Is SSI or PADI scuba diving certification better?
I am going to get my scuba certification, and I notice that some schools give PADI certifications and others SSI. What is the difference? Which is better? Thank you.
Related Posts
Tags: Better, Certification, diving, PADI, scuba
Both will provide you a certification for recreational scuba diving. I wouldn’t say that one is better than the other as they will both teach you the basics.
The major factor will be the instructor. A great instructor will teach you more than you can learn from the book. A poor instructor will teach you enough to get you certified. Both agencies have great and poor instructors.
Doug’s correct in that neither training agency is really “better” than the other and that it really boils down to the calibre of the instructors and the quality of the individual dive shops.
You also aren’t stuck with the agency you start with either. It’s quite possible to start with one agency and do some courses with another as they don’t all offer the same courses. SSI, for example, offers a solo certification, which PADI doesn’t. You could train PADI partly up the ladder and then do a SSI or IANTD cert or vice versa.
When it comes to any of the agencies being better, there is one that comes to mind, but you don’t list it, nor if you live in the States, will you get to train with it and that’s BSAC. The curriculum is a little more advanced and the practical is too, but that’s simply because it’s an agency (club really) that has developed a training syllabus to match the diving conditions prevalent in the waters surrounding the UK. Their Open water divers tend to be better trained than any of the other agencies Open Water divers. I’m PADI, but was fortunate enough to have had my rescue taught by a visiting BSAC/ PADI instructor. My cert for it is PADI but he went a little above and beyond a traditional PADI Rescue cert in his instruction.
The one is not necessarily better than the other, they’re not even all that different. I started off with SSI and became an instructor with both PADI and SSI. The only real difference between the two is that a PADI instructor can work independently of a dive shop, whereas a SSI instructor must be affiliated with a recognised SSI facility. Ultimately though with either agency the instructor is responsible if your training is not up to standard. I’d rather go with an instructor that I can trust to do a good job rather than any specific agency. I’ve seen good and bad instructors in both federations. I hope my students remember me as one of the good ones;-) Take time to check out the instructor and the diveschool before just jumping in because they’re PADI or SSI or whatever.
Good luck you’ll enjoy diving immensely. Check out http://www.squidoo.com/BluePlanet for some more info.