Specialty course referral

[emoreira]

Hi all nice people, I will be in a work travel in May in San Diego CA.
I will have a free day during my work activities there and I would like to dive a wreck near the Mission Bay in San Diego.
I'm SSI AOWD certified.
For this I took the theoretical class of the SSI course Wreck Diving and I asked to the instructor if I could do the check-out dives in San Diego. For this the local diving school should do a specialty referral. The instructor told me that there is no "specialty referral" in SSI.
I understand that the big money in specialty courses are the associated check-out dives, not the theoretical classes in the classroom.
However I would like to know if this is true. Thanks in advanced.

[jscott099]

He is correct, referrals only are for Open Water check out dives according to the SSI Training Standards 2010. When you say theoretical class, do you mean just reading the self study and watching video? Or actually doing the sit down portion with the instructor also. As an instructor on the NC coast, I would be tailoring my class to those conditions. I imagine the San Diego instructor would want to do the same. I would suggest that you get your LDS and the San Diego LDS on the phone together with you and see if you can work out a deal so that you don't pay twice.

[emoreira]

He is correct, referrals only are for Open Water check out dives according to the SSI Training Standards 2010. When you say theoretical class, do you mean just reading the self study and watching video? Or actually doing the sit down portion with the instructor also. As an instructor on the NC coast, I would be tailoring my class to those conditions. I imagine the San Diego instructor would want to do the same. I would suggest that you get your LDS and the San Diego LDS on the phone together with you and see if you can work out a deal so that you don't pay twice.

Hi jscott099, thanks for your nice answer, yes, theoretical class is a 1.5 ~ 2 hs classroom meeting where the instructor makes an overall description of the contents of the book, some personal experience regarding the topic + watching the SSI video.