My name is Olivia and I am an 11-year old scuba diver! I first started diving when I was 8 years old, doing aa PADI Seal certification with Estepona Dive Centre in Spain. When I was 10, I proceeded to get my junior Open Water PADI certification.
I absolutely love diving. It is technically challenging, it allows me to better understand the marine environment and it is just plain fun.
I decided to start this website to encourage more young people to start diving! Very few under-18s know that they can start diving and even achieve PADI certifications. It is such a different and amazing experience, that I hope more people my age will try it!
About the road to my Junior PADI Open Water certification
A couple of years ago, when I was only eight years old, I completed a PADI course called Bubblemaker. This is the first qualification you can get as a young scuba diver. I had planned to add on to this several separate qualifications (such as Underwater Photography) but because of the pandemic, I basically lost two years. By the time I was ready to get into scuba gear again, I was already old enough to complete the Open Water course, which is what I did!
When I started the course, I have to admit, I was probably not quite prepared for the amount of theory I had to study. These days all the theory is online. Basically your dive school will sign you up with PADI online, and you get access to all the study material.
The theory course is split into several sections, each again consisting of smaller parts – each with a text and often one or more videos to help illustrate the material.
At the end of each section there is a test. These are really just mock-tests and you can repeat them if you miss some questions. The real test comes at the very end. I was quite nervous, as the amount of material I had to go through seemed massive. At the end, luckily I passed the theory and was finally ready to progress to the water. All in all I spend four days studying.
My first few dives were called “closed water dives”, which basically mean in a pool. We did some general practice there, including essential things like emptying your mask of water, or recovering a lost regulator (it’s the thing you breathe from, so it is quite important!)
On day two, after another closed water dive, I was ready for my first Open Water Dive. Some do these dives from boats, but we did a shore dive in a quite rocky area. It was such a spectacular experience, but I’m afraid I only remember half of it!
This dive was followed by two more Open Water Dives on day three. Each dive consisted of exercises essential to being a safe diver, but also gave a chance to studying local marine life.
Having passed all the practical tests, at the end of day three, my instructor signed me off and granted me a PADI Open Water certification with a maximum dive limit of 12m. You can order a proper certificate from the PADI website, which took a couple of weeks to arrive. Now I can’t wait to add additional on certifications!
Right here is the perfect blog for any young person who really wants to understand scuba diving. Great stuff, just wonderful!