What’s the difference between SSI and PADI? Part 1
Since PADI is “The way the world learns to dive” and a ‘PADI course’ has become synonymous with what is actually an entry-level Scuba certification, being an SSI instructor, I have necessarily developed a concise stock answer to this article’s title-question. In this short series of articles I will be exploring in detail what the differences are; to dive operators and dive leaders as well as (potential) students and divers in general. In this first article we will take a look at the beginnings of the agency. Knowledge of the early days is essential in understanding SSI’s current policies and will even shed some light on the birth of the dive training industry as a whole. When Scuba Schools International came into fruition in 1970, its founding members had all previously belonged to the National Association of Scuba Diving Schools (NASDS), a retailers’ association. PADI at this point did not [...]
Categories: SSI Tags: SSI, SSI courses, SSI divers, SSI education
Meet Rick Davis: SSI diving, Scuba Jedi
I take a practical and pragmatic approach to creating and educating comfortable and competent divers and exceptional dive leaders. I learned to dive through BSAC when I was 17, really for no other reason than the opportunity presented itself. But loved it! I went diving on The Great Barrier Reef several years later, took a handful of PADI classes, saw working dive leaders in action and shortly after enrolled myself in an extended SSI DiveCon internship. Within a year I was bopping about the Fiji Islands and living the dream; working on reef-fringed islands, diving every day, swimming with the fishes, introducing people to a world about which I am passionate and training others to do the same! Six years on and I am now an SSI DiveCon Instructor and NAUI Instructor Trainer, working full-time in the industry but in a very different environment. I now manage a full-service Michigan-based [...]
Categories: Scuba diving courses, SSI Tags: Rick Davis, Scuba Jedi, SSI diving, SSI scuba diving
