Seeing as we teach our scuba courses both locally and abroad, we get this question a lot. And it’s also something people don’t always get right.
The vast majority of new divers get certified on vacation. I’m not sure if that’s because they do it out of impulse or because they planned it that way, but that’s typically how it happens. While I do have a preference, as well as a recommendation, I definitely see advantages with both approaches that I’ll list below. There isn’t a right or wrong way to go here, which is why at Blue Pulse we do both.
Learning to dive on vacation#
The appeal is not hard to understand here, is it? You’re somewhere in the Mediterranean (say Greece… we love Greece) or the Caribbean and you walk by a dive center. You think that would be cool, walk in, have a Discover session, and you’re hooked. Next thing you know, you’re starting your Open Water tomorrow.
Whether it happens like that or with a bit more planning, it’s nice to learn to scuba dive when you’re already on vacation. You have a fun activity to do in the morning, and you can still relax and sightsee in the afternoons.
The main advantages of learning to dive on vacation are:
- Your training days will likely be consecutive, reducing the risk of losing track of where you were in the previous session
- You get to actually do nice dives while also learning
- The weather’s nice and the water is probably warm, or at least warmer than back home
You finish your vacation with a nice new certification card, so what’s not to love?
Learning to dive in Romania (or locally in general)#
Let’s now look at it from the other end. You’ve heard about diving. Maybe you have a friend who won’t stop talking about it (we kinda do that a lot, sorry), and you’re thinking about signing up for a course. You start doing your research, tracking down an instructor you’d like to work with, and start planning.
That sounds a bit less exciting, right? It does, but it comes with a number of advantages as well:
You’ll actually remember something from your vacation dives#
Do you have a driver’s license? If so, how much do you remember about the scenery you were driving through while learning to drive? Chances are you don’t, because you were so focused on the act of driving. It’s somewhat similar with diving — your first dives, certainly your training dives, will have you so focused on learning how to dive that you won’t really be enjoying anything else around you. It’s a bit of a bummer spending all that money and vacation time to be somewhere nice that you won’t really see because you’re just learning how to clear your mask.
Time to do proper research#
You have time to do your research and choose an instructor you like and are on the same wavelength with. That doesn’t mean “resort instructors” are necessarily bad, but walk-ins generally don’t get to choose their instructor — you get whoever’s available. And it’s not just about the instructor. Choosing to learn locally means you get to research the facility (for instance, their stance on protecting the environment if that’s something you care about) and much more.
But really, if I had to emphasize one thing, it would be choosing the right instructor. In my experience, that makes the difference between something you did once and was kinda meh, or something you’ll get to enjoy for a lifetime. But I think choosing an instructor is worth a dedicated blog post, so I’ll leave it at that.
More time to train and less pressure#
Your training may span over a longer period of time (you’ll probably learn during evenings and weekends), but there won’t be any time pressure, as you don’t have a clearly set departure date. This allows time for more in-depth learning and practice.
It will also remove the pressure that’s bound to appear when you’re struggling with that one skill (yes, it’s almost always mask clearing) and you know your plane leaves in two days. When you’re learning locally, things are easier — you can’t get something just right today? Not a problem. You work on something else and return to it next time with a fresh perspective.
Challenging conditions while learning make better divers#
We used to have a saying in Romania: if you learn how to drive an old Dacia, you can drive anything. The same thing applies to learning to dive in Romania. It’s not the easiest thing in the world: visibility is not always great (it mostly isn’t), it can get choppy, and there’s almost always a thermocline that can drop the water temperature by up to 10 degrees Celsius.
It sounds a bit complicated, right? I know. But what if you encounter that while on vacation, without your instructor there to assist you? Having faced that in a training environment makes you much better prepared.
You’re automatically part of a community#
When you learn on vacation, you’re probably going to be one of up to eight people in your class. But those are people you’re probably never going to see again, and odds are so is your instructor. When you learn locally, however, you know your instructor will be there one week, one month, and probably one year after you’ve finished your training. You have them as a long-term mentor (if they’re worth their rating), and you can continue with more advanced training with the same instructor.
And it’s not only the instructor. You will meet other like-minded divers who live around you — people you can learn from and continue diving with after you’re certified. They literally speak the same language and have at least one common interest with you. I can honestly say most new people I meet, I meet in local diving settings, not at conferences or networking events. Yes, that means I also have a day job — you can read about that here.
So what’s our recommendation?#
Learn locally, in our case in Romania. It’s not self-serving, as we regularly teach abroad too. But learning in colder water and lower visibility simply makes you better prepared to deal with the unavoidable.
As you progress in your diving career, you will hear a lot of talk about task loading. There’s a lot to be said here, but at a very basic level, we try to control the amount of “new stuff” you are exposed to at once. Depending on your experience and comfort, excessive task loading can be anything from deploying an SMB in open water (which we teach and get you comfortable with in the Open Water course, of course), to losing your line in zero visibility deep inside a wreck. The key is to start off comfortable.
Imagine this: you’ve learned to dive in the crystal-clear, warm waters of the Red Sea, because you only want to do that kind of diving. No cold, bad visibility for you. Fair enough. Now you’re on vacation in Greece and you’d kind of like to go diving, since the hotel has a dive center right on the beach. You figure the Mediterranean has very good visibility anyway and go for it.
But now you’re in a 5mm wetsuit you’ve never worn before, with different buoyancy, and you struggle to descend for the first 2–3 meters. Then you hit 15m and, surprise, there’s a thermocline and the temperature drops about 6 degrees Celsius. Now you’re using unfamiliar equipment that you’re having trouble with, and you’re almost shivering because of the cold. Something that would otherwise be a minor inconvenience (say, a malfunctioning second stage) can already cause an accident at this stage because of too much task loading.
That’s why I prefer people getting used to sub-optimal conditions with a trained professional (yours truly, in our case) when they’re just starting out. You gain experience and comfort underwater, and that can prove critical under the right conditions.
Where do we teach diving?#
While we at Blue Pulse prefer teaching locally for all the reasons above, realistically Romania is not a year-round diving destination, at least not when you’re just starting out. There are also things we just don’t have — for instance, the depths required for a full trimix course within easy reach.
That’s why in some cases we start pool training in Romania (normally at the Otopeni Water Sports Complex) and then finalize the open water portions of our courses somewhere warm — usually in Egypt or Cyprus. That sometimes gives us the best of both worlds.
Check out our training locations if you’d like to learn more about that. And if you’re ready to take the plunge or just have some more questions, please reach out. Here you can schedule a free, no-strings-attached conversation, either live or via video call.
For those of you fortunate enough to live in tropical holiday destinations — well, you get the best of both worlds, and we’re a bit jealous.