Bay Area Sdi/tdi Instructor Wanted

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MrKiltYou

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I know the general thought on here is to just find the best instructor and go with whatever cert agency they are with. And I am certainly open to that. I am looking for a good instructor in the Bay Area and my current goals are doing specialties around deep/wreck/cave diving and then moving on to tech diving. Does anyone have some good recommendations? I am also open to instructors in SoCal as well.
 
Home · UTD Scuba Diving

Some of the best training out there......many of us were/are TDI technical instructors before crossing over.
Facilities and instructors in NorCal, LA and San Diego.
 
Jay,

Thanks for the heads up. I did a quick look around their website and it seems not very informative on their overall training philosophy. Can you enlighten me on the background of the owners/training director? How long have they been around doing training? And anything else that I might want to know? Information about them on here while not bad does not seem very plentiful and seems more product focused. Also any issues with dive charters accepting cert cards worldwide?

Thanks,
Don
 
any water sports is a sdi/tdi shop. they offer a few tech classes like an/dp and extended range, but not really much on the wreck/cave side. beto with BAUE does training too if you want to do the GUE route for fundies/tech 1.
 
Jay,

Thanks for the heads up. I did a quick look around their website and it seems not very informative on their overall training philosophy. Can you enlighten me on the background of the owners/training director? How long have they been around doing training? And anything else that I might want to know? Information about them on here while not bad does not seem very plentiful and seems more product focused. Also any issues with dive charters accepting cert cards worldwide?

Thanks,
Don


Hey Don,

Jeff and Andrew started UTD around 2008, based in San Diego and is now worldwide. Andrew was the training director for GUE so there are a lot of similarities between the 2 agencies.

Some of the base tenets are; neutral bouyancy from day 1, no skills on your knees.
Longhose/hogarthian equipment and procedures. These are taught from open water courses so each diver, regardless of training level, can be an effective buddy. They include topics such as "a balanced rig and rock bottom " for their essentials course.

All the training and equipment is compatible and scalable. So all the training serves as a base to the next level. There is no requirement to use "UTD" branded equipment at all, use what makes sense.

It's really a welcoming community of divers that like to have fun and dive.

No problems I've ever heard of, the cert cards are proof of a very high level of skill. There are facilities all over the world.

If you are considering technical diving in the future, I couldn't recommend getting a better base of training than UTD or GUE.

I'm a bit biased as I'm a UTD instructor, also TDI, SDI and PADI. But if you have anymore questions, just ask. Cheers.
 
We're assuming that you already have OW certification. In our area you have two choices. If you prefer TDI's methodologies then contact Phil Sammet. You may reach Phil Sammet throught his personal web site or through Any Water Sports. If you prefer GUE's methodologies, then contact Beto Nava. You may contact Beto Nava' through the GUE's website (GUE Instructor résumé | Global Underwater Explorers).

Unfortunately, I don't know if UTD has a presence. However, I have gone on dives with UTD trained divers. Their protocols are very similar to the GUE protocols. As mentioned, Andrew Georgitsis who founded UTD, previously worked with GUE. Makes sense that the training of these two agencies share many similarities.

Personally, I would consider deep, wreck or cave diving, technical in nature. You will have some type of obstacle (whether physical or decompression) from immediately reaching the surface.
 
What I love about getting GUE trained is that it's very easy to interface with other GUE trained groups. The other year, I was in south Florida and dived with a group of divers doing wreck dives. It was pretty challenging diving in currents with live boat drops and coordination of groups in the high current water. But it was so easy to dive with them and so easy for them to dive with me since we all operated on the same protocols and knew what to expect of each other.

Often in the tech world, I find divers that prefer to dive solo because dive "buddies" will kill you. I've always thought, then he should get better dive buddies. ;-)
 
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