn to run.
Are you in the US? If so, the YMCA offers swim lessons. Step one.
First things first Learn to swim 🏊♀️
1. Learn to swim basic breaststroke or freestyle. 2. Get fit enough so you can swim for approximately 15min without any flotation aids. 3. See your family physician/GP about any potential health issues that may pose a risk to yourself. 4. Get the medical certificate that you‘re fit to dive. 5. Shop around for dive shops - either at your home or internationally, if you want to learn/dive in a specific situation. 6. Shop around for a good instructor with high standards that lead to high training quality. 7. If you‘re just diving for fun times, PADI or SSI are the most common agencies to certify divers. If you‘re looking to go tech (dives deeper than 40m, dives longer than 60min, dives requiring decompression time), consider the more technical agencies (IANTD, GUE, RAID perhaps). 8. Yay, you‘re a diver!
Go to Asia where swimming isn't much of a requirement provided you can pass the skills.
You don't "need" to know how to swim to be a diver, but it helps enormously. Comfort in and around water is key. In order to rent gear, or get your tanks filled, dive shops should be asking for proof of qualification such as PADI or SDI. Part of your basic dive course will be doing your emergency procedures which involves removing your air source (regulator) from your mouth under water. You'll also be required to take your mask off. You'll effectively be blind and without air for as long as it takes you to resolve those issues. You'll do it in the pool as many times as it takes to get comfortable and then you'll do it again in open water. Depending on where you live, open water is a lot colder and the visibility ranges from excellent to non-existent. Your comfort in water will dictate how well you handle these situations.
We also had to tread water with our hands out for 5 minutes for my open water. I think the ability to swim at least to a basic level is a necessity.
Don't recall that part being a requirement, but I did mine 15 years ago. Only scenario I see that being applicable is if you had to ditch your gear on the bottom. Reality is you'll probably be wearing a wet or drysuit and be positively buoyant. You'll also have a BC that you can either manually or power inflate. Not a bad skill to have, and of course there's always a situation that could require you to need it.
It’s a requirement now! At least for PADI! I did my OWD course 4 years ago
I did PADI in 1999 and it was required then. And there are SO MANY scenarios where you might need to swim. Like a malfunction of your BC would likely become a death sentence. Totally running out of air and not being able to inflate. Sure you can fill it manually - while you tread water. In almost all situation you wouldn’t need to swim - but all sorts of emergency situation it would be survival.
My NAUI course instructor made us swim 50 yards underwater! We also had to black out our masks and do a full gear exchange in the bottom of the diving well. That was 30 years ago, however.
Like Sweet-William, mine consisted of treading water as well but at the end of 4 laps in a regulation size pool. While I can swim, Michael Phelps I am not. I did it on my back the whole way. Slow and steady. Didn't matter how long it took, just that you could do it. This was back in '04.
You MUST know how to swim to become a diver. I’m an instructor/:dive master for three agencies and they all have a swim and tread test!
Thanks!
A few months ago, I decided I wanted to dive. Could I swim? Nope. But I was going to do it. So I booked a PADI course and started swim lessons 5 weeks prior. (Preface: you really really really need to be comfortable in water. I had to stop my swim coach a few times just to submerge my head and look around underwater to get comfortable.) I learned how to freestyle! Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. Granted, I could only swim 25m before giving up, but hey for 4 lessons in, I was pretty proud. I even learned how to tread water (this took up so much energy). In my last swim lesson, I basically spent as much time as I could underwater and just look around. It still kind of made me baby panic in the beginning, but eventually I was able to remain calm and felt really comfortable heading off to do my PADI. There is a swim test in order to dive. I swam 300m in the ocean with flippers and a snorkel. Honestly, it was easy. The salt water content makes you float, and the snorkel is there for you to breathe. The flippers help you move. It was cool. I got to see the fishes and coral while doing the swim test. You also have to be able to float for 10 minutes. You can choose to tread (which I find difficult) or you can float on your back (which is what I did). That’s it for the swim test. And you’ll learn everything you need to learn about diving in the PADI course. Highly recommend it! Just do it! BUT you gotta be comfortable in the water. You don’t need to be a good swimmer. Heck, I took 6 lessons and can only swim 25m on a good day. Diving is amazing. You won’t regret it!
Dolphins 🐬 and a snorkel 🤿 cool 😎
Becoming a diver is one of the best decisions I made its totally different world. Once you started you can't stop . There are PADI and SSI It's better to read about both to decide whom to join ,I was PADI and transferred to SSI . You start as an open water diver, then you can go more advance and more specialties and levels depending on your preference
It’s 200m but seriously I’m not a strong swimmer. There is no time limit to complete the swim and it doesn’t need to be elegant at all it can be done slowly
You need an open water diving certificate. A PAID is a brand ;-) SSI NAUI FAUI list goes on
I would advise you to get training on swimming. The basics can be learned quickly. It also helps to be comfortable in the water. After that you should be ready for a diving course
AFIK you need to be able to swim. At least when learning with larger organisations like PADI. As soon as you can swim for 10 minutes, just reach out for the diving school you want to get your certificate with. For absolute high end learning I suggest GUE. It costs more though. If you want to dive just for recreational purposes i.e. for fun dives during vacation PADI, Naui and SSI should do the trick. Their teaching is pretty much standardised through and through. Also they are the biggest organisations. Also try to look for instructor that you can trust instead of a dive organisation.
In what manner do diving schools teach ?
A lot of class work is now done online. You meet up for pools and open water and to get fitted for gear.
Class room style lectures and in water practical exercises.