SCUBA Diving

[ozydave]

Been a bsac instructor for 10 years and a Padi assistant instructor for 5 years.
Done very little warm water diving, prefer to dive in the UK as wreck is my thing.
This will start something....
As an instructor of bsac and padi I much prefer to teach bsac. Just think it makes for a more complete well rounded diver when you out on your own.getting your open water in the nice clear warm water then returning to the uk to dive is a recipe for trouble. Not to say padi is bad just horses for courses

[pete]

Dived all round Oz when over there for a year. Really good fun and make sure you get up the West Coast to HMS Swan, Ningaloo and down Freemantle way.

@RabbieBurns
Where you learning? ProDive Sydneycity or out in Manly? (If Tom Bosson's still there, ask him about his power/telegraph poles).

I did PADI. Mainly because the impression from PADI was "you pay, you dive, you go to the pub/home", whereas BSAC (or the one I had exposure to) was a bit, "you pay, you dive and then you help us clean the RIB and mow the grass outside the boat shed".

PADI probably does produce a larger percentage of rubbish* divers since there's a lot of warm-water tourist churn whereas BSAC is more freezing cold brickpits with rusty helicopters - you have to really *want* to dive to go BSAC, whereas PADI can be spur-of-the-moment.

*We rescued a random Frenchman from another boat who'd managed to mount his regulator backwards on the tank (so the screw is pushed into the port, rather than the notch on the other side), jump into the water while not noticing the hissing air and then plunge to the bottom because he was overweighted while trying to breath through a regulator with a clear path to seawater. We avoided that dive shop afterwards.

[RabbieBurns]

Thats me completed the first 2 open water dives.. Air/surface temp 22C and bottom temp 18C.. Used to swim in the north sea in summer and come out blue so this makes a nice change.

@pete: yeh manly, its about a 10 minute walk from my house.. theres a whole heap of folks there just now for the busy season, a lot of new arrivals from UK/US/CA etc but ill ask. Still not made it to WA its on the to-do list...

Had a google, is BSAC the British Sub-Aqua Club ? If so, is it just a UK thing or are the qualifications internationally recognised?

Signed up for 2 boat dives for next week now as well.. think I may as well just do the advanced course when Im done too..

[HarryMonkey]

I did PADI. Mainly because the impression from PADI was "you pay, you dive, you go to the pub/home", whereas BSAC (or the one I had exposure to) was a bit, "you pay, you dive and then you help us clean the RIB and mow the grass outside the boat shed".

PADI probably does produce a larger percentage of rubbish* divers since there's a lot of warm-water tourist churn whereas BSAC is more freezing cold brickpits with rusty helicopters - you have to really *want* to dive to go BSAC, whereas PADI can be spur-of-the-moment.

Then I'm afraid you got told wrong. I'm not gonna get into a BSAC v PADI war as there are good and bad in both. I've dived the warm waters of the Red Sea as well as here in the UK. The big advantage for me to dive with BSAC is that I have a whole host of people that I know, that I can dive with every weekend of the year whether that's planned or spur of the moment. And if being part of a club means I can have a weekend's diving for £50, then I don't mind hosing down one of the two £20,000 club RIBs at the end of the weekend. I dive because I want to dive, because I enjoy it. I will be qualified as an instructor by this time next year (hopefully) and will be able to give something back to the sport that I love.

Had a google, is BSAC the British Sub-Aqua Club ? If so, is it just a UK thing or are the qualifications internationally recognised?

BSAC is the biggest dive club in the world and is the sport's governing body here in the UK. The qualifications are slightly harder to get ... requires more open water dives in a variety of conditions, however, they are recognised all over the world.


If you can dive in the UK, then you can dive more or less anywhere. Don't forget, for both BSAC and PADI, you are only qualified to dive in the conditions encountered during your training. So if that is lilmited to a wetsuit in warm water then that's all you can dive. Whereas a cold brick pit in February covers me to dive in pretty much any water that I come accross.

[plexer]

What Steve said

Thats why when I did mine I did the open water in the uk and then did advanced whilst on a 2 week holiday, learning to scuba is something I'd always wanted to do and got the opportunity with the previous school I worked at to do it.

Cold quarry, semi dry, lovely

But now I want a nice dry suit to keep me warm

Ben

[nikaso]

I did my Advanced Open Water with PADI back in 01 out in the gulf of oman, warm water, fantastic sealife with my favourite being on the night dive the instructor took us to the bottom and got us all kneeling and then told us to turn our torches off, then he showed us what bio-luminescent plankton can do by writing his name underwater......absolutely breathtaking, cue 5 minutes of us like kids on bonfire night with sparklers. The boat on the way out and back had an electric blue wake from the plankton as well, it was truly great.

Quick PADI & BSAC anecdote, my then girlfriend was BSAC trained so we used to have friendly banter, my PADI instructor used to say the problem with BSAC is you end up having to spend 5 hours training before they let you snorkel (obviously tongue in cheek), I did get the impression that PADI was more accessible for the interested individual and delivered a nicely packaged qualification. The impression I got from BSAC was the training was longer and more thorough and would probably make you a more rounded diver but when you are on holiday you don't necessarily want (or need) to be as capable so long as you are aware of the limitations of your training. I certainly wouldn't jump in the water over here without training in cold water.

[HarryMonkey]

Quick PADI & BSAC anecdote, my then girlfriend was BSAC trained so we used to have friendly banter, my PADI instructor used to say the problem with BSAC is you end up having to spend 5 hours training before they let you snorkel (obviously tongue in cheek), I did get the impression that PADI was more accessible for the interested individual and delivered a nicely packaged qualification. The impression I got from BSAC was the training was longer and more thorough and would probably make you a more rounded diver but when you are on holiday you don't necessarily want (or need) to be as capable so long as you are aware of the limitations of your training. I certainly wouldn't jump in the water over here without training in cold water.

I wouldn't want to jump in the water anywhere with anyone as my buddy who hadn't been trained to bring me to the surface, administer rescue breaths and get me out of the water should anything go wrong. Things can go wrong at any time through no fault of your own or your buddy and if you haven't the experience or training to deal with it then it can get a whole lot worse very quickly.

[contink]

Waiting for my income to improve a bit so I can rejoin my club and get back in the water again...

BSAC Sports diver since about 2000 and Farnes was without doubt one of my favourite dives, especially since a grey seal yearling decided he liked my dry suit colours so much that he was going to hug my leg... Blown away moment I will never forget... Fascinating watching your bubbles being dive bombed by cormorants (think those were the birds) as well..

*goes all dreamy*

[HarryMonkey]

Waiting for my income to improve a bit so I can rejoin my club and get back in the water again...

BSAC Sports diver since about 2000 and Farnes was without doubt one of my favourite dives, especially since a grey seal yearling decided he liked my dry suit colours so much that he was going to hug my leg... Blown away moment I will never forget... Fascinating watching your bubbles being dive bombed by cormorants (think those were the birds) as well..

*goes all dreamy*

Going back there in a a few weeks. Did you look at the video in Post #3? ... might just bring back a few memories.

[nikaso]

I wouldn't want to jump in the water anywhere with anyone as my buddy who hadn't been trained to bring me to the surface, administer rescue breaths and get me out of the water should anything go wrong. Things can go wrong at any time through no fault of your own or your buddy and if you haven't the experience or training to deal with it then it can get a whole lot worse very quickly.

From what I remember of my course we covered those things but like I said I would certainly do refresher training.

[soveryapt]

I did my PADI Open Water about 7 years ago for my DofE Gold, and it was great fun. Sadly, I've not done a huge amount of diving for all the family / financial reasons mentioned above, but I'm just now looking at getting back into it doing a refresher and then my Advanced Open Water and see where that leads.

The great thing is that my daughter (who is 7 .. funny how that ties in with the no finance thing huh! lol) is nearly at the age where she can do a bubblemaker course and I can get her involved too!

As for the whole what suit in the UK, I've used both Dry and Semi-Dry suits, and although yes, you can be warmer in a dry suit just simply due to the fact you can wear your clothes under it and all that, the semi-dry I found a lot easier to dive in (you've not got the air pocket situ, and you can get your hover a lot neater). Now, that might just be my inexperience - though I was taught with the dry suit for my OW - but it's how I see it.

I think though that if it came to it, I'd probably go dry suit as it's more of a year round thing, where as semi-dry isn't suitable for all season diving and all condition diving.

I guess, end of the day it's swings and roundabouts .. lol ..

[timzim]

what kind of suit do you use for the UK waters?

I nearly froze to death in Wraysbury a few summers ago, wearing a 7mm full with a 5mm shorty over the top (such a wuss!) but, since you're a Scot Rabbie, you can probably just dive in your pants. Enjoy your diving though - it's a great sport.

[plexer]

I'm waiting for my daughters to be old enuogh to incrporate them into outdoor activities such as scuba and clay pigeon shooting as well.

Then I'll never be stuck for someone to go with

Ben

[HarryMonkey]

As for the whole what suit in the UK, I've used both Dry and Semi-Dry suits, and although yes, you can be warmer in a dry suit just simply due to the fact you can wear your clothes under it and all that, the semi-dry I found a lot easier to dive in (you've not got the air pocket situ, and you can get your hover a lot neater). Now, that might just be my inexperience - though I was taught with the dry suit for my OW - but it's how I see it.

I think though that if it came to it, I'd probably go dry suit as it's more of a year round thing, where as semi-dry isn't suitable for all season diving and all condition diving.

I guess, end of the day it's swings and roundabouts .. lol ..

Not necessarily. With a neoprene drysuit you just need a t shirt/shorts underneath. A membrane suit requires an undersuit.

Neither of them are going to be comfortable/practical/effective wearing your clothes underneath.

As for bouyancy, this is purely down to experience and having the correct amount of weight in the right place. Being able to maintain a depth to within 0.5m either side of a given depth for 3-5 minutes is what you should be aiming for. This is achievable regardless of suit.

[RabbieBurns]

coupla photos from today