Safety and competence lie at the heart of our diving activities, and we run a full programme of courses and refresher sessions. We want our members to be as skilled as they need to be for the dives we undertake, and as prepared as possible for the unexpected.
Our instructors are not professionals – they are club members themselves, who have experience and formal training from BSAC. They are also there in the long-term, unlike a holiday session where you are on your own after it has ended.
It’s why a club like ours is a much better a way to take up diving, at least we think so.
We conduct our training at the Prior Park College pool in Bath on Wednesday evenings and use Vobster Quay for the open water parts of training.
Ocean Diver
If you’re keen to learn to dive, BSAC’s Ocean Diver course is the place to start. This entry-level open water diver qualification will equip you with the core skills to dive to a maximum of 20 metres in open water, in the UK and abroad.
The BSAC Ocean Diver course is open to anyone from the age of 12. You’ll just need to demonstrate that you can comfortably swim 200m in a pool, and the only kit you’ll need is a swimsuit and towel.
On your open water diving course, you’ll:
- Learn how to use basic scuba gear, including your mask and snorkel.
- Control your buoyancy and underwater movements
- Understand your basic scuba diving safety skills – you’ll find out the importance of time, depth and gas
- Discover how to plan and manage your diving
As a qualified Ocean Diver, you can dive buddied with another Ocean Diver, under the supervision of a Dive Manager – so long as you stick to familiar locations and conditions you have encountered during your training.
If you want to expand your experience by exploring different locations and conditions, you can easily do this accompanied by a Dive Leader or higher-grade diver.
At depths of down to 20m, Ocean Divers have plenty of chances to encounter a fascinating variety of wildlife and shipwrecks in seas, rivers, quarries, lochs and lakes.
The Ocean Diver course includes six theory modules, at least five sessions in a pool or sheltered water, and at least four open-water dives.
Sports Diver
If you already have some diving experience with an entry-level qualification and want to take your underwater adventures to the next level, Sports Diver is your next step in BSAC’s Diver Training Programme.
Advancing your scuba diving qualifications to become a Sports Diver gives you the opportunity to perform longer, deeper dives with decompression stops, as well as learning rescue skills.
If you want to do more with your diving, the Sports Diver qualification gives you the freedom to explore. Being a Sports Diver allows most people to do all the diving they want in the UK and abroad.
You’ll learn how to spot if something is wrong and what to do in an emergency including self-rescue, recovery of unresponsive divers, and basic life support – these are among the most valuable skills any diver can learn.
Qualified Sports Divers can dive buddied with another Sports Diver, in familiar locations and conditions, allowing you more freedom to explore. You can also support a Dive Manager as a competent assistant, the first step on the road to helping to organise diving within your club.
The Sports Diver course includes six theory modules, a practical session on how to support a Dive Manager, a sheltered-water rescue skills session, and six open-water dives with plenty of time to practise your skills.
Dive Leader
The Dive Leader course is perfect for BSAC members who want to take a more active role in their club and/or become an Open Water Instructor.
Dive Leaders are key members of their BSAC clubs who are able to lead inexperienced and experienced divers to gain new experiences. They are also able to organise dives and have the skills to deal with situations where something unexpected may have occurred.
Dive Leader has three core elements; leading inexperienced and experienced divers, dive management, and rescue management.
The formal learning consists of five assessed theory modules, five open-water training dives and three practical lessons. For divers who need refresher training, or those coming from another agency, there are also optional practical and theory lessons to ensure you are ready to progress.
You’ll be qualified to dive with divers of any grade to expand their experience and, within constraints, complete depth progression dives. You can also support trainee divers to practise skills they have previously been taught by an instructor.
You’ll also be able to plan and manage diving at sites that are known to your BSAC branch. After consideration of the various factors that impact on a dive, you’ll be able to brief the group, delegate activities and liaise with the skipper to ensure everything runs smoothly. On site you’ll be monitoring the situation, analysing what is happening, predicting potential changes and planning your response.
During the dive planning you’ll have prepared for the unexpected and will be ready to act as a rescue manager. You’ll be able to co-ordinate the response in order to ensure the best possible outcome.
Higher Levels
After qualifying as a Dive Leader, your diving and instructing choices significantly expand.
- You could learn the skills needed to organise dive trips to unknown sites by doing the Advanced Diver course, the final grade in BSAC’s Diver Training Programme to be awarded at club level.
- You could continue to develop specific skills to expand your diving interests further. There are more than 30 BSAC Skill Development Courses (SDCs)
- You could start on the road to instructing by signing up for BSAC’s Instructor Foundation Course to become an Assistant Diving Instructor.
Other Training
Many of our members are interested in developing their skills with boats, which form a natural complement to diving in UK waters, and here too we offer courses in boat handling, coxswain skills, radio operation, search and rescue, and many others.
There is also a range of more specialised skills courses for people with a particular interest, perhaps in shipwrecks or in cave diving. We may not always be able to provide these within our club, but being part of BSAC means that there will be the chance to get this training from their regional activities.
Transferring From Other Agencies
Lots of people are learning diving on a holiday trip to warm water seas, and if you have already been bitten by the diving bug, we are happy to keep your interest alive by helping you explore the UK coastline.
If you are a qualified diver with SSI, PADI or any other of the recognised certification bodies, we’d love you to come and dive with us – you do not have to do any cross-over or further training (unless you want to!).
Quite a number of us have specialised interests such as underwater photography, wreck exploration, and marine ecology and conservation – so if you have a particular passion for nudis or wreck photography you’re likely to find a fellow enthusiast.