Learning to dive in Plymouth is an amazing experience. There is a certain amount of theory, pool work, and skills to complete in the sea before you can gain your qualification. You can start with either of these two courses:

• Try Dive
• PADI Open Water Diver Course

Choose Aquanauts for your course because:

• We are Devon's only National Geographic IDC Dive Centre
• On qualifying as an Open Water Diver you will receive over £250 worth of aquanauts vouchers to help get you started.
• Join our dive club after you pass and receive free equipment hire for 3 months when you dive with us*
• Our courses are completely flexible, weekends, or weekdays, we will fit around you
• Receive a full crew pack, theory manual, electronic dive planner and all the PADI DVDs
• We have our own private training pool
• Final qualifying dives completed from a warm hardboat, with a rear diver lift
• We are open and staffed 7 days per week, year round
• Friendly, active dive club that dives all year, in Plymouth, around the UK, and abroad
• Our shop and online shop is one of the cheapest for equipment in the UK

At the start it can sometimes be confusing trying to work out what you need to do, but the most common, cheapest and popular way to start diving is by doing the PADI Open Water Diver Course, please click the link to find out more. This course can be taken as an E-learning or standard option and is split over 3 or 4 days respectively. It involves both shore and boat diving. For those that want a little bit extra you can elect to do the PADI National Geographic Diver Course, this shares many similarities with the Open Water Course, but includes additional tuition on navigation and buoyancy, with better materials, and an extra dive (5 instead of 4) to put these skills into practice. At the end of your course we offer an additional 5th (or 6th if Nat Geo) free guided dive with our PADI Divemasters to introduce you to Plymouth Diving.

Aquanauts also offers Referral Open Water courses for those that are going on holiday and wish to complete their pool and theory training before they go. This is good for those divers that which to make the most out of their time on holiday and limit time stuck in a classroom while abroad. But please be aware that you will only be qualified to dive in conditions equal to or easier than where you learnt, so to dive in the UK you will need to do some additional UK training when you come back, alternatively you could do the whole course before you go and be qualified to dive almost anywehere in the world. Please call us for details.

Aquanauts staff are friendly and helpful, if you want to discuss your options or even just gain advice, please give us a call on 01752 228825 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

If you wish to book the Open Water course please go to our Online Shop.