Scuba diving can be dangerous when proper safety precautions, equipment and people are disregarded. That is why getting certified is so important-- we will teach you everything you need to be able to ensure the safety of yourself and others while out on the water, and so long as you follow these core teachings, you will know exactly how to prevent dangers from happening. Of course, as with most hobbies and physical activities, there is always the potential of accidents or injury, and that's why it's so important for you to be in the water with other people who can help monitor each other and assist if something does go wrong. In our classes, you will always have The Bearded Scuba Diver present, who is trained as a rescue diver and knows exactly how to keep you safe as you are learning how to navigate this new adventure. The most common issues divers encounter—sunburn, seasickness, and dehydration—are all preventable through watching your food intake and putting on proper protective measures. While injuries from marine life, like scrapes and stings, can happen, they can be avoided by wearing a wet suit, avoiding the sand, and being mindful of where you place your hands and feet. Another concern some people have is in regards to water pressure. You will be taught during your classes to safely equalize your ear pressure and ascend/descend slowly to avoid potential harm from going through water pressure too quickly. If you are concerned about any of these issues or other dangers, feel free to ask The Bearded Scuba Diver all the questions you want! He's been doing this for years and would love to help people who are interested learn more about how we stay safe as a team.

You can begin our courses at the ages 15-17 with parental consent, and 18 onwards on your own. We are currently in the process of creating a course for Junior Scuba Divers (ages 10-14) to be able to learn how to dive, but we have not yet gotten to the point of being able to have these courses be ready for the public! You can keep yourself up to date on when these courses will be available by liking us on Facebook, where we post regular updates on our diving sessions and plans for future dives.

Sort of. You need to be able to perform basic water skills, but you don't need to be incredibly efficient at it, as you'll be learning alongside us to swim and dive better. We will be testing you during the first course to ensure you are capable of: - swimming 200 yards without stopping, using any method you want (this is not timed-- you will be able to take your time with it, you just won't be able to take a full stopping break to float or tread water during it) - float or tread water for 10 minutes, using any method you want This is to ensure that you will be able to comfortably complete the course without potential safety concerns. If you are worried about being able to do this, please let us know over the contact form so we can speak with you about it!

This depends on the disability and what difficulties it gives you. Scuba diving is a physically intensive sport that requires you to be able to have as much articulation and movement as you can, and it also requires you to be able to control your breathing without difficulties. Most importantly, you need to be able to be calm underwater and not panic if something goes wrong, so that you have the opportunity to employ safety techniques. If you have any major conflicts with those skills (loss/paralyzation of areas of your body, debilitating asthma/breathing troubles, panic disorders or hallucinations, compulsive actions, phobias of deep water/drowning/tight spaces, loss of vision, low cognitive functioning/memory, etc.) then scuba diving may not be a sport you could participate in safely. Our forms have a list of disabilities and issues that may cause problems during scuba diving, and if you happen to have any of these, you will have to speak with your doctor and get a letter from them assuring that the doctor believes you would be physically capable of doing scuba diving before any coursework would begin. Those with hearing loss or complete deafness are a bit more tricky-- while it is possible for some people to experience diving comfortably with these issues, certain types of hearing loss and surgeries are suggested to avoid the sport entirely due to how pressure underwater interacts with our ears. Some examples of people who would not be able to participate include: Those who already have permanent dive-related hearing loss. Those who have undergone cochlear implant surgery. Those who have monaural hearing (one-sided hearing) regardless of the cause. Those who have had ossicle surgery or tympanic-membrane repair. People with these issues that decide to dive anyways will risk serious damage or further hearing loss. Anyone who has hearing loss or deafness not included in that list should check with their doctor regardless about the possibility and what accommodations may be needed. We do not have instructors at this time who know any type of sign language, so we would not be able to communicate as easily with you throughout the learning process, but there are ways to work around this. Talk with us in the contact form if you have any concerns of disabilities or problems you may experience during the dives, so we can try to find solutions beforehand! We want to make scuba diving as available as we can to everyone, and while not everyone will always be able to participate for safety's sake, we still want to do what we can to provide for you as your dedicated instructor.

For Intro to Scuba, all gear will be lent to you from The Bearded Scuba Diver, as it's meant to be used to help you see what fits best and how comfortable you feel using them! During the Open Water course, your course fee covers the cost of a snorkeling kit, giving you your very own booties, fins, snorkel, and face mask that you will get to keep. Other gear that is needed will be lent to you throughout this specific course. If you decide to move forward with further scuba diving education, you will need to get your own gear or rent out that gear for the sessions it's used in. This can be a bit of a difficult thing to figure out on your own, so we've provided a handy list with explanations of the basics so that you know why you'll need each item before you get into the program. The gear that would be needed includes: - Wet Suit | Helps to keep your body warm and protect your skin from the elements. - Bouyancy Compensator Device (BCD) | Holds your gear, air tank, and inflates to help you float back up to the surface. - Regulator | Connects to your air tank and allows you to breathe from the tank underwater. You'll want to get one that is high performance to ensure that you have complete control of your air intake. - Dive Computer | This allows you to be able to track how long you have been underwater, how much air is left in your tank, how deep you are, and overall give you a good idea of where you are at so that you can stay safe. We have a partnership with HOG to sell their gear out of our services-- feel free to check through the catalog to see our options and prices for all of these!

Sadly, we cannot provide a face mask that fits to glasses prescriptions automatically in the Open Water kit, as they are a bit more expensive than the ones we include in the package. However, we can order face masks by Edge Optix that can be ordered to your specific prescription, you will just have to pay the price for them separate from the class itself. Check out the Edge Optix Corrective lenses listed on our catalog!

The timeline for completing this program depends on your availability. Once you contact us, you'll end up being given instructions on how to sign up for the website we use to give you your eLearning materials. Ronny will likely get back to you within a few days to talk about your schedule, the gear you want to use, and when he is available to do in person sessions. Then he will automatically assign you your course work online! Some students complete this in just a few days, but we encourage you to take your time. After finishing the eLearning, you will contact us so that we can get you into your orientation session, which lasts about 2 hours. During orientation, we'll schedule your two pool sessions (3 hours each) and your two Open Water Dive days at the lake (9am-1pm). If your schedule is flexible, you could complete everything in approximately 2 weeks.

At the moment, we do not provide private classes, but we plan on expanding our services as we gain more traction and resources available! Luckily, even when in public classes, you will not be overwhelmed with a large group of people learning alongside you. We keep our classes to 4-5 people or less to ensure that we are able to spend sufficient time with one-on-one training and keep everyone in the class safe(though, due to us being a smaller instructor and the flexibility of our program, you may have only 1 to 2 other people with you during classes during some courses). If you have concerns about a class and would like to ask about potential accommodations, please mention them when writing your contact form, so we can see if there is any way to help you!

We usually break this up into three stages-- 1. E-Learning In the first stage of your scuba training, you'll learn the fundamental principles of scuba diving, including: How to plan dives effectively. Selecting the right scuba gear for your needs. Understanding underwater signals and other essential diving procedures. After each chapter, you’ll complete questions to ensure you grasp the material. If anything is unclear, don’t hesitate to ask Ronny any questions. At the end of the course, you'll take a final exam to confirm your understanding of the basics of scuba diving. You'll also watch videos that introduce the scuba skills you'll practice in a pool or similar environment. Your instructor will then demonstrate these skills for you in the next stage. 2. Confined Water Dives Now comes the fun part—diving! In this phase, you'll develop basic scuba skills in a pool or confined water, such as a calm beach area with pool-like conditions. These skills will help you become familiar with your scuba gear and prepare you for underwater exploration. Key skills you’ll learn include: Setting up your scuba gear. Entering and exiting the water. Clearing water from your mask. Controlling buoyancy. Basic underwater navigation. Safety procedures. You’ll practice these skills with The Bearded Scuba Diver until you feel confident. Once you're ready, your underwater adventure will continue at an open water dive site. 3. Open Water Dives After mastering confined water dives, you’ll move on to open water. We usually take students to Beaver Lake for this, but may end up changing locations to another lake or option that is more convenient depending on availability and needs. You will perform the skills you learned in confined water in this larger environment, where you will learn how to contend with water currents, deeper depths, lower visibility, and how to get into the water safely. You will eventually perform a skills test to finalize your teaching, and then you will gain your certification card!

You will be able to dive up to 60ft, which is about as deep as it gets with most lakes in the area. If you decide to continue your education, you can take the Advanced course or the Deep Diver course to be able to dive up to 100ft in areas that allow it (certain mines/caves, coastal areas, etc.).

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Missouri is actually an unfound gem to the world of scuba diving due to the lakes, caves, and other amazing features that are typically looked over! While some may discount it due to being mostly freshwater, Missouri has a fascinating underwater habitat that is teeming with life, from the large fish, to reptiles and birds that feed on them. Here are some of the coolest scuba diving spots in the area, some of which you will likely get to go to as part of your courses! Beaver Lake | We do many of our certification get togethers here, but diving here is a blast even without the teaching! This is an artificial lake created for diving, with wrecks to explore, areas for divers to decorate with trinkets, and filled with local wildlife to top it all off. Divers flock here to be able to have fun adventures as groups throughout the diving season. Table Rock Lake | That's right, only a hop and a skip away is our very own Table Rock Lake. This lake has multiple breathtaking sites that you can explore, including underwater forests, sunken boats, and even secluded areas that contain unique wildlife like paddlefish! Bonne Terre Mine | This dive site is fantastic due to it allowing you to have safe, guided dives throughout some of the most stunning history Missouri has to offer. Bonne Terre was a mine that was completely flooded, and within it now are the remains of all that once used to be here. Perfect if you want to explore the depths of caves without the potential danger of going off map. *Not all scuba sites are mentioned here-- many other ones exist, if you look into regulations at local lakes! Additionally, scuba diving provides an essential path to being able to offer volunteer or even career services to places like aquariums or zoos with aquatic exhibits! Wonders of Wildlife is our local aquarium, which just so happens to have been voted one of America's best aquariums multiple years in a row. They are constantly in need of divers, and if you are willing to learn with them how to interact with the animals and handle their equipment, you could find yourself in an incredibly rewarding opportunity to interact with a variety of animals from around the world. That's not even mentioning places in other cities, or aquariums out of state. The world is your oyster, and Missouri is right in the middle of it!

No! You are able to begin diving with groups of other people as soon as your open water certification is received, and you can dive anywhere, even internationally. If you do not plan on doing scuba diving regularly and you mostly want to learn as a fun thing to do every once and awhile, this might be all you need for your scuba diving journey. However, I still suggest you check out our other courses just in case you find that you might be interested in going deeper in, especially if you find yourself loving being underwater as much as we do!

Many times when doing scuba diving certifications, people are taking these courses to eventually become experts in the field they are studying from. Unless you are planning on teaching these subjects yourself or potentially doing scuba diving as a career, most of the paths that are out there are not necessary for you to become a seasoned diver with lots of experience. There are, however, some courses I always recommend past the main course if you are wanting to scuba dive regularly, as they will help ensure you are more comfortable in the water. - Emergency Response | includes CPR, O2, nitrox; essential for being able to keep yourself and others safe in case of an emergency in or out of the water. - Computer Nitrox | Involves the complex understanding of how to use nitrox mixtures to increase the depth and length of your dives safely. - Advanced Buoyancy Control | Teaches you more about how to control your weight and breathing. We try to teach some of this automatically in our main course, but taking this as an extra will allow you to feel at complete ease being able to orient yourself in the dive whether 100ft below or bobbing at the surface. - Underwater Navigation | expands your ability to understand where you are at in the water and how to keep yourself from getting turned around. Also improves your ability to read and understand readings on your dive computer. There are also some other courses that could be helpful to you depending on what you decide to regularly pursue scuba diving for. Deep Diver | This will allow you to dive deeper than before, up to 100ft. Night Time / Limited Visibility | Ensures you are able to find your way underwater in low visibility or dark areas. Search and Recovery | Shows you important techniques used to search for and find lost objects or sites. Wreck Diving (Non-Penetration + Limited Penetration) | Teaches you how to safely navigate the outside and inside of wrecks with groups. Of course, all courses provided have their own pros and cons, and depending on your interest you may benefit from much more than just the basic hobby certifications. Contact us to learn more about these courses and the ones beyond this if you are curious about what all they can do for you!

If you don't scuba dive more than once a month, it's often easier to rent gear from local dive shops or the dive location. Maintaining this high-tech equipment can be tricky, and it usually requires a certified technician to ensure everything is safe for regular use. The equipment is made to withstand high pressure environments, but without regular upkeep, they can become worn out or broken quickly. If you do decide to go ahead to buy one or more of these pieces of equipment for yourself, though, here are some tips to keep up with care: Rinse After Each Use: Always rinse your gear with fresh water after every dive to remove salt, chlorine, and other contaminants. Fully submerge and agitate your equipment, including your wetsuit, BCD, mask, fins, and snorkel, to shake off any debris. Clean Your BCD: If diving in saltwater, you will find that salt deposits many times can build up on the inside of equipment. Partially fill your BCD with fresh water, inflate it, shake gently to clean the bladder, then drain through a dump valve. This prevents salt and mineral buildup inside the BCD. Dry Properly: After rinsing, let your gear dry completely in a shaded, well-ventilated area before storing. Avoid direct sunlight, as UV rays can damage materials. Hang items like your wetsuit on wide hangers to prevent stretching. Store Correctly: Keep your gear in a cool, dry place away from sunlight and heat. Use proper storage, like gear bags or specialized hangers, to protect against dust and damage. Avoid Harmful Substances: Keep your gear away from petroleum-based products, harsh chemicals, and solvents that can harm rubber and plastic parts. Transport Safely: When traveling, especially by air, pack your gear in padded bags to protect it from impact and compression. Consider carrying your regulator and dive computer in your carry-on luggage to prevent damage or loss. Prevent Moisture in the Regulator: Avoid letting water enter the first stage of your regulator. Always replace the dust cap when it's not connected to a tank, ensuring it's dry first. Never press the purge button on the second stage unless it's pressurized to prevent drawing in moisture. Pre-Dive Inspections: Before any dive, thoroughly inspect your gear for wear, damage, or malfunction, especially hoses, o-rings, and seals. Address any issues in advance to ensure your equipment is safe. Use Eco-Friendly Products: Whenever possible, use biodegradable cleaning products to reduce environmental impact. Regular Servicing: Get your regulator, BCD, and dive computer professionally serviced at least once a year or as recommended by the manufacturer. Frequent divers should consider more regular check-ups to ensure reliability.

Yes, we will accept any international diving certification and are more than happy to take over where you left off with someone else. We provide a smaller, more personal environment with reasonable prices to help give options to everyone, which makes us a great continued education group to give you a bit more comfort while learning your skills. Please include information about your previous diving experience and courses in the contact form if you are planning on continuing your education with us, so that way we know a little bit about where you are at and how we can help get you where you want to go!

Yes-- getting a certification with us will allow you to continue more certifications or classes anywhere in the world, as our providers are international. However, if you are going to be doing this in the middle of a course you have already started, please contact The Bearded Scuba Diver to discuss this further, as there is a bit of a process to get you transferred over to other instructors while in the middle of a class.