Do you think it’s just waste of time and money when you can just sneak in and dive the way you want?

Short answer to your questions:

No, you don’t necessarily need a certification to go diving (but it’s useful to have).

A basic entry-level scuba course takes 25-30 hours’ tuition to complete. Certification cost is variable, depending on location and what’s included — but usually somewhere in the US$250-500 range.

No, it’s not a waste of time and money — how much is your life worth to you?

Longer answer:

Scuba gear is life support equipment for exploring an alien world, where mistakes can be fatal — and sometimes are, even for highly qualified and experienced divers. If you don’t have the first clue what diving does to your body, or how to assemble and use the gear correctly, or how to plan dives safely, scuba diving can injure or kill you in many… interesting… ways, even in very shallow water. A scuba certification shows that you have learned at least the basics of scuba diving.

It’s true that, wherever you go in the world, you will nearly always be able to go scuba diving without being certified BUT you will only be allowed to dive with an instructor/guide, AND you will be restricted to the shallowest, most boring sites (so you can’t do too much damage), AND the guide will stick to you like glue to make sure that you don’t do anything stupid.

Without a dive certification, no dive shops will be willing to offer you anything more adventurous than this, never mind supplying you with the means to go scuba diving on your own. There is not a single dive shop in the world where you would be able to "just sneak in and dive the way you want" (where on earth did you get this idea?).

Even if you somehow managed to acquire a full set of scuba gear, you’d still need to get your tanks filled. So you’d also need to buy and maintain your own compressor. And frankly, if you can afford to do that, you can certainly afford to pay for an entry-level scuba course. Doing a basic scuba course costs relatively little, and the certification lasts a lifetime, which is likely to be a lot closer to your natural span than it would be if you try to go diving on your own without knowing what you’re doing.

Duration : 0:3:33

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Duration : 0:7:10

Technorati Tags: baguio, batangas, dive, feeding fish, kayaking, manila, mountains, philippines, pinkandblueish, pinoy, Scuba Diving, swimming, travel video, travelling, underwater camera, vlog

http://www.nemo-divers.si/english/

Dive in rivers and crystal lakes and wiggle into holes for cave diving

http://www.sloveniaholidays.org/slovenia-holidays/slovenia-caves/cave-dive-cave-dive-in-slovenia

Speak in English and get replies in English in almost all of Slovenia.
Just as well too.
Here is the Slovenian Diving Federation

http://www.spz.si/portal/

Parasail on the beautiful blue or green or just grey and sometimes black when there’s no Moon at night but sparkling silver and all romantic and lovely when there’s a big Moon up but half Moons are OK too on the Adriatic Sea. Parasailing that was in case you forgot.

http://www.localyte.com/activity.php?st[]=1061&subTabID=subTabActivities

Paraglide in the Soca valley with the lovely Julian Alps all around

http://xtc-paragliding.com/

Climb the beautiful Julian Alps under a clear blue sky or another one sometimes cos you can’t have Paradise every single day even in Slovenia but you get lots of it most times cos you’ll still be in Slovenia and it’s magic in Slovenia

http://www.thetravelpuzzle.com/news/2011/12/slovenia-climbing/

Walk easy trails or harder ones or run them if you like if you get enough porridge for breakfast

http://www.slovenianretreats.com/sloveniawalking.php

Explore the spectacular caves of the Karst Region
( the region that gaves us the term karstic geology)

http://www.slovenia.info/?kraska_jama=450

Take zillions of pictures of trees and plants and flowers and animals and birds and rocks and mountains and lovely people and smiling goats and greengrocer shops and the old shopping streets in beautiful Ljubliana and the castles and the triple briddge and wonderful cakes and …and… it’s magic in Slovenia.
And it’s got a mountain on the national flag….yipppeeeee
I love mountains
It’s Triglav….the triple peak.
And it’s not very expensive in Slovenia either. In fact, it’s qute reasonable.
Three for Slovenia on the link and see Ike besi…she’s in the travel business. Old answer but Slovenia is even better now. It just had it’s 20th anniversary.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ag0EvJ84fRfw.oD5nrFzrS0hBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20081130030454AAWVR6Z&show=7

http://www.slovenia.info/

PUERTO VALLARTA DIVEMASTER INTERNSHIP
Ever thought of scuba diving as a career?  You can with PV Sea Dive. We offer an all inclusive divemaster internship.  Whether you have no scuba diving certification or are highly experienced, we have a package to suit you.  All of the divemaster packages include 5 specialities, so after your pro dive training, you will have additional qualifications over and above the standard divemaster course.  Our instructors have extensive experience in teaching divemasters as they previously worked at a career development center (CDC). Take a look at what we have to offer on our divemaster internship pages.
PUERTO VALLARTA SNORKELING
Snorkeling in Mexico around the islands off the coast of Puerto Vallarta offers a great day out for the family. There is a vast amount of tropical fish and coral for you to be amazed at.
PUERTO VALLARTA WHALE WATCHING
If you don’t fancy scuba diving or snorkeling then why not take a cruise around the coast of PV and search for the humpback whales. Banderas Bay here in Puerto Vallarta is where these beautiful creatures come to stay for the winter months, between December and March.

PUERTO VALLARTA SEA DIVE
PV Sea Dive is the newest dive shop in Puerto Vallarta. This means all of our scuba diving equipment is in fantastic condition and the service will be fresh and dynamic as we will go that extra mile to make your time with us memorable.
All scuba diving activities will be taken by either a Padi Staff Instructor or a Padi Master Instructor. We are a registered Padi dive resort, # 22262, so meet their safety requirements and teach to Padi standards.  This means worldwide recognition of your training and scuba certification. All of our instructors have worldwide experience, are trained to the highest standards and have a passion and knowledge for the ocean and the strange creatures that live in it. So, diving with them will be safe, informative and fun.

Duration : 0:5:53

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When you have just a week or 2 at the most for a vacation, why not make it a spectacular yet affordable one in the World’s center of marine bio-diversity and bio-density. And that’s just underwater, wait till you see the same bio-diversty and culture on land!

Significantly exceeding even the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines has 6 time more fish species and 10 times more hard and soft coral varieties than the Caribbean, earning the Philippines the slogan; The Mount Everest of macro critter photography”.

We call the Philippines “Macro without the Muck™” although the Philippines boasts regions where large pelagic encounters like whale sharks and thresher sharks are all but guaranteed.

Eco, dive and tourist travel is not only far safer in any Philippines destination than any major U.S. city, but it is also far less expensive than the Caribbean too.

The Philippines is the 3rd largest English speaking Country with 7,107 Islands to choose from, and has a great road, air and fast ferry infrastructure and a huge Internet social and scuba community. Because of that, the Philippines is really easy find out about and network with locals online, and really easy and inexpensive to travel to and explore.

Duration : 0:16:29

Technorati Tags: HD video Bohol resorts, HD video Danao Adventure Park, HD video Danao Sui-slide, HD video Danao Zipline, HD video scuba diving, HD video scuba diving at Bohol, HD video scuba diving on Bohol

The PADI Open Water Diver course (which is a fairly typical ‘entry-level’ scuba certification) requires approx. 25-30 hours of tuition, split into approx. 6-8 hours’ diving theory (including a multi-choice exam) which can mostly be completed online, 6-8 hours’ practical (pool) training, and 8-10 hours to complete all 4 qualifying open-water dives.

It is very common for people to learn to scuba dive while on vacation, but you would need to commit 3-4 full days of vacation time to the course (and you would need to be able to finish the course at least 24 hours before flying home, for safety reasons). Not everybody wants to do this.

If you wanted to get certified before April, you would have plenty of time to do so, provided that there is a dive centre in your local area which can schedule the course. However, if you live in one of the colder parts of North America, this would mean having to do your qualifying dives in Feb/March, probably in (very) cold water.

If you don’t fancy either of those ideas, a middle-ground option is the ‘referral’ course, where you do the pool & theory training in your hometown (again, only possible if there is a dive centre near you), and then do the 4 qualifying dives on vacation. This would require you to commit only 2 full days of your vacation to diving — but these would be spent diving in the sea, rather than sitting in a classroom. Any pool training would probably be restricted to a short (<1 hour) ‘refresher’ session prior to going for the open-water dives, if the receiving instructor feels it’s necessary.

Bear in mind that when resorts advertise ‘free scuba diving’, 9 times out of 10 they actually mean ‘free try-dives in the hotel pool’. This will be a 5-minute swim round the pool with a mask, fins (maybe), and a scuba unit, but will not qualify you to do anything after that.

The pool-dives will be run by the resort diving/ watersports centre in order to entice guests into paying for a proper ‘intro-dive’ in the sea (which also does not result in any kind of a diving qualification), or even a full (3-4 day) certification course (which does). Make sure you know exactly what you’re signing up for, and what you’ll get out of it, before you hand over any cash. Contact the dive centre directly, if you can.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to email me through Y!A

Duration : 0:7:4

Technorati Tags: destination, dive, diver, equipment, how its made, scuba, travel, Wreck

Thank you to the Tourism Board of Cook Islands http://www.cookislands.travel/USA for making this trip possible.

Thank you to Aqualung http://www.aqualung.com/ for providing all the travel dive gear for this trip.

Duration : 0:3:22

Technorati Tags: 'snorkeling, aitutaki, rarotonga, scuba diver girl, scuba diver girls, snorkel cook islands

Duration : 0:5:21

Technorati Tags: Cozumel, diving, Kintner, Maine, mexico, Olean