Learning to dive in Amed, Bali: my experiences of the PADI Open Water course
Whilst travelling through South-East Asia, Lou and I decided to learn to dive. Therefore, we headed to Amed, Bali, to do our PADI Open Water Diver certification.
After learning to dive, I figured I would share my experiences on this blog! That way, if anyone else is interested in learning to dive, whether in the UK, Bali or elsewhere in South-East Asia, hopefully the information in this blog will be useful when deciding if it’s worth it and where to go.
What is the PADI Open Water course?
PADI is the largest global diving organisation. Their Open Water Diver course is the entry level course in diving, which equips you to dive recreationally across the world.
The Open Water course takes 3 to 4 days, with around 4 confined water (aka pool) dives and 4 open water dives, plus classroom learning. After the course, you’re then qualified to dive up to 18 m with a dive buddy.
Diving in general is not a cheap hobby, so the Open Water course is pretty expensive. In the UK it’s common for the course to cost £400 to £600, and it’ll often be split into multiple components over weeks with extra costs for the open water dives.
By contrast, our dive course with Bali Reef Divers cost Rp 5,600,000 ($360 / £285) each. This included three nights’ accommodation in Kura Kura Divers Lodge, one of their bases in Amed, and an extra open water dive. Not half bad!
Why did we sign up for the PADI Open Water Certification?
Learning to dive had been on my bucket list for years. I’d been interested in learning ever since my first year of university, where I’d wanted to join the Scuba Diving Society but had been horrified by the cost of completing the PADI course.
Six years later, I had heard that the PADI Open Water course was a LOT cheaper if you completed it in South-East Asia. Not to mention, the places where people choose to learn, like Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand, are famous for their pristine developed coral reefs. If we learned in Bali, we wouldn’t just be practising in a quarry like we would be in UK; we’d actually be diving around coral reefs like we wanted to.
Therefore, signing up for a diving course during our travels through South-East Asia was a no-brainer. Lou and I were beginning our travels in Indonesia, so we signed up for the Open Water course in Bali.
The general consensus online seemed to be that Amed, a town in the north-east of the island, was the one of the best places to dive in Bali. We found a course on the PADI website with Bali Reef Divers, a dive centre based in Amed. We contacted them to sign up for a course in the third week of our trip.
Why did we do the PADI course, as opposed to another provider?
PADI isn’t the only organisation offering beginner dive courses. You can also take the Open Water Diver course with SSI, and, for those considering learning in the UK, the British Sub-Aqua Club offers its own certification.
I’ll be honest, we didn’t pick a PADI dive centre for any particular reason. We just wanted a certification that would allow us to dive later on in our travels, regardless of where we were!
Our dive course with Bali Reef Divers
I figured I would share my personal experience learning to dive in Amed with Bali Reef Divers. It was a super interesting experience and perhaps others considering to learn to dive in this area of Bali might find it useful; who knows?
Before the dive course
The day before the course began, we travelled to Amed and checked into our room at Kura Kura Divers Lodge. FYI, this was a super comfortable hotel and we really liked our stay here!
At around 5 pm, as we went through reception, we were stopped and asked to get sorted for the next day’s diving. At the time I thought the process was a little weird, but having dived at other places I now know this is just standard protocol.
We registered our details and signed the health declaration. This was a little bit scary as, as per standard diving contracts, you sign to say that, even if you die as a result of the dive centre, you’re unable to sue them. I can understand them removing responsibility, but I never like signing this form, as it always makes me anxious that they won’t take responsibility should something go very wrong!
The team gave us our kit for the next day, and we tried on our wetsuit and booties.
Day 1
Day 1 of the dive course began at 8:30 am, where we convened in the dive centre. We met our instructor, Yuki, as well as the others on our course – there were two others, one which had dived once before and one which had never dived, like us (phew!). They got registered, and then afterwards we got kitted up to head to the pool.
Straight away, Yuki had us in the pool, showing us the basics of diving. She demonstrated the use of the equipment and explained the most important rules of diving. Then we put the BCD on, tried out our regulator and went under for the first time!
That first minute beneath the surface of the pool was super weird. It was an odd sensation breathing through the regulator; the air that comes through it is very dry, and kind of cold, and it’s weird to feel air only when you actively breathe through your mouth.
However, I got used to it quickly and enjoyed it after that. Normally I always have some kind of problem with my mask when snorkelling, whether it’s a leak or them steaming up. The equipment when diving is more high-tech and Yuki showed us how to deal with common mask problems, so it felt much better. It was nicer to be in the water without a problem arising!
Our first open water dive
Once we left the pool after our first pool dive, we headed outside and got in a van with all our equipment. We headed down to the far east of Amed’s long beach, at Jemeluk. We suited up with help from the locals, then headed out into the water. It was nice as we could just wade out wearing our kit on the sand; our BCDs were inflated so we could swim out, then head underwater once the depth was more than a couple of metres.
We had a short dive out there, where we practised what we’d learnt in the pool and swam around some of the corals. We saw a puffer fish, nemo fishes and many shoals. Even though our technical ability was low, we saw a lot, and it was pretty fun!
The only problem was at this stage, my buoyancy control was nonexistent; I didn’t even know that the term meant. I kept rising! For subsequent dives Yuki gave me an extra kilo which fortunately kept me down.
Second dive of the day
After the dive, we rinsed off and had a cuppa next to the beach. We then stuck our equipment back on to go for a second dive slightly further along the beach; this was a site known as Pyramids, where there are artificial reefs next to a larger reef section. In this dive we didn’t do as much formal practising of our skills, but instead spent more time looking at the marine life. We even saw a turtle!
The second dive was a bit more exhausting than the last, in part because I still hadn’t got my buoyancy under control, and also because we swam a bit against the current towards the end.
We arrived back at Kura Kura around 1:45 pm. Yuki gave us all textbooks and links to YouTube theory lessons, and instructed us to go through the theory component of the Open Water Diver course this afternoon.
Theory learning
After the eventful morning, Lou and I prioritised lunch (good, I can confirm!). We started theory learning at 3:30 pm.
Now, the theory component in the Open Water Diver course is pretty long and thorough. I do not recommend trying to do it all in one afternoon as it does end up exhausting. Some sections are also, ironically, quite dry.
After our earlier morning dives, some of the information made sense. Other parts, on the other hand, seemed completely irrelevant. It was hard to cram this information into my brain when I couldn’t really understand why we were learning it. For example, learning about maintenance of the equipment seemed a bit useless when, knowing their costs, I doubted (and still do!) I’d ever buy them myself.
Studies took us pretty much all afternoon and evening, and we didn’t finish until 11 pm!
Day 2
Our second day of the dive course began at 8:30 am, at which time we immediately headed to the pool at the lodge. The purpose of these confined water dives was to practise essential skills.
In the first, we practised taking our mask off in the water, maintaining buoyancy, and sharing the alternate air source with one another. (The alternate air source is a second regulator – mouthpiece – which you can give to your buddy should they run out of air.)
In the second, we practised taking our BCD off in the water, entering the water by boat jump, and making a controlled emergency ascent. This was pretty useful as every dive I’ve done after Bali has been a boat entry. Plus, Lou had to do an emergency change of BCD underwater when later diving in Nha Trang, Vietnam, so knowing how to do this was useful!
We also practised how to set up the equipment, such as connecting the first and second stages to the air supply.
Later, we headed back to Jemeluk for another open water dive.
At 2:30 pm we finished for the morning, and had a lunch break.
Theory practice
At 4 pm our course resumed post-lunch.
We did two hours of theory learning. Yuki took us through the hardest and most important subjects, such as no stop time and decompression sickness; these are the topics which most strongly govern how divers go about their activities.
She also gave us a quiz to check we understood everything. This was in preparation of taking our final exam the next day – eek!
Day 3
On our third and final day of the course, we met at 8 am. The van was loaded with our equipment, then we headed to Tulamben, a town around 20 minutes’ drive away. Tulamben is known for its own range of good dive sites, so it was exciting to visit – especially as we knew our final dive site was at a shipwreck!
Bali Reef Divers’ dive centre in Tulamben was quite a change from the one we were used to at Kura Kura – it was a bit older and shabbier, and a heck of a lot busier, with multiple diver groups getting ready to head out! Initially it was a bit overwhelming to go from having lots of space, to none at all.
At around 9:30 am, we headed out for our first dive of the morning, which was at the Tulamben Drop Off. Here, there’s a “cliff” of corals, which head into deeper water. We saw a scorpionfish.
I can’t lie, this dive was my worst of all five I did in Amed. I kept colliding into others in the group throughout. I dropped the surface marker during the final part of the dive. When we surfaced at the end, I discovered I’d been inflating my BCD incorrectly the whole course. Then, I fell over in the waves when getting out at the end!
However, it was the first time we went to 18 m, which was interesting in itself.
Second dive
We had a quick break back in the dive centre before heading out on our second dive of the day, and our final dive on the course.
Our final dive site was the Liberty Shipwreck. I was super excited about this because I’d never seen a shipwreck from inside the water. It lived up to expectations! As the shipwreck is on its side, there are plenty of random beams, windows and sides to swim through, all with corals growing off them. It was a bit scary swimming through whilst trying not to hit anything, but overall it was a lot of fun!
After the dive, we headed back to Kura Kura around 1:45 pm, and had a break for lunch until 3 pm. We then did our final exam: a set of fifty questions, of which 75% needed to be right to pass. It was not too difficult, although there were a few questions I had no idea how to answer.
Once we had completed the exam, we entered our dives into our new log book and got our photo taken for our certificate!
Overall thoughts on the Open Water Course
I really enjoyed learning to dive in Amed. Yuki, our instructor, was so helpful and we felt like we were in very safe hands. The dive sites were interesting with lots of marine life.
After completing the dive course, Lou and I went on to dive several times across South-East Asia. The Open Water course was a good foundation on which to build our dive skills. Amed was also one of the best places we dove at and I’m glad we headed there.
Diving has also been a fun activity that we really enjoyed throughout our travels, and I’d recommend it to anyone heading to Indonesia!
