OWD courses in Cork - Advice Needed Please!

star69

Hi all,

I've wanted to learn how to dive for AGES and im finally getting around to actaully doing something about it (it seemed a tad cold in the winter!).

Im based in cork city & would like to do a PADI OWD course in the area.Work during the week so would need to be a evening/weekend course. Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations of where I should do it?

Also any advice on whether PADI is the way to go or would a different qualification be better.

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks

Evil Phil

Can open, worms everywhere. Let me just jump in a nip this one in the bud.

One possibility you could follow is do the OW course so you can go diving where ever you want with you PADI license, then join a club and get CFT trained. Now you have the best of both worlds. You can go away on dive weekends with your PADI license and are in a diving club with loads of dive buddies.

http://www.scubaireland.com/dive_centres/index.html << for dive centers if Ireland. I'm sure they have a list of clubs somewhere too.

donny

Just to set this straight... if you start off with CFT and get their qualification, you can still dive anywhere in Ireland as well as in the rest of the world. While CMAS may not have PADI's PR machine behind them, I've never had a problem having my CFT qualification recognised anywhere in the world and don't know of anyone who has.

If you get the equivalent of OW or advanced OW with CFT, it'll still be (almost) as well recognised as the PADI one.

As for which is better... thats a whole other argument and one I definitely won't get into until I've had more coffee

Evil Phil

What I was suggesting, and my apologies for not being clearer, is that you can use your PADI License while your waiting for your CFT training to complete. At that point you can use either.