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Hi my name is James and very soon wanna start diving I have tryed it out and very much enjoyed it, so ill like to train up,do any one know if I payed for soo many upfront ill be able get a discont? I herd sum training school if you pay 150 a month you will get the course for free? I am in bristol many thanx Jim
garethwoodruff
19-08-2010, 09:31
Hi there,
2 options,
join a club (takes longer and considerably cheaper)
pay a commercial outfit to teach you
As for £150 a month and the training is free, sounds very expensive, I would not expect to pay more than £400 for an initial 'learn to dive' course commercially.
Cheers
OneDragons
19-08-2010, 13:45
If the training is free what are you actually getting for your £150 a month fee?
You could join a club for that price per year and they throw the training in free as well.
Thanx everone for replaying, i got told they would take me up to a master diver, the money includs free refilles, and few dive close to bristol, do any one any good clubs in bristol?
garethwoodruff
19-08-2010, 15:05
Have a look here:
http://www.bsac.com/page.asp?section=2164§ionTitle=Branch%20Lists
That shows you the list of clubs......
Thanx everone for replaying, i got told they would take me up to a master diver, the money includs free refilles, and few dive close to bristol, do any one any good clubs in bristol?
Sounds like they are trying to sell you the dream so going from unqualfied to super qualified in one jump. Be sceptical, most of us that have been diving for a while have seen highly qualified divers that are complete muppets because all they have ever done is training courses and Mickey Mouse puddle jumps.
Get a basic qualification*, then go diving. Lots of diving.
If you like diving then do some more courses that are relevant to what you want to do. You might fancy teaching, you might not. You might fancy deep wrecks, you might fancy shallow conservation. But until you try things you really will not know what sinks your boat.
* the entry level qualifications of both PADI (Open Water Diver) and BSAC (Ocean Diver) are OK to get started but with both organisations you are better off moving up to the next rung (Advanced Open Water and Sport Diver respectively) as this gives more freedom to do what you want to do.
Thanx for the help, is there many wreaks to dive in the UK? How long do it take to get basic grade? Am great for the help?
Ed Howarth
19-08-2010, 19:02
Are there many wrecks to dive in the UK?
I believe there have been between 600,000 and 800,000 wrecked vessels around the UK. Not all of these still remain, of course. ;)
Ed
Thanx for the help, is there many wreaks to dive in the UK? How long do it take to get basic grade? Am great for the help?
More than just about any other country in the world.
Living on a island with a rocky shore and a dodgy climate coupled with being involved in the majority of significant wars overs the last thousand years has got to give some advantages :D
Basic course for BSAC it is seven theory lessons, five pool and five open water dives. If you do it in a branch then the pool and theory lessons are normally done one evening a week for how ever many weeks it takes. Then you do two or three days diving with two or three dives a day. How long that all takes is down to the branch and is one of the questions you need to ask before joining.
Can't say about PADI as not been involved in their training scheme
Wow that's a lot of wreaks, yea I don't want the course to drag so I ask if I can do the theory in a crash way maybe.
garethwoodruff
20-08-2010, 09:13
Wow that's a lot of wreaks, yea I don't want the course to drag so I ask if I can do the theory in a crash way maybe.
It depends on the club, but if your keen you can you can ask them to do a crash course on the theory, people will often work a little harder if someone is really keen.
go on the divernet.com website and look at the wreck tours, that gives you an idea what its like.
PADI will get you a qualification over 2 full weekends, so is an option, but it won't give you the support mechanism a club will to go diving afterwards. You could do PADI Open Water and then join a club afterwards.
My advice is to join a club and go diving.
If you want the quickest route. Do the PADI OW with a shop, in 2 weekends as Gareth mentioned. Cost wise £300-400. It gets you your basic ticket.
Then join a BSAC club as a qualified diver.
Pros: You get to join the BSAC club and be able to go diving straight away (as a qualified diver), and the training is usually quite quick.
Cons: It costs £300-400.
Once in the club you do your sport diver training and move on.
The main difference is you dont spend 3-6 months in the club doing theory and pool work before you actually get to go diving. With the PADI route you can join the club and go on club trips straight away, and then take your time to get up to sports level.
You may find that some clubs offer this as an option when you discuss training with them. As some people would prefer to fast track through the initial qualification, and just get out and dive. My last club had a couple of BSAC instructors that were also PADI instructors and an option existed that a new diver could undertake the PADI OW at a slightly discounted rate instead of OD and then do some of the OD lectures later on to bring them up to speed. Then they would continue along the normal BSAC path.
Quick general points about learning to dive;
- Cheap training is not necessarily the best
- You need to have strong basic skills, then you can build on these. If you have poorly learnt skills with minimum muscle memory when it all goes pear shaped, you're in trouble. Every diver at some point of their diving career will have a "potentially safe diving accident". If you have good solid training beneath your belt, you will walk away very frightened and humble, but unscathed. (And hopefully you’ll learn heaps from that dive and not make the same mistakes again). If you have shonky training, you might not walk away
- Don't just train with one agency, you'll be a far more rounded, stronger diver as a hybrid
- No one agency is the best, it is down to the individual instructor that you get. A good experienced instructor will teach you so much more than the minimum that you need to learn on a specific course
- Don't jump from course to course. Do a course. Go diving. Consolidate your skills and what you have learnt. Have fun. Then consider learning something new when you feel you need to have your skills refreshed
- Read any and everything you can lay your hands on. You’ll learn a lot this way
- Having all the gear can still mean you have no idea. Don't rush to buy all your kit too soon. Beg, borrow, steal, hire kit and dive it. It will give you a physical frame of reference so that when you do go to buy something you have some ideas of what you like and what you don't like
- If you are told to do homework, ie read your manual and study it, DO IT. You will get so much more value out of your course than if you can't be ased
- Watch your instructor intently in the pool. If they use a hand to do a skill, it's likely to be a specific hand, ie right hand for regulator recovery. Pay attention and you'll learn so much more
- Never think that after four or so courses you know all about diving. You don't. None of us do. We're all still learning. It's just that some of us know a bit more than others
- £300 for an Open Water Course is not expensive. In my opinion it's not enough money, it should be at least double the price when you consider the time, equipment, pool hire charges, site fees, insurance, student pack etc involved. You'll pay more per hour for a Word Course (where the worst thing you can do is crash a computer), than a diving course (where you can kill yourself)
- Joining a diving club is a sound idea. You get to meet like minded people. They probably have a mentoring system, so that you are taken under someone's wing and helped and guided. Just remember if you benefit from this, then you also have a responsibility to do the same in the future when you've grown. You'll have access to boat dives, pool time to keep your skills fresh and current, and a big bank of knowledge
- You can get training where you don't expect it, ie go to talks at Shows and attend conferences. The one that springs to mind that I've gone to a few times is DiverSE. You might not understand everything that you hear, but that's ok. If you walk out of a talk having learnt one new thing, that's great.
- Be humble. Always, always, always, always do a buddy check and analyse/label your gas (if you go down the nitrox route). It doesn't matter what you see other divers doing around you, these actions will keep you safe(r).
Thanx every, I will be give the course at least 110% but befor I do any think I should research the dive clubs teachers? How would I know if there good teachers?do any one rwcommand any book?
Many thanx
ChristianG
20-08-2010, 16:24
Thanx every, I will be give the course at least 110% but befor I do any think I should research the dive clubs teachers? How would I know if there good teachers?do any one rwcommand any book?x
Nope, there is no such thing as a "book" which tells you who the good Instructors are, unlike say, the Guide Michelin restaurant guide.
Equally, trying to find a way to "research" such a subject is fraught with difficulty, the recommendations of any particular person, heartfelt or not, are not necessarily going to be correct. The problem here is largely that everyone thinks their own Instructor is the greatest thing since sliced bread, after all s/he passed them, didn't they? Thus the typical human trait springs into action: the thing you know is better than the thing you don't know.
One person's absolutely superb new oven is another's dead piece of meat.
If you decide to do the BSAC Club route (long, arduous - no bad thing that) get a feel for the Club as such. Go to the meetings, talk to them, go to the pool sessions even if you don't participate, look around at how they do things. Otherwise you're pretty well on your own.
Ok if i do padi could I still join bsca club? Can any one remmond@ any good reading materials :) Thanx for the advice
ChristianG
20-08-2010, 18:39
Ok if i do padi could I still join bsca club?
I'm sure that the question has already been answered, but, yes.
Can any one remmond@ any good reading materials :) Thanx for the advice
Of what? If you want to do SCUBA, take a course!
Nothing beats taking a course.
Why are BSAC centres never mentioned for doing a quick course???
Similar price to the opposition and just as quick
http://www.bsac.com/findit.asp?section=000100010040&cat=centres&view=map&glat=0&glng=0&gzoom=1
I'm sure that the question has already been answered, but, yes.
Of what? If you want to do SCUBA, take a course!
Nothing beats taking a course.
I would take the course soon, just good to know info befor ill go do it
Why are BSAC centres never mentioned for doing a quick course???
Similar price to the opposition and just as quick
http://www.bsac.com/findit.asp?section=000100010040&cat=centres&view=map&glat=0&glng=0&gzoom=1
In an uncommercial world, get a good BSAC instructor teaching Ocean Diver in a club situation, and it's a great entry level course that works.
Writing from experience Fred, in the real world I found PADI courses far more straight forward to teach commerically than BSAC ones. This may well have changed (and I really hope so), but I have in the past sold an Ocean Diver Course, then rung for student materials to be told "they're going in the post to you in the next three days". A complete nightmare if the course is starting the next day. PADI, you pick up the phone, the materials automatically arrive next morning. This happened not once but about three times to me. At that point I personally gave up selling Ocean Diver Courses on a commerical basis. Plus teaching Ocean Diver commercially was challenging because the first Open Water Dive was to 6 metres and the second to 10 metres. Reverse profiling. I can see the aim of depth progression and if you are doing one dive a day, it works no bother.
The quality of the PADI training materials is impressive, well shot, clear videos showing skill demos and talking through some of the theory that the instructor then elaborates on. I can honestly say that the PADI Open Water Manual is one of the very best texts there is on learning to dive. You only realise this when you are teaching back to back Open Water courses, and you keep on coming across odd nuggety bits in the manual. Seriously well thought out book.
Plus I can honestly say I have never had a student walk into a dive centre and say "I want to do my BSAC Ocean Diver Course". I could have a really good night on the beer if I'd been paid a pound for every time a student walked in saying "I want to do my PADI". Whilst there will be some people wanting to do their Ocean Diver commerically, there really isn't a huge demand for this course. If a UK Centre soley taught BSAC courses commercially they'd struggle to meet their bills at the end of the month.
Plus I can honestly say I have never had a student walk into a dive centre and say "I want to do my BSAC Ocean Diver Course". I could have a really good night on the beer if I'd been paid a pound for every time a student walked in saying "I want to do my PADI".
Which is a real shame when you consider that Open Water and Ocean Diver are virtually identical bits of paper...
Which is a real shame when you consider that Open Water and Ocean Diver are virtually identical bits of paper...
"virtually indentical" is the problem, just enough things wrong to make OW
the better option.
"virtually indentical" is the problem, just enough things wrong to make OW
the better option.
So the BSAC is built on POOR foundations ?
So the BSAC is built on POOR foundations ?
Unimpressed. And I thought you were bigger than that Fred. Your statement is a true Troll comment. Did you not read my post above??
In an uncommercial world, get a good BSAC instructor teaching Ocean Diver in a club situation, and it's a great entry level course that works.
Both Terry and I have taught in the real world (as have a number of the members on this forum). Both Terry and I find teaching OW a better option commercially. Personally I don't know if it is the "best" option, having seen the Rec 1 Course come out. (This is a 10 - 12 day entry level diver course and at the end of it the diver is qualified to dive to 20 metres on nitrox with exceptional buoyancy). If someone has the time and the money to do this course, I'd recomend it, the training is superlative.
In an uncommercial world, get a good BSAC instructor teaching Ocean Diver in a club situation, and it's a great entry level course that works.
Personally I feel it's a good entry level course in any world
Writing from experience Fred, in the real world I found PADI courses far more straight forward to teach commerically than BSAC ones.
Is that because they are less demanding on the instructor or what ?
I but I have in the past sold an Ocean Diver Course, then rung for student materials to be told "they're going in the post to you in the next three days". A complete nightmare if the course is starting the next day.
In a commercial world should there not be a supply of these materials at the centre ?
Plus I can honestly say I have never had a student walk into a dive centre and say "I want to do my BSAC Ocean Diver Course".
When a student walks in wanting to do a diving course what do you sell them ?
If a UK Centre soley taught BSAC courses commercially they'd struggle to meet their bills at the end of the month.
That I agree, but it does not help when people come onto the BSAC forum and are told to take a PADI course.
Unimpressed. And I thought you were bigger than that Fred. Your statement is a true Troll comment. Did you not read my post above??
Yes I read your post, as for troll I was a BSAC member for 37 yrs
Both Terry and I have taught in the real world (as have a number of the members on this forum).
Include myself
Personally I feel it's a good entry level course in any worldCompletely agree.
Is that because they are less demanding on the instructor or what ?I almost bit on your earlier post. What I was going to say is that the BSAC courses are built from the needs of divers wanting to teach diving in a structured fashion, without thought for commercial viability. PADI of course put their instructors business needs first whenever possible. Both are a perfectly good foundation for producing an entry level diving course.
In a commercial world should there not be a supply of these materials at the centre ?Not in my commercial World since about 1990.
When a student walks in wanting to do a diving course what do you sell them ?If the student walks in asking for a PADI course, the dive centre can deliver that course quickly, easily and make a greater margin on it, why on earth would a diving school not sell it to them?
That I agree, but it does not help when people come onto the BSAC forum and are told to take a PADI course.Completely agree. What do you think we should do about it then? Personally I would like to see BSAC dealing with it at source by making BSAC courses, Ocean Diver particularly, more desirable to would be divers and diving schools equally. The OD and OW courses are so damn similar, it really should not take too much to make OD a more attractive proposition than it apparently is.
Yes I read your post, as for troll I was a BSAC member for 37 yrs Both of you (Roz and Fred) please check the AUP and please stop throwing the Troll word about.
Michelle Haywood
23-08-2010, 09:30
Hi Roz
Not struggling at all - although every dive centre is hard work I think.#
We keep PADI OW and BSAC OD materials in stock (although the guys in the mailshop have really reduced the time to send stuff and even out in the Isle of Man we get a 2 day delivery from time of order).
I ask my divers to compare the 2 courses. All basic skills the same with a few notable exceptions BSAC gives you nitrox and the chance to rescue your buddy (CBL), PADI gives you a buddy breathing ascent, a CESA and a nice book.
My take on diving is that it is a real world skill that needs to be done in a practical sense - not reading books/watching videos. Buoyancy is felt. I teach both quite happily, but if there's any chance that the diver is going to join our club and dive with my divers then I usually steer them the BSAC route. CESA in a drysuit is plain daft, I do it because I have to. Drysuit skills are easier to incorporate into BSAC training, we have to do extra dives in PADI to make it work - but maybe that's our fault as we train everyone in drysuits!
Michelle
katdiver
02-09-2010, 13:33
Good luck with your choice of course. keep us posted!
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