PADI Open Water Diver Course in Nusa Lembongan

Day one is mostly pool: your instructor introduces the equipment and runs through confined water skills in our 25 x 15 m, 2.4 m pool before you touch open water. Days two and three move out to the ocean for your 4 open water dives, split across the two days so you are never rushed.

Groups stay small, at most 3 students to 1 instructor, which means everyone gets watched closely rather than being one of a dozen people trying to learn the same skill at once. If a skill needs more repetition, the instructor has room to give you that time without holding the rest of the group up.

Most divers complete the 5 PADI eLearning knowledge sections before they get to Nusa Lembongan, on their own laptop or phone. That way your time here goes almost entirely into pool and ocean training rather than sitting through theory indoors.

Each section ends with a short quiz, and your instructor reviews anything you found tricky on your first morning, so nothing from the eLearning gets left unresolved before you start diving.

In the pool you work through mask clearing, regulator recovery, buoyancy control, and what to do if you run low on air, all in water shallow enough to stand up in if you need to. Your instructor demonstrates each skill first, then watches you repeat it before moving on.

This is also where you get properly comfortable with the equipment itself, the weight of the tank, how the BCD controls your buoyancy, and how your fins feel once you are moving with intent rather than just kicking around. Nobody moves to open water until these feel natural.

Once your instructor is confident in your pool skills, you head out by boat to complete your 4 certification dives, to a maximum depth of 18 m. Site choice depends on conditions on the day. Browse our dive sites to get a feel for what is around Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida once you are certified.

Each dive repeats and builds on the skills from the pool, this time with real depth, current and visibility to manage, and your instructor stays close throughout, correcting technique as you go rather than just observing from a distance.

A lot of diving here is drift diving, letting the current carry you rather than swimming against it, which your instructor briefs you on before every dive. Our safety and conditions guide covers this in more detail, including what to expect if a site has a stronger current than usual on the day.

Training dives are not just about ticking off skills. Depending on the site and season, it is entirely possible to see a manta ray or a turtle on one of your certification dives, alongside the reef fish and coral you will be looking at closely while practising buoyancy control.

Your instructor will not chase marine life during a skills dive if it means rushing you or breaking off a demonstration halfway through, but a genuine sighting is never something anyone tries to hurry past either.

It is common to feel nervous at some point during Open Water, whether that is your first time breathing underwater or a particular skill that does not click straight away. Instructors are used to this and will slow down, repeat a skill, or spend extra time with you rather than pushing you to keep pace with a group.

Because groups are capped at 3 students per instructor, there is genuinely room to do this without the whole course falling behind, which is a large part of why keeping the ratio small matters in the first place.

If you are booking your course as part of a Bali trip, see how to get here and Nusa Lembongan versus Nusa Penida if you are deciding where to base yourself. Staying on Lembongan itself for the 3 days means no daily ferry back and forth, which makes for a noticeably more relaxed course.

If you are travelling with someone who is not doing the course, where to stay has some pointers, and our own Discover Scuba Diving programme is worth mentioning to them if they might want to try a single guided dive while you are in class.

Once you are certified, you can dive independently with a buddy to 18 m anywhere in the world, no instructor required, for the rest of your diving life. Many divers carry straight on to PADI Advanced Open Water while they are still here, and the combo package at 11,600,000 IDR covers both courses back to back.

If you would rather ease into it, a day or two of fun diving straight after certification is a good way to put your new skills into practice with a guide before deciding what to do next.