Dacorum Sub Aqua Club
Other Training Agencies
DS-AC welcomes divers trained by other agencies.
Trained divers
We have a number of active members who started with PADI. We find there is not much difference between well trained and experienced people - no matter what agency they originally trained with: The type of diving conditions around the British Isles push everyone into a common style of diving.
Crossing over to BSAC training - SALT
If you are a trained diver, you are able dive with us as if you had a BSAC qualification equivalent to your existing non-BSAC qualification.
This is called the Statement of ALternative Training.
If you want to continue your training with BSAC, we can fit our courses around your qualification so that you don't repeat training you have already done.
The reason we train divers
DS-AC is mainly interested in recruiting and training people who want to dive with us around the British Isles. That is not to say that we discourage tropical diving or travel, just that the main energy of the club and the target of our training is British diving.
Each year we do some tropical diving. The Red Sea is popular. Our members regularly go diving in the Maldives, Caribbean, Mediterranean and the Spanish islands.
As an important part of your training with us will be in the sea around Britain, if you have plans for your diving that do not involve British diving, you'll need to choose another training organisation, club or school that offers the sort of training that interests you.
See UK.Rec.Scuba for an informative and unbiased guide to choosing a training organisation, club or school.
Divers with technical training
We have a technical diving group which welcomes keen, qualified and safety conscious divers. You'll need to be a Dive Leader equivalent (eg PADI DM), technically trained and have suitable equipment.
What training agencies are there?
Initial diver training agencies in Britain:
- British Sub Aqua Club - trains for British diving, has hundreds of branches and by far the largest British training and diving organisation.
- Sub Aqua Association - trains for British diving but has many fewer branches than BSAC
- Professional Association of Diving Instructors - world's largest trainer, but trains for tropical diving - there are few fully fledged clubs but there are some loose associations of divers based on PADI schools and dive shops
- Scottish Sub Aqua Club - trains for British waters, but is small and northern
Nitrox and technical training agencies:
- IANTD - nitrox and technical training - many BSAC members have done nitrox and technical training with IANTD (BSAC is several years behind the front runners in this area)
- TDI
- ANDI
Foreign agencies:
- SSI - trains for tropical diving - has little or no presence in Britain
- NAUI - trains for tropical diving - has little or no presence in Britain
- CMAS - although not a training agency, the CMAS diver and instructor star grading system is used to translate between qualifications of different agencies