Diving for beginners in Philippines?

[PhatD1ver]

I've seen the "round the boat" thing a lot, especially there where students end up doing about 100m at absolute most when you work it out. It's a clear violation of training standards by the instructor. The whole point is they've got a standard metric to work off without guessing - a set distance. This covers them legally amongst other things.




It's bad planning completely to throw a student in for a swim that must be a specific distance without having any idea at all what distance they'll do.

And, at the end of the day, it's the instructor who was there to determine if I met the standard. As described by me, you might believe otherwise, as the guy in the water, and a strong swimmer all my life. I'll give the lean to the guy that's there.

 

[String]

Unless you had a boat about 80m long (do you dive of ferrys?) then i seriously doubt the instructor actually bothered with the training standards. As is common.
It's not a case of being a strong swimmer or not - the standard is there as a reason and isn't optional.

 

[tsuyoshi]

I agreed with others on trying out a discover scuba program or try to get certified first before hand.

I did my OW certification in El Nido with Palawan Divers in 2011. With a finite vacation time as a slow learner, I found myself rushed and struggling on the basics such as putting on a wet suit & equilization (we only had a class size of 2; myself & a buddy, DM & DM candidate).


At one point, we did not know if we were going to pass as I had a painful left ear & my buddy came down with a cold. We had a great DM who was in a bit of a rush but knowledgable & tough enough on us. He made me do the confined water CESA (controlled surface emergency ascend) twice. But it paid off, I made the CESA during open water.

If you do decide to go for it, don't let anyone rush you. Pay attention to all the details & equipment. Be prepared to be spoiled as it felt like Chrismas underwater every time we dove El Nido.