What is SSI, and what the Open Water Diver course actually involves

Open Water Diver is the qualification most people mean when they say they want to learn to dive. It is the ticket that lets you rent gear, join a boat and dive with a buddy anywhere in the world, without an instructor holding your hand.

First, what SSI actually is

SSI stands for Scuba Schools International. It is one of the world's major diver training agencies, and Oceanlife is an SSI dive centre. People occasionally ask whether an SSI card is as good as the other well-known agency's. It is. Both meet the same international standards, and both are recognised by dive centres worldwide.

That is not marketing. The SSI Open Water Diver programme is built to ISO 24801-2, an international standard for autonomous divers. Your certification is not a certificate from a shop in Clare — it is a recognised international qualification, and a dive centre in Egypt or Thailand will treat it as such.

What the course covers

Three parts, and they build on each other.

• The theory. How pressure affects your body and your air, how to plan a dive, what the gear does. It is done online through your MySSI account, at your own pace, before you arrive. Get it done at home and you spend your time here in the water rather than in a classroom.

• Confined water skills. Mask clearing, regulator recovery, buoyancy, sharing air with a buddy. Practised somewhere calm and shallow until they stop being a big deal.

• Open water dives. The real thing, on this coast, with an instructor. This is where it becomes diving rather than training.

SSI's approach is repetition until a skill is comfortable rather than ticked off. Nobody is signed off on clearing a mask because they managed it once while panicking slightly. You do it until it is boring. That is the point.

Age and depth: the bit families get wrong

You can certify as an Open Water Diver from the age of 10, but the depth you are allowed to dive to depends on your age, and it changes as you grow up.

• Ages 10 and 11: limited to 12 metres, and must dive with a parent, guardian or an SSI professional.

• Ages 12 to 14: 18 metres, with a certified adult diver.

• Age 15 and over: 18 metres, with another certified diver.

The rule that surprises people is the last one. Open Water is not a licence to dive alone. It certifies you to dive with a buddy, and that stays true at every age.

Learning to dive in Irish water

There is a good argument for learning here rather than on holiday. Divers trained in cold water with a thick suit, gloves and real conditions tend to find warm clear water easy afterwards. It rarely works the other way round. If you can manage your buoyancy in a 7 mm suit off Clare, Sharm will hold no surprises.

Learn in cold water and warm water is a holiday. Learn in warm water and cold water is a shock.

For dates, what to bring and what it costs, ring the centre on 085 255 2064 or call into us on the East Pier. If you have never breathed off a regulator at all, start with a Try a Dive first — there is no sense committing to a course before you know you like it.