Learning to Dive - Thailand or UK

Kaise

Going to thailand in july/august and want to do some diving while i am there, do i learn while i am there or find a place in the UK to learn to maximize diving out there?

If anyone has learnt in thailand can the recommend and diving company


ta

cooldad

I would do at least Open Water, but better to do Advanced which will get you some dives under your belt and some confidence. There are little techniques, like using your breathing to change depth rather than your BC that take a few dives to get right, and it's much more fun when you can concentrate on the actual dive rather than how to do it.
Long, long time since I was in Thailand so I can't recommend anyone there, but a lot of resort courses are rubbish - get you into the water with some basics, but they are often just enough to cover their asses if you drown. Different if you go to a proper dive school.
Have fun, it's awesome.

bartimaeus

You may as well start learning in the UK as some of the early training can be done in a pool, and once you've that under your belt you will have some confidence.

Completing Open Water, or better still Advanced (or equivalent) in the UK is a good move as UK conditions are typically 'more challenging' with lower viz, colder water, and more 'task loading' as you have more kit (esp, if you use a drysuit)... so in my opinion you are likely to learn better safety skills in the UK. You will also learn to look for stuff as you rarely get schools of fish parading for you!



Learning to dive in warm, clear water is more user-friendly, but you can develop poor habits if your instructor doesn't hammer the lessons home - it just doesn't feel as deep or as dangerous when the water is warm and clear, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

That said, a decent instructor will see you right, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it either way.

Too old for this

My stepson is the senior instructor at Fathom and Blues in Weymouth, If its not too far give them a shout very thorough and very proffessional. HTH. 8)

delcol

our kids mate trevor is dive master and lives in thailand,, i will have to ask our kid if he still teaches and were about he is.

bails87

I did my open water in October 2010 on Koh Tao. With Seashell, plenty of English speaking instructors, it's right in the middle of Hat Sairee, which was the slightly quieter bit of the island, but still only a 10 minute walk to the main 'town'. The BBQ kebabs they cook on the beach are delicious!

The course was fine, but it's the only one I've done, so I've got nothing to compare it to! We were in a group of four, but due to other people forgetting or cancelling I ended up 1:1 with the instructor on my first sea dive which was handy.

BTW, if you go to Koh Tao, get the Lomprayah catamaran ferry, don't bother with the cheaper one, it's awful.