As part of my return to scuba diving I thought I would take a different approach to my diving. The UK is famous for its club diving. There are two main dive clubs BSAC (British Subaqua Club) and ScotSAC (Scottish Subaqua Club). As I am based in Scotland I signed up to the local ScotSAC branch.

One of the main differences between a dive club and dive shop in the UK is how the training is run. Usually a dive shop will be affiliated with at least one or more diving agencies, such as PADI, SSI, RAID, etc. You pay per course and they may organise lead dives. The club system is a little different, you don’t pay for courses, you pay for membership. The membership covers all your training and sometimes equipment rental.

Laurence and I have our certifications, so we don’t need lots of training (though there are many skills and courses we want to do). What we actually want is to dive safely. Going with a dive shop would require us to pay for guided dives, as we don’t know dive sites or the waters here: that would become expensive quickly and would stop us from diving as much as we would like. So by going with a dive club we are able to get a greater benefit, additional training is in house and included in our membership cost, while at the same time we get to dive with experienced divers who know the dive sites. So it really was a no brainer to sign up with a club. Luckily there is a local ScotSAC branch in the city in which we live. So we started going along to their club nights and taking part in pool sessions and lectures.

ScotSAC Diving

In ScotSAC there are several different levels of diver, historically they were called 1st, 2nd, 3rd class etc. But now it follows this progression.

There is also the possibility to cross over from other training agencies. This isn’t a scary concept. You just follow their crossover path and then you get certified as one of the divers on the list. You don’t lose your previous certification so it’s a win-win.

Laurence, due to the low number of dives that he has completed would first crossover as a Branch Diver and then once he completed the remaining crossover skills would become a Sport Diver. He would have completed his Branch Diver at the weekend if he hadn’t been ill.

I on the other hand, with all my experience, was marked for directly crossing over to Master Diver. Today I got my Master Diver e-certification card. I am now a ScotSAC Master Diver.

Next Steps

Well the next rung on the ScotSAC ladder for me is First Class Diver, but before I can become one of those I need to get my dive count up. I have a respectable 379 dives, that needs to turn into 500. So I need to get my fins on. There are 4 additional modules that I have to do. The list too choose from is quite long and I may have already completed some of them due to my previous life experience. I cannot be thinking about this for the time being until I am closer to 479 dives.

There is also the possibility to cross over as an Open Water Instructor. This weekend there is a classroom course and I may get invited to go on it. There are pool and open water classes that I would need to do after the classroom one so it isn’t a bad idea to try my foot in.

For Laurence, it is get his first Scottish dives done, and make steady progress to Sport Diver. We have a club diving weekend in September so there is a good chance that he might be able to get it all done by then. I think some land drills would definitely be something that we both could benefit from – refreshing my skills, and him learning new skills.