Non-swimmer

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

My suggested training progression is as follows:
1) fundamental swim training
2) snorkeling/skin diving/free diving training and practice
3) OW Scuba
4) Maximum enjoyment :D
Note: Until number one is accomplished, your friend should be particularly careful around water that is over her head!
 
When my kids were young, the pool at the nearby park offered swim lessons. We told the kids they were going to learn.

My daughter objected. She didn't want to learn how to swim. We insisted. We didn't care if she ever spent time in the pool again, but she was going to have a basic knowledge of HOW to swim. We didn't care if the nearest ocean was 500 miles away, or if the local lakes were barely deep enough to wade in. In our opinion, knowing how to swim is an essential skill.

Now, at 26, she still has no interest in water sports or pools at all, but at least we know if some idjit thinks it's funny to push her in when she's walking by a pool, she'll have at least enough skills to get herself back to the side.

Whether you take your GF on a dive or not, I strongly encourage you to recommend she take basic swim lessons at the local Y, or other such place. Along with the others here, I think it's a bad idea all around for someone who isn't competent at swimming to try diving. There's just too much potential for disaster if something goes awry.

My wife and I are both excellent swimmers and comfortable in the water, and I still anticipate that first certification dive in a few months to be a bit stressful. I've talked to other divers and heard stories, so I know what the potential is for nerves to affect the reactions. I could not imagine adding the stress of being a non-swimmer to that mix.
 
Actually it does, see the "teaching in the EN area countries" file on the padi members website. Local laws override agency standards and in europe local law is it must be a swim (not snorkel) test and has to be completed before entering any open water.

From anything I have found, and from personal experience, all PADI requires is that you be at least 10, and have signed (or have had a parent sign) a brochure which does not mention the ability to swim, or a swim test, at all, and have consulted a physician about any medical questions to which you have answered "yes."

There is a difference between prerequisites for a course, and additional restrictions imposed by the local government. PADI doesn't require swimming for Discover Scuba. When it teaches the class in a place that does, however, it has to comply with all local laws - whether those local laws have to do with charging sales tax, having the proper number of fire exits from the classroom, or (as applicable here) customer screening.
 
Eventhough I strongly feel a person should be able to swim well before trying scuba..... I do understand that some resort gives "free" in pool scuba lesson. From what I've seen, the divers kneel in waist deep water and blow bubbles. This might interest your girl friend enough that she might take up swimming, so she can dive.

Theoretically, it would be hard to drown in such an environment.

But then, there is a resort course, where you blow bubbles in a pool, practice a few kick.... Then jump off a dive boat into 8 to 15 ft of water. There are real waves.... and real ocean water. I would not recommend such a "resort" course for your non-swimming girl friend.
 
Scoober Divin' ? All you have to do is sink.
 
Scoober Divin' ? All you have to do is sink.

so does that mean that for discover scuba, you just need to discover how to sink? :)
 
Unless there is some physical disability that prevents a person from swimming, anyone who takes a "friend" in the water without that person knowing how to swim must be the beneficiary on a life insurance policy or does not care very much for that person. I'd like to know what kind of instructor would permit a thinking process that would even contemplate such an action. Take a non swimmer underwater on scuba gear? Are standards so lax these days that this kind of stuff is even thought of. Hey I got a better idea. She does not even have to scuba or swim. In Mexico they have cliff diving. All she needs to do is be able to fall down, hell, she doesn't even have to be able to, a little push and gravity will do the rest. Darwin must be making lots of room. Either that or this is a troll post. I'm thinking the latter with the OP's background. He's just trying to get a rise out of us, good one dude!
 
so does that mean that for discover scuba, you just need to discover how to sink? :)

what happens after you've discovered how to sink? if there a discover floating class too? :dork2:package deal, PADI would make a ton of money off that
 

Back
Top Bottom