The Ocean Diver course teaches you all the skills you need to be a diver. At the end of the course you will be qualified to dive to a depth of 20m with a suitably qualified buddy. You will also be able to use Nitrox for safer diving.
The course covers the practical aspects of diving (how to get about with fins, how to float neutrally buoyant in the water, how to get safely to the surface in the unlikely event that something goes wrong with your equipment and so on) and the theory needed for diving (how to calculate safe limits of time and depth when you dive and what happens to your body when it is under pressure).
There are 6 sheltered water (swimming pool) practical lessons of about 1hour each, 7 theory lessons with a simple multple choice exam followed by 5 or 6 open water dives. If run full-time, the course would take a full week (6 days) to complete, however with our part time approach, you should expect to take 6 weeks or so to finish the pool and theory lessons and a couple of weekends after that to do the open water training.
The scheme involves continual assessment. Once all the dives are complete you are a fully fledged Ocean Diver and can dive on regular club trips or even take your new qualification on holiday anywhere in the world.
Of course, like any subject, once you start learning you never really stop and the club offers increasing levels of qualification to those who want to improve their diving and meet new challenges. See the Advanced Training section for details.