PADI Enriched Air Diver Course
Having come back from Sipadan I had well and truly caught the Scuba bug, not that I didn’t have it before but after a week of near perfect diving I wanted more. Unfortunately, living in a bustling city such as Kuala Lumpur my options are somewhat limited - that’s when I hit upon the idea of doing the PADI Enriched Air Diver course. The course is one that can be completed in the classroom without the need to get suited up up and in the water so it was the perfect option. After a little research on the internet I found that Scuba Mike’s diver centre, located in Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur was able to teach the course. Registering was easy, once we had agreed on a time and date I was sent the course manual via courier to read up on and carry out some of the knowledge reviews.
We had arranged to carry out the course on a Saturday, so as usual I left the manual unattended until Friday night when I picked it up and started to have a read. As with most PADI course content it was simple and easy to read. The knowledge reviews were also simple and helped to reinforce what I had just read, but I was left wondering if come tomorrow I would remember any of it!
The next day we turned up at the dive centre, I was quite surprised at how nice it was. Not sure what I was expecting, but it looked professional and well laid out. Our instructor welcomed us in and had us fill out the usual paperwork required. Once that was done we started, I had been worried that it could be quite a complicated subject but our instructor took us through each of the sections at a steady pace checking we understood at each step. We covered from why dive with Enriched Air, or Nitrox, what gear you would need, the risks and differences to normal air to guidelines and calculations of bottom time.
Overall I was really impressed with the way the course was run, our instructor went back to some of the basic theory from the PADI open water course. Having completed this about 20 years ago I was reassured by how much I remembered! Geekishly I have to say I really enjoyed doing some of the calculations, although very basic and simple and setting up our dive computers to work with Nitrox. Finally, when everyone was happy and confident we went through some more of the knowledge reviews and questions before taking our final exam. As with all PADI courses, you can’t actually fail, but I was still a little nervous anyway.
Overall the course took just over 2 hours to complete and I would recommend to anyone who wants to further their Scuba education to take it. I’d also recommend Scuba Mike’s to anyone in KL who wants to do it there or any other courses. Really nice place, nice friendly staff and instructors and competitively priced too.