Puffin Dive Centre
Puffin Dive Centre B001/0108
Puffin Dive Centre is ideally situated - on the waters edge at Port Gallanach, 1-½ miles south of Oban on the Kerrera Sound coast road.
As one of the UK's Premier Dive Centres, Puffin Dive Centre incorporates all its facilities on a 3-acre waterside site. The purpose built centre contains the training, retail and service side of Puffin Dive Centres' unique operation with further facilities positioned strategically around the site for ease of use.
Access to the centre is as easy by sea as it is by land. Our pontoon, pier & slipway make arrival by sea to our private bay extremely easy. Travelling & navigating to the many dive sites locally, is made easy as the centre is centrally located with some great dive sites as close as five minutes away. Both site and centre are second to none. The Puffin Dive Centre site has been constructed to serve the needs of the diving community with facilities easy to use and close to the waters edge. It is plain to see from one short visit, why Puffin Dive Centres' reputation is legendary.
To compliment the centre, Puffin Dive Centre has a team of dedicated support staff including three resident PADI Course Directors. Each staff member has a specialist role at Puffin Dive Centre and has ancillary skills such as diver training & certification or Boat Skipper & RYA training or is a repair technician of an industry level expertise. Of course we always have some staff training & junior staff. We will try to refer you to a correct staff member well experienced in handling your particular needs. The shop usually has staff available during the day & will try to help with advice, local information or any other requirements you may have.
Not only do the senior Puffin Dive Centre Instructional Personnel teach the standard recreational and technical courses but are also well qualified in specialised areas such as ice, wreck, deep and altitude.
The centre holds the prestigious PADI Career Development Centre & Gold Palm Five Star Instructor Development Centre ratings and teaches the full range of PADI diver training courses from Beginner to Instructor.
Throughout all of the courses the training is fully comprehensive, this ensures that you get the best and most suitable type of training.
All of the training at Puffin Dive Centre is carried out with the student wearing a drysuit. (This is a fully encapsulating insulated suit keeping you mainly dry & warm). Some courses automatically include this cost within the course price. (see prices) On higher courses, if you are not already drysuit qualified, we can provide expert tuition with a Drysuit Specialty Course.
This strategy allows you to dive in UK waters throughout the year. Much of the world requires Drysuit use.
The majority of dive centres do not initially teach in drysuits, consequently meaning that another course is required before your certification is truly universal throughout the UK & World.
Included in the price of some courses (see prices), are the core materials including the manuals and slates, all of which are yours to take home with you after the course and our unique Puffin Dive Centre continuing education course reduction scheme, means it gets cheaper to keep your diving education current, not the other way around! Not only does Puffin Dive Centre pledge to keep PADI products in stock and on display, but also in other languages (where available), which allows you to learn in the language that you want, a novel idea for the many foreign nationals, who Puffin Dive Centre teaches each year.
Although many of our courses are run on a scheduled basis each week, 1:1 classes on a personalised schedule can be arranged allowing unprecedented levels of tuition!
In addition to the recreational PADI diver training side of diving, Puffin Dive Centre is a "TDI Premier Facility" teaching all levels of technical diving courses.
Regular Puffin Dive Centre based and road show courses are run throughout the year. You have the choice to complete a residential course or get a group of friends or your club together and Puffin Dive Centre will teach at a mutually agreed venue.
Group and club reductions are available - for further details call and speak to the Bookings Instructor.
For those who are looking for that completely rounded diver experience Puffin Dive Centre can teach full RYA powerboat handling courses.
Not only do these courses follow the strict RYA guidelines but also incorporate some unique diver orientated skills and drills. With hours of hands on training, small class numbers and "REAL" life sea conditions, you will be assured of a great fun course.
All the courses Puffin Dive Centre teach, are in fully equipped classrooms. All audiovisual equipment necessary, is found in all of them, along with all professional course support materials. Apart from being comfortable and spacious, they are positioned literally 15 metres from the dive site ensuring no long walks, no long surface swims or long drives back for last minute broken or forgotten equipment.
All in all, it means less time travelling and more time diving! Another of the Puffin Dive Centre services on offer is the famous Super RIB Shuttle Dive. Diving from Puffin Dive Centres' fleet of boats, daily am and pm trips leave the site travelling to the many excellent sites locally. The boats operate to full MCA & RYA standards and are registered and licensed as small commercial vessels, having a 60-mile operating radius including night operation.
Coxing the boat is a Puffin Dive Centre staff member who is a certified and experienced RYA Coastal Skipper; in addition, the Cox will also hold the minimum qualifications of PADI Instructor, First Aider, Oxygen Provider and GMDSS or VHF operator. The Cox is familiar with all the sites visited, ensuring that your pre-dive briefing includes everything you need. Puffin has an excellent reputation for safety and professionalism. Currently all Puffin Dive Centre vessels are fitted with twin engines, this makes the trips fast, reliable and gives an additional safety element.
Whatever diving you prefer - scenic, wreck or drift - the full range is covered with distance no object; your enjoyment and fun is Puffin's priority.
Back on site the facilities are many and include slipway, daily and overnight parking both for car and boats, moorings, toilets and hot showers. Fuel, both petrol and diesel, are situated on the quay side allowing boats to be fuelled easily and RIB's whilst they are still in the water. Equipment wash, equipment storage and changing room are adjacent to the slip, a sectioned off training area and 24 hour site presence.
Many of these facilities are included freely for use by our customers, with a nominal fee for parking or launching, when used by commercial or non diving groups, such as fishermen:- Please see Price List for details.
For non-diving family or friends there is a picnic area with many picnic tables and the beach area, from which they can watch the days' activities. There are exceptional opportunities for non-divers who fancy a "Scuba Experience".
This is a hand held dive in shallow water with a qualified instructor-taking place after a small briefing, allowing an experience of the vast diversity of life in the underwater world on a tour through the bay. A variety of aquatic flora and fauna including many varieties of fish, crustacean, and plant life that lives here will be sighted.
Puffin stocks everything for you diving needs; not only the highest performance diving equipment but also ALL the appropriate spares as well.
The shop stocks major brands of BCD's and suits of which Puffin Dive Centre usually holds each model, size and colour in stock. The same principle applies throughout the range, including an extensive range of computers and regulators.
Puffin Dive Centres' excellent book selection, has many dozens of books on current or past diving related issues, covering every possible aspect of the sport from diving through the ages to books detailing diving and sub aquatic medicine, to books focusing solely on specific aquatic life forms such as sharks, or even the tiniest nudibranchs.
Discounts are not awarded but instead an advantageous and unique bonus voucher scheme, which can be applied to courses or goods from the shop. By using this scheme, Puffin Dive Centres' prices stay competitive and allow the customer to benefit from one off or multiple sales.
Puffin Dive Centre pledges to stock the widest range of diving goods, from those necessary for suit repairs to cave diving line markers; from woolly hats to Nitrox Air Integrated hose less computers, and from indestructible goody bags to argon inflated drysuits AND at a competitive price! The Puffin Dive Centre "try before you buy" scheme has operated successfully for many years and allows you to test and try the goods prior to purchase - Puffin Dive Centre wants you to get the right product.
The shop opening hours are suited around you and your needs which is why it opens at 0800 and closes at 1830; or if you require times outside of those stated, simply ask and a Puffin Dive Centre staff member will ensure your needs are catered for. To complete the package, Puffin Dive Centre offers a full range of hire equipment and a guarantee that each piece is less than six months old.
Like the shop, in the hire range, every imaginable size is catered for and there's even price reductions for PADI divers, large groups and all divers under tuition.
These hire items undergo functionality tests regularly, from our own highly skilled Repairs and Technical Services team, and also a functionality check on each and every hire, to ensure that the equipment is working to its full potential as you want it.
Finally, after a hard days diving, Puffin Dive Centre accommodation is warm, comfortable and waiting for you. This ranges from twin and double rooms in a town-situated bungalow, to chalet style accommodation right on site.
Alternatively, for group organisers Puffin Dive Centre can arrange accommodation, whether bunk house or luxury hotel, this will let you enjoy more of the holiday rather than worrying about logistics.
For further information, brochures or simply advice, call Puffin Dive Centre and one of the staff will be more than happy to help with any of your needs.
Why not come and see for yourself, why Puffin Dive Centre is the best?
Puffin Dive Centre looks forward to welcoming you.