Can you get PADI certified near Cartagena?
Yes, and you can do it with us on Tierra Bomba, 25 minutes by boat from the city. We run PADI courses from a single try-it dive up to Advanced Diver, and the reef is straight off our beach rather than an hour's ride away. Here's what everything costs and who each option is actually for.
Prices, in full
| What you're booking | How long | Price |
|---|---|---|
| House reef discovery dive | One dive | US $90 |
| Discovery day | One day | US $140 |
| PADI Scuba Diver | 2 days | US $320 |
| PADI Open Water | 4 days | US $460 |
| PADI Advanced Diver | 2 days | US $440 |
Those are our published dive prices. Getting to us is separate, and so is your room or day pass.
Never dived before? Start with the discovery dive
The US $90 house reef discovery dive is the one for people who have never breathed underwater and aren't sure they'll like it. No certification needed, no course to commit to, and if you hate it you've lost an hour rather than four days. Plenty of people do this on a day trip, come up grinning and ask about Open Water over lunch. The US $140 discovery day is the same idea with more water time.
The certifications, and how to pick one
PADI Scuba Diver takes two days and costs US $320. It's the shorter qualification: you can dive with a professional, which is fine if you only ever dive on holiday with a guide anyway.
Open Water is the real one. Four days, US $460, and it's the certification most dive shops around the world will ask you for. If you've got the time in Colombia, do this one. Four days sounds like a lot until you realise the alternative is doing half of it at home in a swimming pool in February.
Advanced Diver is two days at US $440 and assumes you're already certified. It's for people who want to go deeper and get more comfortable rather than people starting out.
Where you'll actually be diving
Our house reef is at 6 metres, directly out from our beach. That's the reason we can run a one-hour dive at all: there's no transfer to a site, you go in from here.
It also explains something we get asked constantly, which is whether you can snorkel. You can't, and we'd rather say so plainly than have you arrive with a mask. Our beachfront leads straight out to open ocean and the surface water is often choppy, so a snorkel over a reef that's six metres down doesn't work. A dive does. This is the honest trade of being on the ocean side of the island rather than on a sheltered bay.
Booking, and how far ahead
You can book a dive in advance or arrange one when you arrive. Both work. If you're set on a multi-day course, tell us before you come so we can plan the days around your stay, because a four-day Open Water needs four days that actually exist in your itinerary.
Getting here for a dive
Our boat leaves Muelle de la Bodeguita in Cartagena at 10am, 11:30am and 5pm, and the crossing takes 25 minutes. Coming back, boats leave us at 4pm and 5:30pm. If you're diving as a day visitor rather than staying the night, you'll need a day pass to be here, which is the same pass that gets you the beach club and the restaurant.
If you're doing a course over several days, staying with us is simply less stressful than making that round trip four mornings running. We have 11 rooms.
Two things worth knowing before you commit
There's no phone signal on the island. That's lovely on day two and mildly alarming on day one, so tell whoever needs to know that WhatsApp will be sporadic.
Bring a towel. Our official policy is that you bring your own, whatever else you may have read.
See you on the boat.