June 1st is a very special day for us at Scuba Cat Diving

Sarah Kench, Course Director and her team took over ownership of Scuba Cat Diving 5 years ago.

To help you celebrate this very special year with us we invite you to receive 10% discount on any Scuba Cat Courses, Daytrips or Liveaboards made during this month. (excluding Professional Courses and Internships)

Scuba Diving Courses

MV Scuba Fun

• Daytrips to Racha Yai, Racha Noi, King Cruiser, Shark Point, Koh Doc Mai and Anemone Reef

MV Scuba Sport

• Half Day trips available November to April

Snorkelling for the Whole Family

MV Scuba Adventure Liveaboard – starting from 2 days one night

•  Similans,Koh Bon, Koh Tachai, Richelieu Rock
• Hin Dueng, Hin Mueung, Koh Ha, Phi Phi

If you book and pay in full anytime during June 2012 you will receive 10% discount not only for this month but for the rest of the year…… plus you will receive a free Scuba Cat T-Shirt with all Courses during the month.

The future for Scuba Cat:

Vision

Scuba Cat Diving aims towards creating interaction between people and aquatic life which is fun, safe, educational and sustainable.

• Sustainable for customers means someplace they can come back to where there is a wide range of services which satisfies and/or challenges them for years.
• For the environment it means interaction with the environment in such a way that the benefits for the environment/ecology outweigh the drawbacks.

Mission

To be the best Dive Centre in Phuket through good diving practices, great instructing, increasing ecological awareness and responsible interaction with environment.

Values

Everything we do are based on the following set of values. They are not stand-alone values but all apply at the same time one way or the other.

• Good intention – What we do is not as important as why we do it
• Value for money – We have no intention to be the cheapest, only to be the best. Our prices are competitive, and represent great value for money
• Quality – Only the best is good enough
• Safety first – There are always expectations, however, we will only do what we consider to be safe
• Entertainment – We don’t just provide great courses and dive trips – we provide great experiences from the start to the end…….Fun!!!!

Come and see for yourself, we believe we are achieving our goals but dont just take our word for it see what people have said about us on Trip Adviser!

I arrived at Scuba Cat Diving in Phuket early January 2012.

I was ready having completed the Elearning dive theory on line. I had a few little problems with physics but that was easily sorted out so I got good scores in the on line exam.

After a couple of days trying to acclimatise it was off to meet my Instructor/mentor for the Dive Master course, It was the unenviable task of Big Vin (Vincent Callahan, Master Instructor) to get me ready to become a Dive Master.

The next few weeks were spent either on the boat assisting other instructors or in the pool doing skill circuits.

Class Room: start time 07:00 am

Dive Theory, Physics, Physiology, RDP; ERDPml, The Environment and more, Big Vin is in a word awesome.

Big Vin

Vin’s class room is Neat and tidy I don’t honestly think a speck of dust would dare soil his space, the chairs are nice and comfortable, the lectures and lessons began, much of it covering the things I had already done in the e-learning so no drama, I screwed physics up, Vin sent me home to study and study I did, re-did my physics the next day and got 95%.

The Pool

I think it was about Day 4 we hit the pool we started with the swim test, 800 metres Mask Snorkel and Fins swim, followed by 400 metres swim, followed by 15 minutes treading water.

Kata Big Rock

What a cluster F*** about 200 metres into the 800 my legs were burning, a nasty realization hit me, I wasn’t going to make it….. For the first time in my life I failed a swim test this was a very bad day, This failure was going to hang over me for the next couple of weeks, I drank more water, took electrolytes eventually I passed on my second attempt.

Pool Skills

24 pool skills not so difficult after all its something you start in the open water, WRONG, Vin demonstrates the pool skills ONCE and only ONCE now you might think ok so I get it wrong and he will show me again, you weren’t listening were you? He said once and that’s exactly what he meant, the first thing you need to do that’s different is take control of your DM and your students, dm watch students, students watch me… (Under water) remember deflate… skill signal… do skill…. Think yep got it Big Vin is frowning and writing on the slate scoring you and shaking his head.

You go through more skills.

Debrief on the mask clearing you forgot to show that the strap was not twisted and the hair was not in the mask you scored 1, on CESA your spg touched the bottom 1, and so it goes on, by the end I was scoring 4’s and 5’s but damn was it hard to please this man, there was only one thing he required…………PERFECTION.

In between pool sessions and class room sessions I was on the boat assisting other Instructors with courses, DSD‘s or Fun Dives, I racked up something like 50 dives in 4 weeks I had about 3 days off, I hurt, I ached my aches had aches and my head was spinning.

Finally Vin signed me off as a Dive Master, I was now ready for my IDC, with about a week to spare, first thing I did was take a day off, then I was back on the boat guiding………

Why Scuba Cat Diving?

At home in the UK:  SEPT 2011,

Ivan

I had decided that I wanted to take my Scuba Diving to the next level but really had no idea of what that meant, so I hit the internet I found myself on the website looking at a flow chart.  I had Advanced Open Water and wanted to go further, I chose my target level which was Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI) or Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) depending on time and costs involved, first I contacted my local Dive Centre and did my Rescue Diver.

The real problem came with finding the dive centre to do my Internship :

• What was it going too cost?
• Where would I do it?
• What level of training would I get?

So I started contacting Dive centres across the globe, trying to get the information I needed, I visited the Dive Show in Birmingham hit all the stalls met some interesting people got contacts and sent more E-mails, did more research, checked out one dive centre called Scuba Cat Diving,

I hit trip advisor and it came up with a 5.

By now replies were coming back yes, yes we can do your IDC;

the ones that said come have fun and become an instructor got binned, yes I wanted to enjoy the course but “Fun” was not my main priority, I wanted professionalism and high level of training.

Finally I narrowed my search to about 10 centres across the world, weighed the pros ‘n’ cons and reduced it to 5.

Now anybody that has looked in to this will tell you that cost is a big part of making a choice, Value for money by the time I got to 5 places to choose from I had numbers swimming round my head, my poor dive buddy and my partner had both helped crunch numbers trying to make sense of it all.

• fees xxxx AUS$
• Accommodation xxx THB
• Course fees xxx THB
• Materials xxx THB
• ETC ETC ETC

Heads hurt, numbers became meaningless and just a bunch of zeros with strange letters after them….. I had as they say had enough, I sent out 1 email to the 5 places on my short list….. My head hurts how much is it going to cost me for everything excluding flights and living expenses??? 4 came back pretty much restating what had been sent out originally blah blah + blah blah but 1  came back with a simple answer,

It will cost you X amount in THB that’s approximately £xxxx gbp .

I was trying to find somewhere to learn, I sent 5 e-mails asking one question, I got 1 back that actually gave me the answer I needed, If I am going to learn then I need to have information presented to me in the simplest form in a manner that I can understand only 1 Dive Centre actually answered the question I asked in the manner that I asked for and that was Scuba Cat Diving.

The Decision was made………

What does that mean? When on dive boats sometimes you have divers on there who look at their computers and don’t know how to interpret what it is telling them.

The first thing you should do when buying a new piece of dive equipment is be trained on how to use it. With computers this means reading the instruction manual, and knowing what the numbers mean. The best way to do this is by taking the Multilevel Diver Speciality  which incorporates how to use dive computers. This means you don’t switch your brain of just because there is a dive computer on your wrist.

Dive Computers

So what are the benefits of the Multilevel Speciality?

It allows you to extend your bottom time by planning your dives in a slightly different way to what the RDP tables show you.

To be able to do this you would use the eRDPml, this will allow you to plan a dive safely within the RDP guidelines, then follow your plan using your dive computer. By doing the dives this way you will have several benefits:

eRDPml

If your computer fails then you can still dive using the eRDPml as all your dives are planned before going into the water

It allows for proper dive planning, computers will allow you to dive in a way that is not recommended, and if you follow them blindly without knowing the theory behind what you are doing they will give you penalties for subsequent dives.

You learn the safety procedures for planning multilevel and computer dives.

By planning dives as multilevel dives and following your plan you will gain credit for the slower nitrogen absorption rates as you ascend during the dive. Most divers already dive in this way, so it is just a matter of gaining credit for what you are actually doing anyway.

During the Multilevel course you will learn about dive planning, organisation, dive techniques and potential problems. You need to take into consideration aspects such as air consumption, topography and temperature to come up with a realistic plan that will maximise the enjoyment of the dive. With the eRDPml the planning is simple and then you just need to follow that plan underwater. It is important to understand the concept behind the dive plan and use your computer to help you follow this, rather than allowing the computer to dictate the dive. Computers estimate the time remaining underwater, and are a guideline or calculator that reads depth and time accurately. They have very limited dive planning functions which is why you need to plan the dive first using the eRDPml.

During the Multilevel diver course you will learn more about safety stops, decompression theory and the care and maintenance of your dive computer.

So what are you waiting for, sign up for your Multilevel Diver Speciality today………become a SAFER Diver and continue your adventure

Scuba Cat Diving was been based on the beach road of Patong for the past 18 years, but this year, things changed.

New Locations

A move away from the tuk tuks, tailors, massage parlours and Muay Thai advertisements (yes those of you who have already been to see us will recall “Monday Night, Monday Night……….” )to a new location inside the Kee Plaza, a fantastic hotel and shopping facility 200m off of the Beach Road. This has enabled us to have a larger retail selection, much more selection for our customers to choose from Scubapro, Aqualung and many more.

Kee Plaza

We have  kept our classrooms in Soi Watanna but opened a second shop putting retail and booking’s on the ground floor, this has allowed us to have our dive centre at both ends of Patong so is more convenient for you all. Our fun pub has moved to the roof top terrace we created this year.

Meet the team

It has been a different 6 months but things are progressing well.

Scuba Cat Diving, 5 * CDC is still under British ownership and management and they have the only female Course Director, Sarah Kench, conducting monthly IDC’s on Phuket. Along side this we are the only DDI (Disabled Diver International) Instructor Trainer Centre in Asia.

Scuba Cat has a long history of being eco aware, from laying artificial reefs, becoming the first National Geographic Centre in Phuket, bi-annual underwater clean ups and winning awards from Project AWARE. This is consolidated with our 5 year commitment to monitor reefs at a local island in conjunction with reef check trainers from China on a yearly basis as we are the only reef check centre on Phuket. Recently we won the Green Star Award, the first dive centre to achieve this on Phuket and quickly followed it up by becoming the first Dive Centre in Phuket to go 100% Aware.

Following the changes we made on the retail side of the business this year Scuba Cat has also made changes in the type diving we are offering.

As always we conduct our courses to the highest standards, with emphasis on quality rather time. IDC’s are available every month along with DSAT Tech diving up to Instructor level.

We are  running 3 Diving boats this year, all of which will have Nitrox available and limited numbers of divers on them, this will enable us to have 3 different schedules which will suit all divers and snorkelers.  Whether you are a snorkeller, brand new to diving or looking to change your life by joining us working in Paradise, no problem, we have a program to suit you and your whole family.

Daytrips to the local islands around Phuket on board MV Scuba Fun will run 3 dives per day at different locations. New for this year there will be freshly cooked meals from our own kitchen cooked by the awesome Chef from Lair Le Tong Restaurant.

Half day trips to the local reefs of Phuket on MV Scuba Sport, new for this year allowing boat diving on mornings, afternoons and night dives. Sightings on the reefs have been beyond our expectations, with things we have not seen around Phuket in many years, the most recent being a free Swimming Ribbon Eel.

Our liveaboard MV Scuba Adventure will run trips to both the North Andaman and South Andaman this season, allowing for 3, 4 or 7 day trips offering the best diving Thailand has to offer. As always she offers un-crowded conditions, by having reduced numbers on the boat and is run by our own Tour leader Kath Ridley and the best Captain and Crew on Phuket. A brand new schedule is being launched for the summer and next high season to give you even more variety.

A new IDC website created by our website designers dedicated to professional level courses and Internships will be launched very shortly.