Jess & I did our PADI Open Water back in early May; Rob Randall took us through the training in the pool at Loddon Valley leisure centre, and the actual open water dives at Wraysbury Dive Centre - pretty murky, fairly cold (Jess was shivering, but then she hasn't made the same investment in pies as me). Nice bus though :)

I thought you might like to hear how I got on diving in Croatia (we stayed at the Valamar Club in Dubrovnik). We only managed 2 dives - guess I need better negotiating skills with certain other family members concerning the validity of diving on a family holiday.

The first dive was with the nearest hotel dive centre ('Abyss') was, in retrospect, pretty scary - just as well I went w/out Jess. They had PADI stickers up and everything, but no dive briefing, no emergency plan, no signals review, no equipment inspection, dive master didn't really speak English (and I don't speak Russian). The boat dropped us (I'd never dived off a boat before - that certainly added to the excitement) and then zoomed off to take other divers to other site (eek! all alone in the waves!).

Still, once underwater, things were a bit better (calmer, perhaps), but found it hard to keep up with the dive-master. Good site though (Grebeni, small reef), lots of fish etc. ~20min wait at the surface for boat.

For the second dive, I used padi.com to find another hotel dive centre ("Blue Planet", only 2mins further than first one). They seemed much more like my PADI training in UK - super safety aware, confident & relaxed. Met the dive master (Marko), discussed requirements (shallow dive for Jess), equipment check, detailed dive plan (from the shore, round 'Mala Afrika', Jess & I to return with one of the instructors, whilst others go further/longer/deeper). It was a much more relaxed dive, and I felt more secure with 1 guy leading, and 1 sweeping. Lots of beautiful fish, star fish, etc. Afterwards, we all met back at the benches and talked through the dive, what we saw, and learnt etc.

Both dives were the same price (340Kn ~ £40/each), but they could hardly have been more different.