When people learn to Scuba Dive they usually dream of diving in exotic places such as Egypt, South Africa, The Maldives, The Caribbean and indonesia. Fortunately we have managed to Scuba Dive all these places across the world over the past 20 years, are they are truly amazing.

We are also blessed to live on the South Wales coast next to the Atlantic Ocean and we are lucky enough to be able to dive in the sea's around wales as much as possible. The coast extends from Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, Bridgend, Swansea all the way to pembrokeshire. It has an abundance of Sea life including porpoise, seals, dolphins, sharks, fish, soft coral, crabs, shellfish in fact you name it and we have it in the sea's around wales.

We dive in Swansea on a regular basis in places such as limeslade bay, langland bay and Oxwich, the scenery is amazing, yes it can be cold and sometimes not the best visability but sometimes it can be spectacular with an abunance of Marine life and crystal clear and on our door step.

Conditions can sometimes be challenging so we do advise that people extend their levels from the PADI Open Water Diver qualification to the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Qualification or the equivalent from another system. We always say Scuba Diving is Quite Simple and any one can partake within reason, but our sea's are challenging and therefore we must train to be prepared to Dive in our beautiful sea's.

A following weekend we are back in the water conducting another PADI Open Water Diver Course, the course will be held in the inland site in chepstow on both Saturday and Sunday. All students must complete 4 Open Water Dives for the completion of their PADI Open Water Diver Course.

On the course this week we have Jarrod from Cardiff, Cathryn From Cardiff University, Jacquie, Mark, Elliott and Conor from Treharris and Adrian from Swansea. The students will be instructed by Ray, Stuart, John and Phil and will meet at site for 7.45am for an early start in the water.

Last weeks students Miguel, Victoria, Michael from Cardiff, Fenella from Cardiff University and Toby from Swansea University all passed their Open Water course succsessfully and are now able to dive anywhere in the world upto 18 meters. Good look to everyone this weekend, we will post our next update next week.

This weekend we are running the PADI Open Water Diver Course with 5 Students, they are Fenella from Cardiff University, Toby from Swansea University, Michael, Miguel and Victoria from Cardiff. They have all completed their Confined Water Scuba Diving Sessions and passed the Open Water Diver Exam.

They will complete 4 Open Water Dives over 2 Days, 2 dives on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday. Their Instructors will be Ray and John and the dives will be held in a local Diving site. After the 4 Open Water Dives the students on completion of all skills will be qualified to dive anywhere in the world upto 18 meters.

We are also running the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course with Hannah from Cardiff University, her instructor is Dan and he will be completeing 5 Open Water Dives with her to obtain the qualification which will allow her to Dive anywhere in the world upto 30 Meters.

Hannah and Toby will also be attending our Scuba Diving Expedition to The Medes Islands in Northern Spain in the summer. We will keep you informed with all the latest news throughout the year.

Saturday 03rd may we are running the PADI Open Water Diver Referral Course in Hebron Hall in Dinas powys on the edge of Cardiff and close to Dinas Powys train station.

The course will start at 8am for a briefing and the day will consist of watching the PADI Open Water Diver Video and completeing the knowledge Review assesments which the group have already completed and on completion we will then be running through a 50 question multiple choice test with the group to evaluate their full knowledgeof assembling of equipment by the whole group, we will then brief on the skills of diving before moving into the swimming pool for a 4 hour training session with the group. Attending the weekend are Kyle from near Cardiff, John and Gareth from Cardiff and Peter from Swansea.

The instructional team on the day will be Kath, Mal and John and they will be putting the group through their skills, once completed the students will be able to move onto the four Open Water Qualifying Dives for the completeion of their PADI Open Water Diver Qualification

Theres nothing better than heading off down the Coast for a good weekend of Scuba Diving, this weekend we are in Southampton for a PADI Open Water Diver Referral Course training event.

We will be teaching on both Saturday and Sunday to teach the students the art of Scuba Diving for an upcoming expedition they are attending,  the course will run through all the aspects of theory and practical skills for them to get the in depth knowledge they need before heading off on their tour.

We will post all the pictures on our Ocean Quest facebook site, next week we will be back in Swansea and Cardiff teaching our full PADI Programmes, to the people of South Wales.

The sun is out and the sky is blue, the water is still a little chilly but the Scuba Diving is wonderful no matter what the conditions are, we have been back on the coast and our training sites over the last few days. The instructional team at Ocean Quest are avid divers and love what they do, so as soon as the conditions allow they are in the water, even if the conditions don't allow there in the water.

Recently we have been diving in the Gower in Swansea where the marine life and the flora and fauna is in abundance, the first site we have been surveying is Lime Slade Bay in Gower in Swansea Bay. The visabilty was not great but the marine life is abundant, pollack, bass, spider crabs, wrasse to name a few marine species. This is one of the sites we use to take people on the PADI Open Water Scuba Diving Course and the PADI Advanced Scuba Diver course.

We are blessed here in South Wales with some amazing dive sites in the Lime Slade Bay, Oxwich Bay, Port Eynon and then further up the coast of Wales into Pembrokeshire and especially the marine nature reserve of Skomer island.

We instruct people through the PADI Open Water System to be able to Dive in the beautiful areas and even to instruct and make this wonderful skill part of there career.

Cardiff Bay Diving and Watersports was established in Cardiff Bay on West Bute Street on 27th March 1998, the center was established to offer Scuba Diving Course' s through the PADI and BSAC systems offering the PADI Open Water Diver Programme and the BSAC Sports Diver Programme, we also offered Kayaking and watersports in the newly developed Bay area of Cardiff.

The company was established by Lee Garbett a PADI and BSAC Scuba Diving Instructor with a huge passion for the water and everything about it, originally from Walsall in the West Midlands he couldnt have been further from the Sea, but after a near fatal drowning event on the West Wales Coast at a very early age, he realised the water is where he wanted to be.

In 2002 the center was created in Porthcawl moving closer to the Sea where they wanted to be and changed the company name to Ocean Quest to create an organisation offering Scuba Diving, Instruction, Retail, Surfing, Kayaking, water skiing, wake boarding, jet skiing, and all related watersports.

Over the 16 years of operations Cardiff Bay Diving and Watersports and Ocean Quest have Instructed 1000's of people to Scuba Dive around the Glode, in 2004 they won the PADI Key Man Award for the Best center in PADI International and have been a PADI 5 Star International Dive Center since creation.

We would like to thank all the people we have trained and have visited us over the next 16 years, our passion in still and always will be the water so we will be here writting our next birthday review for many years to come.

This weekend many things seem to change, the temperature started to rise, the clocks went forward, sand blew in from the Sahara, Dafodils blossomed in the fields, and here at Quest we had our own new beginning. Dan Lewis, John Prothereo and Philip Hopkinson and newly qualified Open Water Scuba Diving Instructor and Divemasters to to the stage for the first time on there own.

The lads have been training hard to gain their professional qualifications over the past 5 years and have now earned their wings, or gills you might say. They have assisted on PADI Open Water Diver Course's, PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course's, Rescue Coures's and many more over the years and now they have finally qualified.

There ability was put to the test on the PADI Open Water Diver Course held at the weekend with students from Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and Bridgend. They temperature was testing at 10 degree's but all the students and the insructional team did exceptionally well completeing the Open Water and Scuba Diver Qualifications.

The Team will now be back in action at Hebron Hall in Cardiff where we are training our new batch of budding Open Water Divers, the season is truly in full swing and a new beginning dawns.

We are back in the Open Water at long last, the weather is turning and the daffodils are poking their heads out of the ground, its time to get back in the Open Water and start our new PADI Open Water Diver Course.

This weekend we have Jonathon from Cardiff, Gael From Cardiff university, Gemma from Swansea,  and Kristun from Cowbridge all eager and ready to go for their Open Water Scuba Diving Course. The Course will be held at a local inland diving center and starts at 8am sharp. The Instructors for the day will be Dan, John and Phil who are looking forward to the start of the Open Water Diver Season.

The students will be completeing four Open Water Qualifying Dives for the completion of the PADI Open Water Diver Course, this course will then allow them to Dive anywhere in the world up to 18 meters and lasts a lifetime.

We are also starting to run our international trips to places such as Spain, Egypt and South Africa, details of these will be listed shortly with all the details.