How We Got Into Diving.
In Sept 2002 my husband and I had a " try dive " at the end of a holiday in Egypt and decided we wanted to complete our PADI Open Water Course during our next holiday in March 2004 which was already booked…..to Goa….India. Where would I find the kind of dive school ... Read review
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Advantages: A great dive school. Reasonable costs for diving Disadvantages: Not first class visibility
...eye in particular was Barracuda Diving as the web site looked and they were also a PADI 5 star IDC centre which I knew was an excellent start..
I whizzed off a email explaining a bit about myself ,how much I wanted to complete a course, but also the fact of how nervous I was and also that I was dyslexic and found learning theory difficult. I quickly had a reply from Karen who said that, that was no problem at all for them. I decided ... ...night!
Barracuda Diving are an excellent dive school owned by Venkatesh Charloo and Karen Gregory. Their focus is on safety and fun. The equipment is well maintained and of a very high standard. They have return customers from all over the world.
They proudly received 3 PADI awards of excellence in 2005 for outstanding care to customer service, safety and diver training. There are many training courses on offer.
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How We Got Into Diving. In Sept 2002 my husband and I had a " try dive " at the end of a holiday in Egypt and decided we wanted to complete our PADI Open Water Course during our next holiday in March 2004 which was already booked…..to Goa….India. Where would I find the kind of dive school in INDIA with exceptional high standards and could handle teaching a forty something, dyslexic and somewhat nervous me!
Choosing A Dive School. I had a look on the internet and found two dive schools in Goa. The one that caught my eye in particular was Barracuda Diving as the web site looked and they were also a PADI 5 star IDC centre which I knew was an excellent start..
I whizzed off a email explaining a bit about myself ,how much I wanted to complete a course, but also the fact of how nervous I was and also that I was dyslexic and found learning theory difficult. I quickly had a reply from Karen who said that, that was no problem at all for them. I decided that I would buy myself my own Open Water Manual so I could work through the book at my own pace.
Location Based in the prestigious GOA MARRIOTT RESORT, at Miramar beach. Just 2km from the capital city of Panaji, they are centrally situated for the convenience of divers in the popular tourist areas of North and South Goa. An ideal opportunity, after the morning dives, to visit the famous churches of Old Goa or catch up on some last minute shopping in the city.
Arrival At Barracuda Dive School. We arrived at the Marriott hotel at 09:00 and quickly found the dive centre which was clean, bright and inviting. Here were warmly greeted by owner Venkat (who we felt like we knew already from the emails) who introduced us to his staff, Vikas, Yogi and Felix being the main instructors. We were grouped with a guy called Tony from London who was doing his Open Water before going round the world. Our instructor was Yogi who I took to straight away as he had a nice calm patient manner about him. The course consisted of watching various PADI videos and we had to master various skills which included Equipment assembly / disassembly. Regulator recovery, mask removal / replacement /clearing Air depletion and hand signals. We also had to be able to tread water for 10 minutes and swim several lengths of the pool in 10 minutes. We had to learn "tables "which are basically charts to enable you to plan your dives safely.
All the "basics" were taught to us in the first two days. At the end of each session we had a written test to complete with what we had learned from reading our manuals and learning from the skills we had done.
All At Sea…….BOAT DIVING The next two days we went out on a boat to dive in the sea. The boat was loaded, equipment checked, dive briefing & boat safety (complete with lifejackets) .Our first dive site was about an hour away from the school at a place called Shelter cove. We had to enter the water by rolling backwards off the side of the boat which I was terrified. I had seen the others do it and even my hubby with no probs. I had to do it as the boat was not suitable for a giant stride entry. After tears of frustration (literally) I got into the water. We now had to do all the skills we had learn in the comfort of the pool in the sea, scary! We soon did these and ended our time underwater just looking around and trying to get good buoyancy and looking at the fishes and table coral. After 47 minutes we ascended, unkitted in the water and climbed aboard for some well earned fruit and biscuits and water giving us a safe surface interval for our next dive which was to be at Bounty Bay. Again we had to backward roll off the boat which I still hated with a passion. We practised more skills again and then just looked at what the ocean had to offer. I felt more comfortable this time and our dive lasted 45 minutes. When we returned to shore we had to unload, wash the kit, unassemble tanks, and fill out a log book. Log books are filled out after every dive, recording things like, where you dive, what you see, how long you dive for, weights required, air used. This is a record so wherever you dive in the world the dive school you dive with can see what experience you have.
We did another 2 dives the next day the first dive site was Suzy's wreck. This was a boat that was about 12 metres underwater and after again doing more skills we had a look round the wreck. It was a bit daunting as I felt a bit claustrophobic when I got near the wreck but nevertheless good fun. We saw big groupers right inside the boat. We saw things like lionfish, .bannerfsh. sgt major, puffer fish , barracuda, oriental sweetlips . Another great dive. Again after a surface interval of feeding our faces with fruit and water we arrived at Lobster Ave where we did the last of the skills and then just pleasure dived. When we returned to the school we had our final written tests and Bingo we were now Qualified Open Water Divers.
Advanced Open Water. My daughter had bought us extra dives from the dive centre but unfortunately my husband got a bad ear infection from the pool and was grounded by the dive Doctor. This meant I had an extra 4 dives so I did dives of "underwater navigation* ", "peak performance buoyancy", "underwater naturalist" and "wreck dive" and the centre gave me a complementary " deep dive* " and I was an Advanced Open Water diver.* dives are mandatory for Advanced Open Water with any 3 other dives of your choice. These 5 speciality dives consist of special considerations for each one and again you have to read a manual and have tests. I had to do some pretty swift reading each night!
Barracuda Diving are an excellent dive school owned by Venkatesh Charloo and Karen Gregory. Their focus is on safety and fun. The equipment is well maintained and of a very high standard. They have return customers from all over the world.
They proudly received 3 PADI awards of excellence in 2005 for outstanding care to customer service, safety and diver training. There are many training courses on offer.
If you wish to have a fantastic holiday in Goa and combine it with learning to dive or further training or just simply pleasure diving then Barracuda Divers are the guys for you.
We now go back each year and have become good friends with them.
