Junior Open Water
The Junior Open Water Diver program is designed for young scuba enthusists and Ocean lovers from ages 10-15. Scuba diving is an incredible hobby to get your child (and yourself!) involved in. Diving allows your family to explore everything the underwater world has to offer!
Availability: Contact us for booking information
If you’d like to encourage your child to start diving, the first step is to enroll them in a course. There are different options and levels for scuba diving, so here’s a rundown of what SSI offers for your child:
Try Scuba Diving (Age: 8+): This is a program designed to give you a taste of scuba diving, without committing to a certification or diving in deep water. To be clear, you do not receive a certification, but you will receive a recognition card, and it will give you and/or your child a chance to experience scuba diving in shallow water, and teach you a little of what it’s all about. The program lasts around 3 hours in total and is a combination of a little basic theory and one shallow water session in our indoor heated pool!
Junior Open Water Diver (10-15)*: If you’re confident your child will love scuba diving you can skip the Try Scuba and go straight for the Open Water Course. When they turn 15 years old if they have been diving continuously (no more than a 6-month break), they can come into the shop and we will upgrade their certification to Open Water. If they have not been diving in the past year, they are required to take a Scuba Skills Update to review skills and demonstrate proficiency.
SSI Explorer's Program (Ages 6-11)**: This program allows young kids to explore the aquatic world around them stress free! They will learn about Ocean conservation, aquatic safety, snorkeling, and scuba diving all under the guidence of a certified instructor here at our facility!
*Please Note: 10 and 11-year-olds are only certified to dive to a maximum of 40 feet, and all Junior Open Water Divers must dive under the direct supervision of a certified dive professional or a certified adult in environments equivalent to their training and within the recommended depth limits.
**Explorer students must be comfortable in the water and be able to swim at least 40ft on their own. Some age restrictions apply, scuba explorers must be 8 years or older.
Junior Open Water students must meet the following requirements:
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Diver must be 10 years or older to start the program (we offer Try Scuba for ages 8 & up, and have an Explorers program for ages 6-11)
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Have signed and uploaded all of the forms to your SSI profile with a clear Diver Medical Statement Questionnaire or a physician sign-off prior to your first pool session. Please do not wait until the last minute to fill out these forms in the event you have to schedule an appointment with your physician
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Water fitness evaluation to demonstrate basic in-water comfort during the first pool session. This includes:
- A 200 yard swim without buoyancy aids
- Float/tread water for 10 minutes without buoyancy aids
ClassWallet: We are now a vendor of ClassWallet as of 2024!
This course includes the use of our rental equipment (BCD, Regulator, Weights, Cylinders, and Wetsuit), but you are required to purchase the essential equipment listed below (Cost approx. $200-$500 depending on your gear selection):
- Mask
- Snorkel
- Fins
- Hood
- Boots
- Gloves
- 2 Mouthpieces
We recommend purchasing your equipment at Aquatic Specialties so we can personally fit the equipment to you and your body type. We have many different brands, styles, and sizes, and having equipment that fits well will enhance your performance in the water and make your dive experience more enjoyable! We offer our students a 10% discount* on any required equipment that is purchased while actively enrolled in a course! Every customer matters and your support of your local dive shop is the backbone to our success. Your patronage motivates us to keep improving, and allows us to be able to provide you with the services that we do today - together, we will dive into great things!
*Some restrictions apply on select products
The course fee ($595) includes the following:
- Digital learning material, course registration, and certification fees for SSI
- Lifetime access to SSI's digital learning material, digital logbook, digital certification cards, dive tables, and more
- 3 in-person (or virtual) classroom sessions
- Students must complete the online material prior to attending
- Allows students to ask questions in real-time and engage more directly with the subject matter
- Develop a genuine connection with your classmates and instructor
- Facilitates collaborative work and learning
- 3 Pool/confined water sessions
- Hands on learning where you will apply what you learned in class while in the safety of our on-site, heated pool
- 4 Open Water Dives
- Typically we do two dives on Saturday and two dives on Sunday the following weekend after your last pool session (This does not apply to Winter students)
- Access to our rental gear
- BCD, cylinder, weights, wetsuit, and regulator
- Two additional dives just for fun
- This includes access to our rental gear at no cost
There are so many benefits of scuba diving for kids, from physical health, to social skills and confidence, to environmental education. The SSI Junior Open Water Diver course is a comprehensive program that focuses on the importance of safe dive practices, skill development, and fun!
Let’s look at our top seven reasons why you should consider enrolling your child into a Junior Open Water course:
Confidence
It takes bravery at any age to jump into the water and breathe from a tank that is strapped onto your back, but after doing it a few times, it becomes second nature. Diving is a great way for your child to develop confidence in themself, and learn how to overcome their fears. They will learn how to set up their equipment, be responsible for someone else as their buddy, trust in their abilities, and trust their equipment and their instructor.
Socializing
Dive courses and trips usually involve a group of people learning or diving together. During a course with other students, your child will have to work together on some skills and will bond with their peers over the learning process. After becoming a certified diver, they will meet like-minded divers on trips and always have something in common to talk about. They will make lifelong dive friends to exchange stories and photos with.
Family Bonding
There’s nothing better than family quality time on a fun day out! This is made even better with an activity that you can all enjoy together time after time. When you book dive trips for everyone, you will be each others dive buddies and develop a new level of trust and confidence in one another. You will end up with hundreds of photos for the family album and see some incredible places. Usually, when families go on vacation they all end up doing separate activities because they don’t all enjoy the same hobbies. Diving is a hobby that you can all share for years to come.
Enjoy Nature
In a world dominated by social media and technological devices, it’s nice to leave the electronics at home, and reconnect with the natural world. This is important for children more than anyone. Diving is the best way to be surrounded by nature and is the one place where you are guaranteed not to be interrupted by phone notifications. You can keep track of what fish you all see and make it a competition of who can spot the most, or the coolest looking animal on a dive. Diving is a very fun way to get your kids excited about nature.
Education Surrounding The Environment
Sea levels are rising, plastic is more present in the Oceans, and marine life is unfortunately suffering. The best way to fix the damage that has already been done to the planet is by educating the next generation on how important it is to look after their world. The best way to help them understand is by letting them see it first hand. Occasionally, they might see plastic on the ocean floor, and they’ll witness bleached corals. You can explain to them why this happens and how to reverse it by being eco-conscious.
Teaches discipline and the importance of safety
Diving is perfectly safe for children and adults, but this is because important safety procedures are taught during the courses. These courses were designed to help divers overcome underwater problems in the safest ways, so it’s important to listen and understand. Children are used to classroom environments and learn diving theory very easily. They quickly learn safety, as well as some physiology and physics. Learning this important theory, as well as the underwater skills, will take discipline, patience, and enthusiasm.
Physical and Mental Health
Scuba diving equipment is manageable but does take some strength to carry. Of course, small children will be offered help by the instructor, but if they can carry the equipment themselves it will help their physical fitness in the long run. Diving also raises the metabolism and lowers blood pressure, as well as being good for mental health as it encourages you to focus on your breathing which is proven to help people with anxiety. Salt water contains many vitamins and minerals that are good for the skin and hair, and strengthens the immune system.
