Reactivate or Check Out Dive

Recently DEMA released the results of a survey of over 24,000 scuba divers. They revealed that 77.1% of those surveyed consider themselves active divers. While 21.7% consider themselves as inactive divers. Of those that consider themselves active, When broken down to last time they were diving 11.8% had not been diving in over year. These numbers are very similar to a survey that PADI did. In the PADI survey, they asked inactive divers do they plan to start diving again and 97% said yes. PADI took the results of their survey and some other market studies and redesigned the old Scuba Review program, updated it with a digital delivery system and created a new program named Reactivate.

Reactivate is designed to make it easy for those who have not been an active diver to become active again. It has two components, a digital knowledge section and hands-on skill portion. Upon successful completion, a new Reactivate “C” card will be issued showing the original certification date and the new “reactivate” date. While there are no mandated requirements of when you need to take the reactivate program, many dive resorts used to require divers not diving in a year to take the Scuba Review program. They are following the same policy as the new program is being integrated to replace the scuba review. PADI has recommended in some of their literature a six month policy should be applied.

The new program is a great improvement over the old program as the digital learning portion can be tailored to each diver who would like to become active again. However, I do not agree with the suggestions that a time standard should be applied, those who have not been diving in six months or a year needs to take the program. Consider these two cases. An open water diver who has not dived in five months and has no dives after becoming certified compared to a master diver who has not dived in a year but has over 500 dives. The OWD may be in a greater need that the Master diver but not required to take a course.
If you have been an inactive diver and want to get back into diving, by all means do so.

Subic Bay is a great place to reintroduce yourself to diving. Your first step is to come by and talk to us. Either Myself or one of my instructors will sit down with you and review your individual situation. Many times, we find that a check out dive may be a better choice for an experienced diver returning after a lapse of diving. In a check out dive, you will be diving one on one with an instructor. They may run you through the basic skills but the primary function is to evaluate you and keep you safe as you become comfortable underwater again. If you do well, we will recommend shallow dives until you feel you are ready for something more challenging. That is the same recommendation as the reactivated divers get.

The best time to come talk to us about becoming active in diving again is any morning around 9 am. That is the time we start organizing the day’s diving. If we feel, after talking with you, that only a check out dive is needed, you can be on your way when the dive boats depart around 10 am. If you do not want to start that day, the instructors are generally around the dive shop for a few hours after the dive boats start returning around 2 pm. If after our discussion the recommendation is the Reactivate program, we can get you started at that at your convenience. Our experience is that divers often just need the checkout dive if they were active before and have a number of years diving experience.

See you about 9 am, next time you are in town.