Diving in Havelock, and what a first dive involves

Most people who dive in the Andamans have never dived before. Swaraj Dweep — still called Havelock by nearly everyone — is where that usually happens.

This is what the day actually involves, so you can decide before you are standing on a jetty at six in the morning.

You do not need a certification

A try-dive — PADI call it Discover Scuba Diving, other agencies have their own name for the same thing — is a supervised introduction. No course, no certification, no prior experience. An instructor takes you down and stays with you.

Depth is capped, and the cap is the safety mechanism. A confined-water or pool session is limited to around 6 metres. The optional open-water dive that follows goes no deeper than 12 metres. If somebody offers you a first dive substantially deeper than that, that is a reason to ask questions rather than a better deal.

Do you need to be able to swim?

Not in the sense most people mean. You do not need a swimming qualification and you do not need to be fast or graceful.

What you do need is comfort in water and the ability to keep yourself at the surface. That is a real requirement, not a formality — the surface is where you spend the minutes before and after the dive, and panic there is the actual risk.

If you are genuinely uneasy in water, say so when you book rather than on the boat. It changes how an instructor runs the dive; it does not usually mean no.

The medical form is the part nobody expects

Before you get in, you fill in a diver medical questionnaire. It asks about conditions that behave differently under pressure — heart, lungs, ears, sinuses, epilepsy, diabetes, recent surgery, some medications, pregnancy.

Two things worth knowing:

1. A "yes" is not a no. It means you may need a doctor's sign-off before diving. Some answers are cleared on the spot; some are not.
2. Getting the sign-off in Havelock is hard. If any answer might be a yes, see a doctor at home and bring the signed form. Discovering this on the morning of the dive is how people lose the thing they came for.

The current form is published by the training agency and you can read it before you travel. Do that.

Questions worth asking before you book

Not because operators are untrustworthy — most are careful — but because the answers tell you what kind of day you are buying.

• How many people per instructor? For a first dive this is the number that matters most.
• Is the maximum depth 12 metres? You want a straight answer.
• What happens if the sea is up? Reschedule, refund, or nothing — worth knowing before rather than after. See when to visit for why this comes up so often.
• Is there a briefing on land before we go? There should be.
• What do I need to bring, and what is provided?

The honest expectation

A try-dive is a short time in the water — often twenty to thirty minutes at depth — after a briefing and a boat ride that take considerably longer. People who expect a full day of diving are sometimes surprised; people who expect twenty minutes that change how they think about the sea usually are not.

If it works, the next step is a certification course, and Havelock is a reasonable place to do one.