FAQs

If your child turns 15 after getting certified, they’ll be moving from a Junior Open Water diver to a full Open Water diver. For this change to occur you’ll need to run through these few steps:

1. update the child’s profile picture
2. contact us and let us know to update the card
3. wait for the app to sync and reload the new card

Technically, yes. However, it might be hard for them to find the time or places to practice. For example, all of our trips require an adult to accompany any minors on the trip. This means on land as well as underwater. So, unless they have a family friend or mentor, finding someone willing to serve as a guardian on trips, might be hard.

We have had teens pair up with divers at the quarry during quarry socials, but that’s all the practice we can offer.

Yes! Diving is a great sport to do as a family! We’ll match the whole family up with an instructor to schedule the course based on your availability. For families, we generally have 1 point of contact but everyone will have their own SSI login and material to go through.

We don’t recommend getting in for the first two sessions. We want our students to be able to focus on the instruction without getting distracted or worried about their performance in front of an audience. This is also a good time for the instructor to gauge if the student is mature and fully wants to get scuba certified.

We leave this up to the guardians and the children. Technically, they only have to be 10 years old to get open water certified.

However, we treat this on a case-by-case basis. What we generally ask guardians is “Would you trust your child with your life in an emergency situation?”.

Scuba diving is a ‘buddy’ or pair sport and while emergencies don’t happen often, if they do, it’s up to your buddy to help you. The classes are set up to train you to react to these emergencies so that when they do happen, you can help yourself or your buddy in a calm and safe manner. So, even though the training material and guidelines are created to certify a 10-year old, you have to decide if your 10-year old is mature enough to go through the course.

If you want to talk with our staff about any concerns or questions, let us know! We have seen both sides with staff members certified at young ages that have turned around and taught young children as adults.

We do! All of our cylinder services are listed on our sister company’s website under AirTech Scuba Services.

In our store! Located within our building, we have AirTech Scuba Services! They are wonderful, highly skilled, and experienced in many manufactures. This is partly due to the fact they service equipment from all around the world, including end users and government entities!

They offer equipment service and cylinder fills and service. If you have questions about AirTech, we can introduce you to them.

Yes! We luckily have two great dive parks in old quarries in the area. Fantasy Lake is in Wake Forest and where we do a lot of our certification dives and quarry socials. You’ll need to purchase a day pass and fill out a waiver.

Mystery Lake is located in Wendell and works on an annual pass system. They each have their own charms and specialties, let us know if you want information on either!

We do not run any charters through the store. However, there are amazing dive locations off the NC coast and we suggest going! If you want to head out, let us know and we’ll suggest a dive shop for you!

Reach out to your instructor directly and reschedule your class. Our custom-scheduled classes are an agreement between you and your instructor to reserve the pool for your lessons.

If you are not prepared or do not give adequate warning that you’ll miss a lesson, you may be charged a no-show fee for the instructor’s time and reserved pool time.

We do! Our sister company, Oak City Swim School, is located on the other side of the building and handles all our swim lessons.

Yes. However, we don’t always recommend learning in groups larger than 4.

Depending on the size of the group, it could limit each person’s time with the instructor and ultimately lead to the whole group needing more than 4 sessions. One of the primary reasons we teach on a custom basis is to keep classes small and built to the need of the students. If there are too many people, it could disrupt our desired outcome of having well-trained, comfortable, and safe divers.

Since groups usually require more than 4 sessions, and larger groups can require secondary instructors, there are no group rates. Instead, larger groups can be more expensive.

We do understand wanting to learn a new sport with friends, so if you want to get a group done together, please contact us and we can talk through options.

Our training agency, Scuba Schools International, offers the written materials in over 40 options. For in-class and pool sessions, we offer Spanish as another language option. If you would like your pool sessions taught in Spanish, let us know and we’ll pair you with our Spanish-speaking instructors.

If it’s been a while since you’ve been in the water, it might be time for a refresher! When registering people for refreshers, we usually ask how long it’s been since you last dove. Then, and most importantly, how active of a diver were you?

If it’s been some time, but you have had hundreds of dives, and are a comfortable diver, you can tag along on our guided dives at the quarry socials. However, we probably won’t have the availability to spend a lot of one-on-one time with you.

So, if you got certified, then immediately took a long break, or don’t remember a lot of the basics, a scuba refresher would be best.

Technically, the training agency we use has a minimum age for certification. However, we treat this on a case-by-case basis. What we generally ask guardians is “Would you trust your child with your life in an emergency situation?”.

Scuba diving is a ‘buddy’ or pair sport and while emergencies don’t happen often, if they do, it’s up to your buddy to help you. The classes are set up to train you to react to these emergencies so that when they do happen, you can help yourself or your buddy in a calm and safe manner. So, even though the training material and guidelines are created to certify a 10-year old, you have to decide if your 10-year old is mature enough to go through the course.

If you want to talk with our staff about any concerns or questions, let us know! We have seen both sides with staff members certified at young ages that have turned around and taught young children as adults.

If you have more questions regarding children divers, please see our children’s page outlining the various options and age groups.

Yes! Just bring your certification card in with you when you show up for class. If you want to transfer anything you’ve previously done to your SSI profile, let us know!

Not much. They are all recognized around the world and can be used to signify certifications across each agency. If you get your SSI Open Water Certification with us, you can still take specialties with other agencies.

For us, working with SSI, Scuba Schools International, means that all our dive instructors have to be affiliated with our store.

If you have any questions about transferring specialties to your SSI profile, what the different agency’s levels mean, or anything else, let us know!

No! You just need to pass a simple swim test at the beginning of the course. The test is a 200-yard swim without fins and mask, untimed. Then a 10-minute treading water test, where you just need to keep your head above water.

If you don’t think you can pass the test, or want to become a better swimmer, check out our swim school! We have programs for all ages or you can sign up for private lessons and focus on this scuba test.

You have a few options locally. When it’s warm enough, we normally use the local rock quarry and scuba park, Fantasy Lake. If it’s too cold, we head down to Florida Springs or Key Largo in Florida.

While you can do referral dive at most locations, like on your planned trip, we suggest getting your checkout dives out of the way before your trip. That way you can have tons of fun on your dives without having to stress about passing any tests.

Our indoor pool is about 75 by 40 feet or a normal 6-lane racing pool. However, our pool is kept at a warm 88 degrees to cater to divers and younger kids learning to swim. The pool starts at 3 feet and slowly slopes to 5 feet for half of the pool. Then, it steadily drops to 12 feet for the last half.

Onsite! We have our own indoor heated pool that is kept at 88 degrees year-round. This means we don’t have to work around pool availability at a different pool, rent out available lanes, or work around open hours. We also don’t have to worry about carrying around equipment or cylinders. The cylinders and weights are kept on the pool deck, with the dive shop within the same building. So if you need to swap out equipment during training, or want to try something new, ask!

Everything is here to make sure anything you might need is available for your training journey!

We are located at 3651 Bastion Lane, Raleigh NC 27604.

We are off the main road, behind the Tower Shopping Center at the corner of New Bern Ave and Trawick Rd.