Hi, this may seem like a daft question but once I have obtained my OW and AOW can I dive any where in the uk?. I mean can I and my dive buddy go to a local lake, river, beach an just jump in so to speak. Or is there alot of restrictions on the places you can dive?. Thanks Rich
You can dive in the sea without being qualified at all. Inland dive sites have their own rules and usually specify a minimum of OW or Bsac Ocean Diver. Local waterways come under the jurisdiction of the local water authority and you will have to speak to them, or they will be privately owned in which case speak to the owners
Come over to Holland and you can pretty much jump in anywhere for free. Makes diving really cheap here.
As Silty pointed out, presently recreational diving is not constrained by law, so anybody can go and dive in the sea, trained or not. Not that I'd recommend that, as an old boss used to say "Consider how that would go down at the inquest" Like sea fishing is open to anyone, but freshwater is constrained by "fishing rights", so diving in freshwater is constrained by diving rights. The owners of those rights tend to want to make money from their rights, and so like to charge for the privalige of paddling in their muddy pool, and have a strong aversion to liability, so tend to set requirements on competence. Those requirements range from rational review of your qualifications to requireing you to be a member of a specific diving organisation. Their water, there call. In practical terms UK sea diving is rather more a team sport. Diving clubs run boats, compressors and have local experience that make UK diving less of an uphill battle. Senior members of dive clubs will have things like small boat handling certificates, wireless operator licences and navigation equipment that all help to support the team. Lone players are severely disadvantaged. I do not know anything about sites local to Kidderminster, most of my UK diving has concentrated on the Welsh coast. Two sites there stand out there as having been used for years by local clubs for their trainees first dives into open water. The requirements are: a) Reasonable access by vehicle. b) Easy safe sheltered access to the water. c) Constrained depth. e) Shelter from strong current. Site 1) Porth Ysgaden (bay of herrings in the local lingo) http://msac.filestop.co.uk/mp/pages/Porth Ysgaden.aspx http://g.co/maps/zphj6 Site 2) Porth Eilien http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1409818 http://g.co/maps/6ah5m Maybe someone else can suggest sites closer to you?? Cheers Harry
Glad to hear it. What sort of diving is open to an independent diver? Shore dives or boat dives? Hardboats or ribs? Where abouts are you based? Cheers Harry
@ suggsy I'm in Kidderminster Mate. Cheers for all the info, some thing that I've been thinking of for a while and been unable to get a straight forward answer through web searching.
