Already A Diver?
Bicester Sub-Auqa Club welcomes divers trained from different major diving agencies.
However, as we are a BSAC club and only offer BSAC training courses and qualifications. You don't have to continue your training if you don't want to – you can continue diving under your existing qualifications, but most members go on and train for the next qualification.
It's hard to compare qualifications, for example the BSAC Sports Diver qualification allows you to undertake dives that require decompression stops, but it does not have as much emphasis on rescue skills as PADI's Rescue Diver qualification. To help divers who join from another agency, BSAC have put together the table below which shows where other agency divers enter the BSAC training programme.
Cross-over table
| Current qualification | BSAC Cross-over qualification |
|---|---|
|
All "Entry Level" qualifications (which typically do not include rescue training) such as:
|
Ocean Diver |
|
All "Second Level" qualifications (which must include rescue training) such as:
|
Sports Diver |
|
All "Third Level" qualifications (which must include dive leadership training) such as:
|
Dive Leader |
|
Any higher level of qualification, such as:
|
Advanced Diver |
First UK/club dive
If you"ve not dived in the UK before, many people choose to have their first open water dive to be in a quarry with an Dive Leader or Experienced Diver.
In training, we will make sure you know the important areas of UK diving such as the use of DSMB's (Delayed Surface Marker Bouys) and dry suits. We will most likely ask you to have a dry suit course with an Instructor or Experienced Diver to give you some understanding of how to use it, before letting you loose in the sea!