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First rule of learning to dive - there is no 'best' agency, only the one that is best FOR YOU. Don't rush into it, decide what type of diving you want to do, check out your local shops, check out your local clubs - then work out which is best FOR YOU.
The following article was kindly provided by Jason Sheppard, one of the early contributors to UKRS
Diving in the UK.
There are four major agencies offering training in the UK; BSAC, SSAC, SAA and PADI. There is no great difference between the first three, but there is between those and the last. The first three are club based. A new diver joins a club, and is taught by the members of the club. The advantages to this system include the possibility of a very in-depth education covering a wide range of skills and knowledge. The disadvantages are that the level of skills on offer varies enormously, as does the skill and the professionalism of the instruction.
The slant of the club systems are towards diver self-responsibility from a very early stage, with rescue and decompression skills being covered in the first few lectures. First aid is included for example. There is a considerable back up available, with branches offering access to equipment (generally a few sets of kit and a boat or two), and the clubs offering regional support and expertise, and insurance. The clubs also run national level training courses in ancillary skills useful for UK diving such as VHF radio certification, oxygen first aid, boat handling, etc.
All the club systems are broadly parallel and a comparison of qualifications is very easy. BSAC outnumber the other two, and whilst there is a certain amount of discussion of the PADI system, many BSAC divers’ opinion on the SAA and SSAC goes no further than ‘Who?’ The exception to the above is the impressively popular PADI shop based training system. In this, a client buys a training course from a shop, and returns to the shop to buy further courses and dives. This being the UK, land of God’s own hobby-ists, PADI clubs are beginning to appear with more frequency.
The advantages of the PADI system mainly involve the training support; standards are set and met by instructors backed up with an impressive array of training aids; including a video that makes The Draughtsman’s Contract look like Raging Bull. The disadvantages stem from three things; the short time given to these courses (typically a few days) which means that detailed information is just left out; the fact that the material is pitched at the lowest common denominator; and the American background of the system.
Without being jingoistic about it, the American history has engendered two problems - firstly, a lot of American diving is done in warm clear water with dive masters helping out, and concern has been raised that the basic PADI material is pitched to a common denominator below the level which is safe for the rather more challenging UK diving. How much of this is snobbery is not clear, as we don’t seem to be experiencing a rise in the incident rate as PADI expands. Active divers do however appear to be reporting a lot of near-misses, and some commercial boat skippers will not take PADI divers.
Secondly however, the peculiar legal position in the US means that rescue and decompression diving are left out of the course; rescue requiring a special qualification, and decompression being considered akin to wandering down the middle of the M4 at 6.30PM on a Friday evening singing ‘Flower of Scotland’ and waving a bunch of petunias around your head.
The other major difference is the ‘journeyman’ qualification level. In the club system, it is considerably higher than in the shop system; apart from rescue training not being required in the shops, club divers have between 10-30 dives before being paired off together. Shop divers have 4. Realistically, 20 dives in differing conditions and a good understanding of safe diving practices and procedures (including rescue training) is the essential for safe, self propelled diving in the UK. The equivalent from the shops would mean three courses (OW, AOW and Rescue). These three courses, however, would provide a solid base for further diving.
On a more personal note, it is possible to take a rather more tongue in cheek view of the training options, and for some time, PADI bashing has been a major sport among BSAC divers. Whilst it still the source of many a good joke (see below) and a very educational exercise in seeing how other people address common problems, it is thankfully on the wane as people just get on with going diving. SSAC of course bash BSAC as English weenies and pansies, and I don’t mind that, especially after I’ve plucked them out of the Clyde after they’ve screwed up diving the Wallachia (again). Don’t forget, SSAC wrote a special rulebook for Scapa Flow, because it was so tough. BSAC just carried on using it as a training ground. (Top tip, Scapa is a proving ground for diving the Clyde, not the other way round).
Like the poor old Lib Dems, the SAA have been the quietly ignored voice of liberal reason for some time. No jokes yet, because so far they haven’t done anything obnoxious enough to get slated for. I quite like that...
Finally, some pointers on choosing the diving career that’s right for you.
Well, if you want to dive on holiday in the Red Sea (thoroughly advisable) and that’s all (inadvisable), then don’t waste time with the clubs. Get a PADI cert. and enjoy yourself. But if you ever find yourself in the company of rotund, hirsute individuals of dubious parentage (read, fat, hairy, bastards) who are holding forth in drinking establishments, don’t make the mistake of referring to yourself as a diver. Your ignorance of parbuckling, and the finer points of scoof recovery, may be held against you somewhat.
If you want to dabble in diving, with the odd dive here and there, and a social scene on the side (usually horizontal >hic<), I’m going to advise something counter-intuitive. Take a long and very thorough course. Then it will carry you through those long periods without diving.
If on the other hand you are a keenoswottygit (c. Cragfish 1991) and soak up all the information that has anything to do with the history of neoprene, and your affection for diving makes crackheads look uncommitted, don’t waste time on a long course; get into the water, and learn as you go - feel confident that in a club, someone will teach the keen people everything eventually (if only to stop them from killing themselves). And you’ll be in the water so often that skills repetition can occur on the job. Of course, finding a club that can support such a level of enthusiasm can be quite difficult (‘e oop Jethro, tha’s yung Jason in’t water agin. Tha’s three toims thas yeeeer. ‘e’ll be bent be Michaelmastime, yow mark moi wards...) Whatever.
And don’t fret too much; there are in the order of 80,000 divers in the country. Someone out there will be doing it the way you like and can help you. There are PADI clubs, and what’s more, BSAC schools, so you buy a BSAC course at a shop - in fact buying BSAC courses to Club Diver/Ocean Diver and then joining a club can be a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario.
Oh, and whatever you do, don’t learn the names of the bloody gas laws. pV=nRT and the rest, my friend is history!
Ob Joke
Three diving instructors on a boat. PADI, SSAC and BSAC. They have a group of novice divers and enjoying an educational guddle around St Abbs’ head, when the PADI diver pipes up ‘I’m hungry, I need some munchies’. He hops over the side of the boat, walks across the water to the shore and starts to walk up the cliff path.
The novices are gobsmacked.
‘Idiot.’ says the SSAC diver. ‘He’s forgotten his wallet.’ He too, hops over the side of the boat, and jogs across the waves to the cliff, whereupon he sprints to the top, and chases after the PADI diver.
The novices are by this point thoroughly in awe.
The BSAC diver, being the only experienced person still in the boat, proceeds to espy a ‘training opportunity’. These are to Advanced Instructors what converts are to door-to-door preachers; and he covers O2 administration, boat handing, and a full round of man overboard drills by the time the other instructors return to the bottom of the cliff with crisps and pop.
This doesn’t impress the novices half as much as the water walking, but they listen and learn as all good little sea-persons do.
They struggle across the waves, but appear to be having some difficulty, so the BSAC instructor turns to the novices and says, ‘Remember what I taught you, look after the boat.’ He then hops over the side, strides across the rising waves and helps his compatriots back to the boat. They distribute the crisps to the speechless novices (cotton wool correctly placed, you see) and proceed to their afternoon dives.
Later in the pub, they are discussing the day’s activities, and the PADI instructor murmurs sotto voce to his esteemed colleagues, ‘What about that eh? Good thing we knew about those submerged rocks!’
‘What rocks?’ says the BSAC instructor.
I’m sure there’s a moral or two in their somewhere, but for heaven’s sake don’t try to find them!
Jason Sheppard, 1997