Is this sidemount course over the top?

[carono6333]

My wife and i went into a Sanur (Bali) dive centre that specialises in sidemount and technical. They run a sidemount course that is 1 day in classroom, 2 days confined, 2 days open water. The price of the course is IDR 16million (just over US$1,000).

We said we thought the course duration was seemed a little over the top to learn sidemount, particularly for proficient divers (we are both instructors). The reply as that it was all necessary, although little explaination was given on what skills etc would take up so much time.

Can anyone with good knowledge tell comment if 5 days is really required for a sidemount course? I am a little dubious, particularly as the course is the dive centre's own creation, and therefore there is no affiliated agency certification.

I will probably look elsewhere, but would like the opinion of the board before doing so.

 

[berndo]

Can anyone with good knowledge tell comment if 5 days is really required for a sidemount course?

No, it's not. It can take some time to adjust everything but 2 days confined water and whole day in the classroom is ridiculous. Some classes run 4 days and that's already pretty long for what it is.

I definitely wouldn't pay a 1000 dollars for a sidemount class.

 

[VikingDives]

My tech sidemount class took 5ish days to complete (maybe 6 or 7). I was an instructor when I took it. On its face, what the shop is asking isn't unreasonable, but it's hard to know without knowing the content of the course.

When I teach rec sidemount, it's a minimum of 4 days with about 8 hours of classroom and land drills, 8 hours of pool time, and two days of open water diving, minimum. On average, there's more pool time, and a few more open water days as well.

 

[berndo]

.... about 8 hours of classroom

The SDI SM class has enough content to fill 8 hours of classroom time?

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

That is five days --- $200/day. My daily rate for teaching cave/tec is minimum $300/day.
Seems to me one day in the classroom is good enough because I suspect that day will involve gear configuration which can take a while.
Two days in confined water/pool sounds a bit much. I'd think one day would be sufficient. Then the rest of the time diving.

Opinions vary.

 

[berndo]

Seems to me one day in the classroom is good enough because I suspect that day will involve gear configuration which can take a while.

How many hours do spend in mod1 class for classroom stuff and configuration?

 

[Underwater Tourist]

I did sm training 3-4 years ago, and you really don’t need more than 3 days (4 absolute tops) nor do you need to pay for any learning materials or a ccard

Can you spend more days and will you be better at sm ? Yes

But then why not just do fun dives and play around with the gear by yourself? Especially since you have a buddy

 

[grantctobin]

I'll throw a wrench into it:

ProTec, Mexico: 5 day, $340/day
Gozo Technical, Malta: 4 day, 200Eur/day
Evolved Diving, Florida: 4-5 day, $200?/day min two students
ScubaTechPhillipines, Subic Bay: 4 day, $200/day

Note some include gas/rental/site entry/misc small things, materials, etc. others do not.

It's kind of the going rate for competent SM training and assumes the student can already hover motionless in trim. Are there instructors that have no business charging the above rates? Certainly. YMMV.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

1/2 day to sep up rig (classroom) . Set up tanks and understand tank rigging. 1/2 day to swim the rig and some fine tuning to tanks and rig harness to include 500 psi tanks and weight check and moving weights to find best neutral buoyancy. Next day swim the rig and more fine tuning. Really 2 days to set up and be mostly fine tuned with the rig (XDeep Stealth 2). After that (for me it was) a cavern class (3 days of intense learning) where I learnt valve drills, out of gas drills, frog kick, helicopter turns, backing up. Instructor ramping up the pressure to be proficient at the skills learned.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Five days seems a bit much. My course was a little blended, but I believe that total time we spent on the Tech Sidemount Part of the course would be two to two and a half days.

I took my course in cave country with steel tanks, so I feel that they cut out BS that isn't appropriate for most people taking a sidemount course. Namely removing tanks underwater and supremanning them or other advanced sidemount techniques. Unless you are skilled penetration diver it just seems like a party trick to me.