PADI Junior Open Water Diver

Details

Written by Eco Dive

The Junior Open Water Diver certification has exactly the same performance requirements as the PADI Open Water certification, but is awarded to children aged between 10 and 14 years old. This course is tailored to the 12 to 14 year old diver.

There are some limitations on 10 to 14 year old divers for safety purposes. 10-11 year olds must dive with a parent, guardian or PADI professional and are limited to 12m. 12-14 year olds must dive with a certified adult.

In Australia, Workplace Health and Safety place an additional requirement on Dive Centres - we can only train and certify 12 year olds.

We will be running a course just for the juniors during the Christmas holiday break. We will be keeping the ratios low for safety - a maximum of 4 students per instructor, with an additional staff member on hand to assist where needed. All the instructors involved are parents - two of them will have their own sons on the course.

We will be following the basic format of the Open Water Diver course, but adding in a few additional learning opportunities because of the students ages. Firstly there will be an information / orientation evening where we will go through the PADI "Youth Diving: Responsibility and Risks" presentation, sign all the paperwork, go over the course in detail, and get to know each other over a barbeque.

Instead of a 3 day course, we will be conducting the course over 4 days. This is to add an extra half day so we can thoroughly review what the kids have learned on the eLearning. This will be done through discussion, games, science experiments and a quiz.

Before the Course

You have a few things to do before you turn up and do the course:

• Get a dive medical. They are mandatory in Queensland, and have to be completed before you can get in the water. We can provide you with details on where to get a dive medical.
• Complete your eLearning. When you book on to our Open Water Course you will receive an eLearning access pass. This is PADI's start of the art online learning portal where you can complete your knowledge development from the comfort of your own home It will take 12 - 15 hours, so set aside enough time to get it done. Spread it out over a few weeks to prevent overload. When you are done, print the certificate and bring it with you.
• Get yourself in the right frame of mind to have some fun.

Day 1 - Skills Practice

Skills practice goes over the basic skills a diver needs to know and takes place at Southport pool. Firstly we test basic watermanship with a 200m swim and 10 minute tread water, so start practicing! Then we go through the basics of how to snorkel and skin dive. After that we kit up and start learning to Scuba dive. We start with simple tasks at first, building up to more complex skills. The first few lessons are in the shallow pool, then we move to the deeper dive pool, which gives more realistic diving conditions, especially when practicing buoyancy skills. The day starts at 9am and wraps up around 2pm.

Day 2 - River Dives

The third day of our course is at the Tweed River in NSW where we introduce new variables such as changes to visibility, mild current, fish and other attractions. We plan the river dive around the tide to get the best conditions, and typically it take 4-5 hours to complete the three dives.

Day 3 - Ocean Dives

We complete the course at Cook Island, just off shore from Fingal Head. The first ocean dive is the last dive required for certification, but we have added an extra dive so that the kids get more experience, more practice and more confidence. They will have 25% more diving experience than the industry standard, and because there are no skills to do on the last dive, they are able to explore and see what real diving is all about under the watchful eye of experienced instructors.

Your Involvement

All parents and guardians are welcome to attend any training session, after all learning to dive is a big event and one to be shared for the achievement and triumph. There may be limitations with space on the boat, but non-divers can usually be accommodated at a reduced price.

Price

The price for this is $499. This ensures we can keep the standards high and the ratios low.

Call us now on +61 7 5531 6277 to discuss the Junior Open Water Diver Course with one of our experienced Instructors.