Take your first step in scuba diving with the PADI Open Water Course! No previous experience required. Get certified to dive to 18M anywhere worldwide. Theory, shallow skills + 4 proper dives exploring the coral reefs & amazing marine off Koh Tao.
Our course schedule is flexible and can be adapted to fit your travel plans. But usually the PADI Open Water course runs as follows:
Drop us an email to let us know which ferry you’ll be arriving with and send our taxi to meet you at the pier.
Then late afternoon / early evening (depending which ferry you arrive with), you’ll meet your instructor for an orientation to the PADI Open Water course. We’ll fill in some PADI paperwork and talk about what will be happening over the coming days.
The next morning we’ll cover some diving theory. We’ll watch some videos and review a few simple questions to make sure you understand. Content includes safe diving practices, scuba diving equipment, effects of pressure, the buddy system & more.
That afternoon we continue with a shallow, confined water scuba skills session.
Our beachfront resort has two custom built swimming pools (shallow and deep) specifically for scuba diving training. It’s the ideal environment to take your first underwater breaths, familiarize yourself with the scuba unit and gain confidence.
We’ll start in very shallow water and gradually proceed deeper. Your instructor will demonstrate skills which you will practice back, designed to get you comfortable using scuba gear. Scuba skills will include:
Next we’ll learn how to use PADI’s recreational dive planner to plan dives. This involves determining our depth and allowable bottom time to stay within safe diving limits.
We’ll then complete the scuba diving theory with a few short quizzes. (But don’t worry; minimum age for the PADI course is 10 years old, so you won’t find the quizzes too tricky!).
Now time for the best bit! Open water dives exploring the coral reefs and pinnacles off Koh Tao.
We’ll board Simple Life’s dive boat and head out to two shallow dive sites, where we’ll dives down to a maximum depth of 12M. During the dives we’ll reinforce what you learned during the shallow water session, plus have plenty time to explore the Koh Tao dive sites and check out all the amazing aquatic life. As we are maneuvering our way around you’ll learn to fine tune your buoyancy control.
Whilst it changes from course to course (depending on the conditions), typical dive sites we visit for open water dives 1&2 include Twins, White Rock, Aow Leuk or Nangyuan Pinnacle. Expect to see lots of amazing corals, tropical aquatic, moray eels, sting rays and maybe even a hawksbill turtle.
We’ll round off the scuba diving course with your final two open water dives.
This time we can visit deeper dive sites where we can explore to a maximum depth of 18M. We’ll further increase your confidence by repeating some of the shallow skills, plus make an exploration of the dive sites, enjoying the underwater topography and marine life.
Typical dive sites we visit during your final two dives include the Chumphon Pinnacles, Laem Thian, Hin Pee Wee, Shark Island or Green Rock. Around these pinnacles you see Koh Tao’s larger species such as giant grouper, trevally, barracuda and batfish.
That evening we can meet at Simple Life’s bar to fill out your PADI certification paperwork.
You'll then qualify as a PADI Open Water Diver, able to dive to 18M anywhere worldwide!
Address: 14/11 Moo 1 Koh Tao, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao, No State, 84280, Thailand
View directions