First Time Diver/Poster - South East Asia

[Zathorious]

Hi Guy's,

I'm arriving in Bangkok on Jan 5th. Within January I am heading to the island of Koh Tao to get my SSI at Big Blue Diving school.

I have a few questions and it would be great if you guys could give any advice to a first-time diver.

I'm very excited to start scuba diving, especially after seeing how busy these forums are, there must be lots to learn and diving must be really good if there are these many people online for scuba!

My questions are:
Will the SSI be accepted everywhere? Is Padi the way to go? I would eventually like to give wreck diving a go, so I don't know if there are more certifications I need to do after this (I imagine there are), and which initial certification is best to get? I don't even know what PADI and SSI will allow me to do.

Just watching the show Descending if anyone has given it a view, it's pretty great, much like Departures.

Many thanks,
Z

 

[TMHeimer]

PADI has the most operations world wide. This may only be a concern if you decide to become a dive instructor, otherwise, most places recognize all the major agencies (so I've always read).
If you just want to swim around the outside of a wreck IMHO you need no course. The PADI Wreck Diver course is an overview of a lot of pretty obvious stuff--don't get cut, use gloves, don't let anything collapse on you, watch for currents around it or in port holes, etc. There is an optional wreck penetration dive in the course, but it is very basic. I have this cert. and would not penetrate a wreck without further training. If you have no penetration training, never go inside.
Same with caves, caverns.