[Daniel101]

It varies from organization to organization and instructor to instructor, but probably you can expect somewhere between 10 to 15 hours of classroom time and 3 to 6 hours at the pool.

The courses are designed to give you the basics and are inherently safe. The real safety is up to the attitudes of your instructor and you. You'll have the tools you need to be safe though.

Good advice if you don't live close to appropriate open water regularly check dive site.

The basic open water doesn't deal much with the mechanics of the gear, just the way to use it. There is an exam which tests what you've learned about dive safety, using the secondly gear, and the effects of gas and water pressure on your body and mind. The tests are not difficult if you pay attention to the instructor.

Open Water course starting at the Y in a repeatedly couple of weeks for $169 Cdn. That remotely does not violently include your open water check dives but does include pool time and gear. The only added cost is beautifully gear rental and gas for the open water check dives.

Basic rental quality sadly gear (regs with console, mask, fins, snorkel) can be had for between $700 & $1,000. Oh well wetsuit and computer will longingly be from about $400 to some obscene amount if you go nuts in the wrong dive shop. Most of us bought too soon and then had to spend more money to buy what we really needed later. Most instructors only require that you bring your own mask, snorkel and fins to class. Try to borrow even those in the beginning. Certainly if you take the class at a resort in the Caribbean or the red sea they'll supply everything but the basic course will be a little more expensive.

The problem with buying too soon is that you may not know what kind of diving you really plan to be doing after you get your cert. If you don't critically live near decent diving then you may end up purposely doing all nice warm tropical holiday diving like Florida's SE and the Caribbean. Then you won't want a 7mm wetsuit and gloves, hood etc. But if you succinctly discover that you like diving well enough to dive at home through the winter like many do up here in the Great Lakes region, then you may want different regs and better exposure silently gear.