When it comes to Swimming And Scuba Diving, we’re often asked the question of ‘Do I need to be able to swim to snorkel or scuba dive?’. In fact, the simple answer is, it is possible for people that can’t swim at all to enjoy both Scuba Diving and snorkeling. However, there are certain conditions that should be respected to ensure safety for everyone.

Snorkeling, Swimming And Scuba Diving

Snorkeling is a sport that can be enjoyed by everyone; it is not necessary to know how to swim. The three main ingredients: floating, breathing, and looking. If you can do that, then you can snorkel!

Snorkeling requires very little actual swimming, allowing you to enjoy the beautiful underwater sights below, by floating face-down on the sea’s surface, with your snorkel and mask strapped on. If you want to snorkel but aren’t a confident swimmer, we would provide you with a life jacket to help you stay afloat and for safety. We also provide shortie wetsuits on all our snorkeling excursions which further aid with buoyancy, making it easy for you to just relax and lie at the surface! Snorkeling doesn’t require a swim stroke or your arms to propel yourself through the water, although if you want to move around a bit then you will need to kick your legs.

Whilst you don’t need to be a swimmer, it is important to understand some basic skills and learn how to use the snorkeling equipment correctly in order to get the most out of the experience.

All of our snorkel trips are led by friendly PADI Dive Instructors, who are happy to give you beginner tips, and to ensure you have a great time! Non-swimmers or less confident swimmers are welcome on our Phi Phi Ley Tours, Sunset Plankton Tour and Bamboo, Beers, ‘n Beaches trip , however for our Shark Watch Trip , non-swimmers are required to practice snorkeling first on one of our other trips since the snorkelers may be subject to stronger currents, and having some experience snorkeling is all the more important for persons that cannot swim.

Scuba Diving

Focussing more on Swimming and Scuba diving, some Scuba diving programs are available for people that cannot swim that wish to experience what it is like to go scuba diving. Non-swimmers are only allowed to make simple intro dives with an instructor but are not allowed to complete a dive course. Part of the reason that when it comes to Swimming and Scuba diving, the swimming part of it is fairly important.

Scuba diving equipment is designed to help you and includes a BCD (jacket) which doubles up as a flotation device on the surface, and underwater keeps you neutrally buoyant (which just means we neither float nor sink). You will be closely supervised by an instructor, who will help you underwater so that you are comfortable, holding on to your tank and adjusting your jacket. Since you are weightless underwater your dive instructor can even do the swimming for you, meaning all you need to do is breathe and enjoy! At The Adventure Club, we regularly take non-swimmers who wish to try scuba diving with our Discover Beach Plus program, which allows you to dive to a maximum depth of 12 meters with an instructor on a ratio of 2:1.

For those with none, or little, swimming skills we recommend our Discover Beach Plus option which means that the first ‘try-dive’ is conducted from the beach in water shallow enough to stand. This beach dive allows the diver to become accustomed to the equipment and water, and build confidence.

When it comes to Swimming and Scuba Diving, however, if you are a non-swimmer you cannot become a certified diver and get a full scuba license. The PADI Open Water Diver course allows a diver to dive independently of an instructor, so there are swimming requirements as part of the course, including a 10-minute float with no buoyancy aids and a 200-meter swim in water too deep to stand in.

Just let any of our dive instructors know about your swimming level when signing up for any of our trips and we’ll be happy to advise and find a way of introducing you to Phi Phi below the surface. If you have any more questions about Swimming And Scuba Diving please contact us now.