SSI INDEPENDENT DIVER COURSE from $349
Self sufficiency underwater
Most divers enjoy diving with their buddies as they can share their experiences together, but maintaining a true buddy contact underwater can be challenging for some due to the tasks that they choose to pursue.
A great example of this is underwater photographers and divers who hunt for seafood. Yes they may jump into the water together, swim along together, but as they start to stop to take a photo or look under a ledge for a potential tasty critter and then another and another, their buddy may have continued on a short way and may even be occupied doing the same thing. They are still within sight of each other assuming the vis is good, but are now out of reach if they needed assistance urgently.
Just think, your buddy is now concentration on their own photo or have their head in a different hole and cannot see that You need their attention.
Other circumstances may arise that divers find that they have to dive completely alone, perhaps an anchor has become stuck and the skipper has agreed a diver needs to free it, but there isn’t a buddy for them.
Sometimes there just isn’t anyone to dive with, the sea conditions are great, but your buddies are stuck at work. So what do you do, just go by yourself? Is this safe to do?
So how do we make this type of diving safer? How many times can you get away with just diving solo? How experienced do you need to be to dive alone?
The SSI Independent Diver specialty course is a course designed to train divers to dive independently, without compromising safety factor.
“Self-sufficiency” will be the keyword of this course. We will train you to always have a strong awareness to your personal and environmental condition. You will learn how to do complete proper dive planning, observe and adhere to personal limitations, and accident prevention in and out of water.
So who is this course for?
In short, the SSI Independent Diver Specialty course is commonly sought-after by experienced underwater photographer and videographer who yearn for personal liberty underwater.
However, if you have 75 logged dives or more on you, and you would like to learn what it takes to dive independently, you are more than welcome to enrol in the course. There are a couple of other skills you would want to have; Stress and Rescue is a must. Deep diver course if you are planning to go between 19m to 40m.
After completing the course you will become a more reliable diver in the team, which is always a strong and calming presence for everyone.
What do you do and where do we teach you?
The course takes 2.5 days, and involves one confined water session along with some theory at Dive Now and a minimum of 3 open water training dives to complete. These can take place as shore dives or on our charter at the Poor Knights
What you will learn on this course
- Gain the knowledge and skills to safely dive independently
- Learn what additional equipment you need to complete the dives safely
- Gain experience in diving with a secondary cylinder
- Complete self rescue scenarios
- Learn how to plan dives
- dSMB deployment
Cost: $349 | 2 days | 1 evening for Theory and Pool Session then 2 Open Water Dives
Cost includes all training, certification and study materials. Any specialist equipment will be provided for the duration of the course.
Costs exclude any charter fees
Pre-requisites
- Open Water Diver or equivalent certification
- Logged at least 75 open water dives totalling 50 hours or more
- Be certified in SSI Advance Adventurer or equivalent
- Be certified in SSI Diver Stress and Rescue or equivalent
- Be certified or provide proof of experience in Night and Limited Visibility, Deep Diving (40m) and Navigation Specialties
Before you start the course:
- You have to fill out a medical questionnaire to check whether you are fit to dive.
- Ideally you’ll train using your own equipment so that you can fine tune your weight and buoyancy to your own gear but we do have equipment available in our school if required.
Transportation is not provided by Dive Now Whangarei, but we do our best to help organise car pooling to the dive sites.