Open Water SCUBA Diver

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The Open Water SCUBA Diver course (OWSD) is NAUI's entry-level SCUBA Diver certification course. It provides the fundamental knowledge and skills required to become a competent, confident, capable, and safe SCUBA Diver. Upon completion of this course, graduates will be considered competent to engage in open water diving activities without supervision, provided the activities, areas, and conditions dived approximate those encountered during training.

This course is a 40 hour block of instruction and ISO Level 2 certification program.

The minimum age for this course is:

• 15 years old with parental consent, a signed waiver, and an interview by staff, or
• 18 years or older.

There are no previous certification prerequisites for this course.

The OWSD course will cover the science and application of SCUBA diving, and include hands-on skills development covering everything from physics, biology, equipment, planning, neutral buoyancy from the beginning, basic survival, self-rescue and buddy rescue skills, dive planning, navigation underwater, emergency procedures, communication, and much more.

Students will be taught using a back-plate and wing BC with technical long-hose equipment setup.

Students will be required to pass an initial class 3 swim test, consisting of:

• Swim proficiency in 3 of the 4 basic strokes (side, breast, elementary back, and crawl)
• Survival Swim for 10 minutes (tread water or float)
• 15m (50ft) underwater swim on a single breath and without pushing off of another object

The OWSD Course will require completion and successful passing of online academics, formal lectures, skin diving skills, equipment recovery, self-rescue skills, buddy-rescue skills, rescue of unconscious divers both underwater and on the surface, confined water SCUBA training, and a minimum of 5 open water dives.

Course graduates will receive a lifetime internationally recognized ISO Level 2 Recreational Open Water SCUBA diving certification from the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), and will be prepared to conduct open-water dives in waters and conditions proximate to those encountered during training. This is a restricted recreational SCUBA diver certification that limits divers to a maximum depth of 18m (60ft) within recreational limitations.