What is a family without arguments....

What to do. The industry is growing and getting more competitive, online shops that ship internationally are easily available and accessible. Hence, people tend to resort to those kinda tricks.

Brooooo

Coral Redang is that hotel that is quite new right?
Might wanna give it a try some time. Would you be able to PM me the details?

Hm. Is it the one where they have chalets with doors opening towards the beach? And the lobby entrance quite grand wan. I heard this one was an abandon project and now bought over.

Or is it another one? Which hotels are it's direct neighbour?

Talking about warranty. I bought my dive comp from one of the dive shops in Malaysia. Use less than a year, the display suddenly blank out. Did not show any signs of low battery previously before it blank out.

Call up dive shop, was directed to the authorized reseller for Malaysia. Call up the authorized reseller, was directed to another dive shop to 'check'. After sending my dive comp to 'check', they straight change my battery and I had to pay. What kind of warranty is this...

Hm, I did go for beach clean up at Berjaya Tioman in 2010. Paid less than RM570+ for 3D2N full board twin sharing with 3 clean up dives. Can't remember how much was the additional dives already.

For Laguna, I was quoted RM558 for 3D2N full board twin sharing without dives. Dives are priced at RM200 for 4 boat dives.

I needed the DC urgently. What to do. Anyways, not worth fighting with the dive shop about it. I just hope it's not the battery sensor malfunctioning not showing low battery when it's suppose to.

I'm not attached to any instructor and I doubt he will be able to help since it's really nothing to do with him. I didn't buy the DC from him nor did he help me to purchase it. Nothing much can be done since you also said they don't cover batteries under their warranty.

Congrats! And welcome back
That's very common among first timers. Wear socks next time or buy your own booties. For now, just get it to heal as quickly as possible.

Hmm booties eh..
Basically there are 2 major type of booties, low or high cut.
Low cut will be easier to wear but sand may go in when you walk on the shore. Low cut booties also tend to be made of thinner material.
High cut comes with the zip and is usually thicker than low cut.
Bare and Seapro are the more common brands, easily available at most dive shops and are some of the cheaper booties out there. You can also check Scubatex for IST or Cressi booties.

Pulau Weh vis is sooooooo awesome...

You call me bro, I dowan bring you go weh next time.

Come come! We need to make a trip to weh for lyn.

I learn my skills directly in the sea when I did my OW course. Yours still got pool leh!

From experience, generally matsalleh DMs and instructors are more strict and 'follow the book/rules' when it comes to diving.

Most definitely need to separate them into few groups. I've seen one instructor (and 1 DMT assistant) to 8 students underwater, and it was really hell!
I think a good size would probably be 1 instructor to around 3-4 students.

Evan has already given you the best possible option for your need. Age doesn't really matter in this case. As long as you have the budget, and go to the right place, you'll be able to get what you want.

Any island or city dive center will be able to let you try out diving. Where's your location? Maybe we can suggest a suitable place for you.

You can do OW alone. You don't need a group.

In our September redang laguna trip, one of us is doing AOW as well. If you are interested, you can come join us. It'll be quite a big group of leisure divers though. And the price may be a little higher than budget accommodation.

A bit weird that you only heard of rainbow runners. IMO, people go there mainly for the underwater camera accessories.

Check the first page 2nd post for a not-so-complete list of dive shops, rough location and what they usually carry. Most people will start with scubatex.

Fins, mask, booties. Good to get your own set. Happy shopping!

Go deeper to get high

If you're interested, do let me know ASAP as it'll be quite a last minute thin and you'll have to pay full for the accommodation. Not much of a group discount with us. If you're not in a rush, best to look around and see which place suits you better. Did you go to MIDE to check the prices?

Very true.
I know of a friend who did OW straight to DM. One day we were casually talking about dive equipments and he told me "dive comp not important wan la, so expensive no need to buy".

Sometimes after a few dives, if the instructor/DM is confident in your skills. They will bring you to certain dive sites that are over the depth limit for OW divers. Just like our recent dive to Sophie Rickmer's Wreck at Pulau Weh which is 40-50m deep. The dive center require us to have a minimum of rescue with 150 dives or DM with 100 dives. They didn't really check our certifications and log book but they did a deep check dive at 45m a day before to test if we really know what we are doing, before going for the wreck dive.

Again, this depends on how strict the dive center is. Certain dive centers strictly follow the rules while some are a bit more flexible if they see that you are experienced.

Anyhow, AOW is not much of a big step from OW. I would recommend most to just go ahead and do AOW after getting their OW if they find that they enjoy diving and are pretty much comfortable with their buoyancy underwater. Don't see it as an achievement, you can see it as gaining new knowledge to dive safer. Rescue and DM on the other hand, is quite a big step upwards and you'll really need to have some experience before jumping into it. It's very good though, you will learn a lot on how to handle emergency situations and so on.