About Diving and Courses

So you are thinking about coming to Egypt. If is your first time in Egypt I am sure you have a lot of questions and none to ask, but I will try my best to answer all the questions you never asked.

Egypt has always been a place for tourism and a lot of it, but somewhere along the road the form of tourism has changed. Before a lot of the tourism was aimed towards the pyramids, the valley of the kings and all those other places we heard all about on discovery channel at night. Now on the other hand a lot of the tourism has changed a lot and there are so much more to it. The tourists has moved from the capitol and has come to the beautiful coast along the red sea.

For many of you that are coming, you are here for the diving. So I will start with telling you a bit about diving in general and diving in Egypt. All people who want do dive have to get a license. You can not just go to a friend who is diving, borrow his gear and take of on your own. Diving is not dangerous, but if you have no idea what you are doing it can be so just as with driving a car you get some lessons and then after some careful studying you can take your test and get your license.

Introduction

So from the beginning you have two options, you can do an intro dive. With an intro dive the dive center where you will dive gives you some brief instructions on land then after in the shallow water. When the instructor find that you are ready they take you diving in shallow depth around 6-8 meters. The instructor will be controlling you firmly the whole time and you might say it a bit like in parachute jumping when they have tandem jumps.
The other option is the open water course.

Open Water

This is a course that makes you a diver at the end of this course you are even allowed to dive by your self without a guide in some countries. The open water course usually takes 3 days and it involves quite a bit of studying, but its not to hard and anyone can do it. So first you start with some theoretic lessons and after you take what you learned and use it on your dives. This is a course that will give you a license you will only be allowed to go to 18 meters. Also to tke this license you have to be over 18 years old, but if you have children over xx who wants to do this, they can get an junior license, this means that you have the license, but you are not allowed to dive without another diver that is over 18. The license will automatically go from junior open water to open water when you turn 18.

Advanced

When you finish your open water course and you want to do some more advanced diving you can take a advanced course this will give you a second license that will give you the possibility to go to 30 meters. It does not have as much studying as the open water and it only takes two days. The good thing about this course is that it is a lot of diving not that much study and you get some good diving.

Special Requirements

There are certain requirements to engage in a course that must people can pass. You have to sign a medical statement before you dive with some important aspects like; "Are you epileptic", "Are you pregnant" or "Do you have asthma". If you have any condition that applies it does not mean you can not dive, this only means that you have to see a doctor that is specialized in diving and you can find them in Dahab as well.

If you have a handicap of some kind you are most likely still able to dive even if you might not be able to complete a course. This is both depending on your handicap and the willpower to try something new. We have had people with no legs being able to dive and there are in general very little handicaps that makes you unable to dive.

For Instructors and DMs

OK I know a lot of you out there know this, so I will give some more information to you as well that you might find interesting. First of all in Egypt you will need a dive guide. This is not only for the average Joe anymore because now you need to have one even if you are an instructor or a dive master. You might think that I am stark raving mad and don't know what I am talking about, but I will inform you about the situation here in Egypt now.
To dive here you need to have a guide. If you want to guide your self you need to get a license from the CDWS organization. You can get this, but it will take you about two weeks. It cost you 60 Le (Egyptian Pounds) and you need to take an exam. You also need to have a insurance with liability insurance. From 2010 you need to have an Egyptian work permit to do this. This you can either do from you home country or here in Egypt, but it is a time consuming process and it cost a bit of money.

The Diving

The diving in Egypt is some of the best in the world. If you were diving in Thailand or in Europe you probably had days were you cursed the bad visibility and wonder why on earth you payed money to do this, but here in Egypt it is always good visibility. The life in the red sea is probably one of the things that attracts people to be diving in Egypt. You have a unique aquatic life that is in such a magnitude that you will be rendered speechless. There is also a good variation of dives here you can go to some of the best wrecks in the world or you can go tech diving to the deepest abyss if you have the proper training. Everywhere you look you will find different kind of corals and fish in all colors.