Planet Scuba India is India’s First ever IDC!


INDIA’S FIRST EVER INSTRUCTOR DEVELOPMENT COURSE (IDC) AND INSTRUCTOR EXAM (IE)

BECOME A PADI INSTRUCTOR AND BE A PART OF INDIAN DIVING HISTORY!

Here is the basic information that you need to know. To ask any questions, confirm your attendance, order your PADI Materials or just have a chat call, David Perry on +91 94493 51192 or email at dave@planetscubaindia.com.

When?
The IDC runs from 16 November to 27 November including a free 2-day mock IE to fine tune your examination skills. The IE is on 28-30 November.

Where?
The IDC will be held at Planet Scuba India’s new purpose-built Instructor Training facility in Port Blair, Andaman Islands. With the latest multimedia classroom, an Olympic size pool and crystal clear waters on the doorstep the facilities will be unrivalled. The IE will also be in Port Blair.

Course Director
The Course Director running the IDC will be Matt Bolton – a Platinum Course Director normally based in Thailand who is generally considered to be one of the world’s top Instructor Trainers.

How much?
This first IDC will be cheaper than most comparable IDCs in the region and so the price of the IDC will be just 50,000 Rs (1,038 $USD)! This price includes your Instructor Candidate Workbook, open and confined water Lesson Planning Slates and your PADI IDC fee – worth over 12,000 Rs (250 $USD) in total!

You will pay direct to PADI the cost of the Instructor Exam (695 $AU).

Pre-requisites
You must be a PADI Divemaster or an Instructor in good standing with another recognized organisation, have 100 logged dives and have been diving for more than 6 months since your entry-level diving course.

If you are crossing over from another certification body or are unsure about your knowledge of PADI skills or current diving theory, we will be arranging a Pre-IDC Preparation Course.

You must also become an Emergency First Response Instructor prior to the IE (unless you are a current Instructor with DAN, Red Cross or other approved organisation) and we have scheduled an EFR Instructor Course for 14-15 November immediately prior to the IDC for all those candidates who need it.

PADI Materials
In addition to the Instructor Candidate Workbook and Slates included in the price of the IDC, PADI give the following list of Required Materials that you must have at the IDC/IE:

PADI Instructor Manual (digital or paper but must be legal and up to date i.e. 2009 version)
Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty Instructor Outline
Diving Knowledge Workbook
Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving
Project AWARE Specialty Instructor Outline
AWARE – Coral Reef Conservation Specialty Instructor Outline
RDP – Table and eRDPML including associated Instructions for Use booklets

PADI Open Water Diver Manual
Open Water Diver Quizzes & Exams booklet
PADI Adventures in Diving Manual
PADI Rescue Diver Manual
Rescue Diver Final Exams booklet
PADI Divemaster Manual
Divemaster Final Exams booklet
Aquatic Cue Cards – for Open Water Diver, Adventures in Diving, Rescue Diver, Divemaster and Discover Scuba Diving

Please note that the various Manuals must be complete and up to date with the Knowledge Reviews intact.

You may have access to some or all of these materials – for anything that you don’t have simply order it through Planet Scuba India at a special wholesale price.

What should you do now?
Once you have decided to take part in the IDC, you simply contact me by email and we will arrange for you to pay a deposit of 10,000 Rs (208 $USD). We will then send you your Instructor Candidate Workbook so that you can make a start on your Independent Study – 17 Knowledge Reviews to do before the IDC starts!

David Perry will then stay in touch with you on at least a fortnightly basis to give you further information.

* Currency conversion based on current exchange rate

** please message for more information

Special Ops?


Meet Graham Hogg, an experienced and friendly PADI Staff Instructor and Yacht Master. After working around the world including Australia, Egypt, Thailand, Borneo and the Caribbean, Graham, has joined Planet Scuba India as Head – Special Projects.

Graham has over 3000 plus logged dives and taught students numbering in the hundreds. Graham’s experiences include running dive centres, dive liveaboards and private megayachts.

Graham is looking forward to meeting you all and sharing his love of diving, underwater photography and video production with you.

What next?


The next PADI-OWD course starts on 5th June 09.  Start booking your place now. Why is this news? well for the simple fact that if you sign up for the next course you will be ready to be certified in Tioman. Cos our next Tioman trip is right around the corner in June as well!! That’s right! exciting days await you. Sign up for your course now don’t let excitement pass you by.

Exploring the Exciting & Exotic


Planet Scuba India is taking you to India’s very own beautiful and exotic Andamans for the next Big Dive Trip!! Join the growing army of Scuba Divers of the Bangalore Dive Club for this unforgettable tour! Get your friends and family along. Its a deal you cannot afford to miss!!
 
Training before Trip!!
What’s more, this deal gives you more than just a dive trip. We have arranged training programs that fit right in so if you or your friends cannot dive, learn before you go to the Andamans. Once you are there, plunge right into the sea. As a special arrangement, our instructor, David Perry, has arranged one PADI Open Water Diver certification program (3 days, 3 hours a day and one day in the Pool or as you fix up with the instructor) and, during the trip, an Advanced Open Water Diver Course. It can’t get better than this. REGISTER NOW! Just call us and we will register you.
 
Andamans’ Havelock Island is a beautiful place to dive at this time of the year.

Trip Schedule (17th March 2009 Night to 22nd March 2009)
The schedule for our Dive Trip to Andaman, Havelock Island is as follows:

 Tuesday 17th March 2009
·8 pm meet and board the Sleeper Coach or Private Bus
heading to  Chennai(coach / flight depending on popular demand)

Wednesday 18th March 2009
·5.50am departure from Chennai  and arrive at Portblair
around  7.55 am.
·8am  Breakfast and leave to jetty
·2.00 p.m. boat loaded and ready to set sail
·5.00 p.m. reach Havelock Island, check the conditions and
choose  fabulous dive sites and take rest and get ready to dive next day.

Thursday 19th march 2009
·8.00 am. Breakfast and get ready to dive
·10:15 – 11:15 Dive deep into the Blue and feel the stress
of city life fade away
·11:15 – 12 Sit back on the boat while our competent staff
switch tanks and prepare your gear for the next dive. Feel free to swap
exaggerated tales of the first dive and what you saw (we all know it looks
bigger under water)
·12 – 1 Suck or sit back on your second tank on us, that’s
up to you but we will ensure that you are given every opportunity to enjoy
another dive site
·2.00pm get ready for 3rd dive and later head back to the
resort for a late lunch and chill out for the evening
·7:30pm early dinner, stories of the deep, great company
that you will find it hard to pull yourself away to get a good night’s sleep
and charge up for the next day

Friday 20th March 2009
·7am breakfast and ready to leave by 8
·8:30am on the boat and following the same routine as
yesterday

Saturday  21st March 2009
·7am breakfast and ready to leave by 8
·8:30am on the boat and following the same
routine as yesterday and head back to  Portblair with another 3 dive
day racked up in your log book

Sunday 22nd March 2009
·7.00 a.m. all packed up, checked out and ready to head back
to Chennai and then back to the grind at home in Bangalore

Do your part


24th Feb 2009 is the next PADI- Open Water Diver Course. Sign up with us now, so that your summer holidays will be a fun filled scuba diving one. But to more serious news.

One Fifth of World’s Corals Gone: Climate Change Battle to Rescue Remaining

The Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008, released in Washington, DC, December 2008, declares a 19 percent loss of coral reefs worldwide. 

Launched by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the report identifies which coral reefs are recovering and which are declining worldwide. The report states if current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, many remaining reefs may be lost over the next 20 to 40 years with alarming consequences. 

Project AWARE Foundation, partner behind the project and supporter of the launch event, is encouraged by the report that 45 percent of the world’s reefs are currently healthy. But the Foundation also recognizes a focus on climate change, now considered the leading threat to coral reefs today. Threats including increasing ocean temperatures and ocean acidification are intensified by other threats including overfishing, pollution and invasive species. 

“If nothing changes, we are looking at a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than 50 years,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme, one of the organizations behind the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. “As this carbon is absorbed, the oceans will become more acidic, which is seriously damaging a wide range of marine life from corals to plankton communities and from lobsters to seagrasses.” 

Hope is also found in the ability of some corals to recover after major bleaching events, caused by warming waters, adapting to climate change threats. However, the report also shows the recent downward trends have not been reversed in the last four years. And corals have a higher chance of survival against climate change if other human threats are minimized. 

“The report details the strong scientific consensus that climate change must be limited to the absolute minimum. If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions, says Clive Wilkinson, Coordinator of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. 

Ten years after the world’s biggest coral bleaching event, we know that reefs can recover given the chance. Unfortunately, impacts on the scale of 1998 will reoccur in the near future, and there’s no time to lose if we want to give reefs and people a chance to suffer as little as possible,” says Dr David Obura, Chair of the IUCN Climate Change and Coral Reefs working group and Director of the Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean Programme (CORDIO) in East Africa.  

The GCRMN is a network of people, governments, institutes and NGOs in more than 80 countries, with many partners, including: CORDIO, Reef Check, CARICOMP, Project AWARE Foundation and AGRRA. All reports are available through www.ReefBase.org. To read more of such articles visit ProjectAware