Dubai: A flood of discount online basic scuba diving deals may be putting beginners at risk if the companies involved are not properly certified in teaching and handling equipment in Dubai, experts contend.

A quick internet search by Gulf News for inexpensive diving lessons turned up discounted coupon package deals for as little as Dh174.

By contrast, certified full beginner packages by longstanding dive centres in Dubai cost upwards of Dh2,000.

Phil O’Shea is a 20-year diving veteran in the UAE and PADI course director and oversees PADI certification examinations two or three times a year in Dubai.

In other words, O’Shea trains the trainers.

Given that the diving community is reasonably close-knit in Dubai, O’Shea said he is familiar with a large share of instructors because he helped oversee their training and examinations.

But in the last several years, O’Shea said he is personally witnessing a raft of new so-called instructors giving lessons out of the backs of trucks beachside in Dubai and he is worried for groups of unsuspecting diving first-timers who have no idea the perils that wait beneath the waves.

“Since the creation of coupon online sites, there has been the creation of a lot of dive centres that do not exist,” O’Shea told Gulf News. “They’re taking a lot of people to dive. I’ve witnessed it myself, I don’t know who these people are…they haven’t gone through our [PADI] training programmes.”

“It’s become a trend, a hindrance for people who are trying to do the training the right way,” he said.

O’Shea said he has seen beachside classes in which instructors are taking eight students into the water when international regulations dictate that the instructor-student ratio should only be that high in optimal water conditions which generally do not occur in the UAE.

In low visibility conditions, the guidelines indicate instructors should move on the side of safety and drop the ratio to as low as two persons per instructor.

When O’Shea teaches his classes he sticks to two students underwater and he is never more than an arm’s length away in case trouble strikes.

“Given visibility here, instructors can’t deal with more than two people,” O’Shea said.

“Some instructors are under pressure from their employers to take more than four.”

Another emerging trend in basic scuba diving classes, according to O’Shea, is that instructors are “overweighting” their new students with weight belts that help them descend into the depths. Inexperienced divers who are not good swimmers should not be given too much weight that could hamper their ability to swim back to the surface, he said.

“If you look at statistical records around the world, overweighting is a big factor in water deaths. Weight belts are heavier than they should be,” he said.

Mohammad Helmy, course director Al Boom Diving, warned prospective divers to be wary of fly-by-night dive offers no matter where they find them noting that the caveat of “sounds too good to be true” is usually a good indicator.

“What’s happening here is that in the market, people are offering cheap courses. In general, if someone is offering a course for Dh2,000 and another is offering a course for Dh800, who do you choose?”

In diving centres, price has traditionally been a strong indicator of a solid, safe and trusted tutelage in the sport, he said.