When I’m out and about evangelizing about scuba diving people often ask me “What do I need to do to get scuba certified?" This weekend at the Baltimore/DC Dive show I gave a presentation attempting to break down the basic steps in order to get scuba certified. learn2dive.divewithfrank.com

1. How Do I Learn To
Scuba Dive?
Frank Lewis
Baltimore/DC Dive Show 2018
DiveWithFrank.com

2. Who Is This Guy?
• Frank Lewis – The ”Frank” in DiveWithFrank.com
• Started diving in California in 2010

3. Who Is This Guy?
• PADI Master Scuba Diver
Trainer
• Emergency First
Response Instructor
• Divers Alert Network
Instructor
• Handicapped Scuba
Association Instructor
• Dive Operations
Coordinator
– Fifth District
Volunteer Fire Dept
Dive Team

4. What is SCUBA?
• Self
• Contained
• Underwater
• Breathing
• Apparatus
• Basically bringing your air with you to play
underwater

5. Discover Scuba Diving (DSD)
Experience
• What is it?
– Low Cost / Low Commitment
– Learn Some Basics
– Put On The Gear
– Breathe Underwater

6. Discover Scuba Diving (DSD)
Experience
• “Do I Enjoy The Feeling Of Breathing
Underwater?”
• This will help answer that question!
• DSD IS NOT a certification class!
– It’s more of a “gettin’ to know ya”
experience…

7. Scuba Certification Agencies
• There are many – waaaayy too many for a
single slide.

8. Scuba Certification Agencies
• It doesn’t really matter which agency you
go with…of course I have my preference 
• They ALL will teach you the basics and our
goal is the same.
• Teach you to be a competent, safe,
courteous diver!

9. Frequently Ask Questions
Q: Do I need to know how to swim?
A: YES!
While standards vary the common
requirements seem to include
– 200m swim / 10 minute tread

10. Frequently Ask Questions
Q: Do I have to buy a full set of gear?
A: NO! But you may have to buy some basics
(depending on the shop.)
Typically you should own a mask, snorkel,
and fins (possibly boots too) at a minimum.
All of the other stuff can usually be rented.

11. Frequently Ask Questions
Q: Why does it take “so long?”
A: You can be taught to dive in an afternoon,
but we teach you not just how to dive, but
how to recognize, prevent, and deal with
issues, problems, and emergencies.
Issue Problem Emergency
We want to teach you how to
break that chain

12. Tell Me About Class
Open Water (beginner) scuba certification
classes consist of three parts:
1. Classroom (5 modules)
2. Confined Water (5 dives)
3. Open Water (4 ocean, lagoon, quarry,
lake or some other body of water - dives)

13. Classroom

14. Classroom (5 modules)
You’ve a couple of options here
1 - eLearning : Do your studying online, at
your pace when you want to.
Pros: Convenience
Cons: Less face time with instructor
2- Classroom with instructor : Study your
physical book and review with instructor and
classmates in a more traditional setting.
Pros: Get your questions answered by
instructor in real time, go through class with
fellow students
Cons: Not quite as convenient

15. Inside The Classroom
Some of the things you’ll learn about:
– The importance of training
– Getting to know your gear
– What your body undergoes while diving
– What problems may arise while diving
– How to deal with those problems
– How to be a courteous diver
– How to care for the environment while
diving
– What other underwater adventures are
out there

16. Confined Water

17. Confined Water Skills (5 dives)
• Spend time in confined water (typically a
swimming pool) learning and practicing
the basic skills.
• Incremental introduction to basic and then
more advanced skills in the comfortable
environment of a pool.
• Skills are practiced until they are
repeatable and mastered at the Open
Water level.

18. Confined Water
• These are the
confined water
skills we cover in
the PADI Open
Water course.
• It may look
daunting, but we
eat that elephant
one bite at a
time!

19. Open Water

20. Open Water (4 dives)
• Once students have finished their
academics AND demonstrated mastery of
their skills in confined water, it’s time to
head to the REAL water to do our Open
Water checkout dives.
• These dives take place over at least 2 days.

21. Open Water (4 dives)
• No need for students to be nervous as
you’ve already done these skills in
confined water.
• It’s just to perform these in Open Water
and then have some fun touring and
starting to experience why they wanted to
become divers in the first place!

22. So How Do I Get Started?
• Contact your local dive
shop! This picture is of me
in my local dive shop! 
• Ask about the Discover
Scuba Diving experience.
• discoverscubaweek.divewithfrank.com
• learntodive.divewithfrank.com

23. Contact Frank
• DiveWithFrank.com
• frank@divewithfrank.com
• 201-66-SCUBA
• facebook.com/divewithfrank
• twitter.com/divewithfrank
• instagram.com/divewithfrank/
• linkedin.com/in/divewithfrank/