What is SSI? I was certified with PADI and a shop I just visited is SSI.

[victoriawtx]

Is there a difference? I was told by a guy at a PADI shop that I had to stay with PADI for advanced courses. But, I seemed to like this smaller shop better. They had a lot of info, and it didn't appear as if they only wanted to sell me stuff. Thanks so much everyone!

Victoria

 

[joens]

SSI is not as large as PADI but is at least as good.Is the SSI shop you are going to "trident" .There is no reason to stick with PADI unless you just want to.
joens

 

[MechDiver]

As joens said, there is no reason you have to stay with any agency. Pick the one you feel comfortable with.

Phil

 

[Dectek]

SSI stands for Scuba Schools International. By all means Just as good as (if not better than) Padi. If you want to get Padi Advanced C-card after OW you must do the 5 Adventure dives (Navigation and Deep included).
To be SSI Advanced you need OW (5dives) Plus 4 Specialty Courses For a grand total of 24 dives. Add Stress and Rescue specialty and anther 26 dives for Master Diver.

Other than the Card collecting requirements...The Instructor and your comfort with that person and his/her abilities as an Instructor are the most important things.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Hi Victoria,
You can look at the SSI website at www.ssiusa.com
About the only structural differences in SSI and others is that SSI requires more "experience dives" in addition to the formal training dives for their ratings. SSI cards are recognized worldwide, and I think SSI is the best of the agencies... and as an SSI instructor, my opinion is totally unbiased.
Rick

 

[ABQdiver]

Dectek once bubbled...
SSI stands for Scuba Schools International. By all means Just as good as (if not better than) Padi. If you want to get Padi Advanced C-card after OW you must do the 5 Adventure dives (Navigation and Deep included).
To be SSI Advanced you need OW (5dives) Plus 4 Specialty Courses For a grand total of 24 dives. Add Stress and Rescue specialty and anther 26 dives for Master Diver.

Other than the Card collecting requirements...The Instructor and your comfort with that person and his/her abilities as an Instructor are the most important things.

I'm OW cerfified with SSI last year after a many year surface interval. I had been certified with PADI back in the late 70's. I can't remember much difference in the basic certification qualifications from then to now. The LDS I certified with recently is under SSI. The fact that SSI requires 24 dives before AOW cert was a plus to me. The program seems more throrough than some others, but that could be just my perception.

Like many have said before: The instructor is more important than the agency!
Go with the shop and instructor that makes you feel most confident in there approach and skills.

 

[PnL]

I agree that finding a good instructor that you feel comfortable with is most important. The LDS that we got certified in told us they could certify in PADI, NAUI, SDI, etc. They said it didn't really matter and all these OW c-cards would be recognized globally. They taught us using SDI 'curriculum' since all the books/video, etc were loaned (no cost to us) while the other agencies required spending another ~$100 for materials. The other difference was that SDI emphasizes computers since its becoming so prevalent - we still did dive tables, but all our dives were done with a computer.

Overall, the best part of this was our instructor. I'm not biased towards a certain agency as long as they teach SCUBA diving safely and teach it properly. We were pleased with the first set of drills they had us do in the pool - breathing underwater through a regulator w/o any other gear for a few minutes. Then a few laps around the pool w/o a mask underwater. It made us feel comfortable knowing that even w/o the rest of our equipment we would be fine as long as we had our regs in our mouths

I wish they taught more skills, but I guess its just OW. We'll be taking AOW and rescue as soon as we can, but in the meantime we try to practice and remain comfortable with the skills we have. Our instructor equated the Basic OW certification as a "learners permit" and highly recommended continuing education.

 

[Lawman]

with PADI and then a year later AOW
with SSI. I enjoyed them both. PADI
seemed a little more elementary in
it's approach, but it may just be that
it was a beginner class. SSI is more
store oriented and you will have to
pay for everything individually...like your
card, books, etc. Check the total price
for everything first.

 

[Jonathan]

with PADI you can pay everything individually if you want - it's just that most shops "package" it all up for you.

I was talking to some people last week that were getting very confused because they were finding it so hard to work out the price of the o/w course in Phuket. There are so many shops there and if you turn up there without a personal recommendation you don't have much to go on. Their advertising is all about trying to undercut the competition - but then the small print and you have to pay extra for the card, the book, the boat rides, equipment hire etc, etc

As most have said - go for the instructor not the agency.

Jonathan

 

[Genesis]

OW, AOW and Nitrox. (AOW was a fscking joke, by the way, with the exception of night, which was cool.)

Its all in the instructor. I like the ones that have trained me.

Competent and quality people.

Unfortunately Rescue is probably the last SSI course I will take from those folks. While one of them in particular caves, she is not an instructor at that level, nor for the next places I want to go with my diving.

Oh well.