BSAC OWI to PADI OWSI coversion?

[DevonDiver]

so if i intend to be a padi owsi, i might as well do the idc and ie straight away from padi?

because bsac recognises padi owsis and from what i've been told, its a quick cheap conversion process.

not the same from bsac to padi?

Not the same.

You have to do the IDC and IE if you want to be a PADI OWSI. No exceptions.

If you are an instructor already, with any other agency, then you can skip the PADI AI course. That is all.

[lord.harshil]

Well that cleared up a lot of issues

I'm probably going to have to save up for a padi idc then, grumble mumble...

Experience wise, I'll just have to make up for it by hounding the more experienced instructors and learning from them since it is PADI after all. but lets not go there...

I'm only going to be in the UK for 4 years and lets face it, the UK isnt the best place to dive, especially when all i want in the winter is to run off to a hot boiling humid place and dive.

thanks for all the advice guys!

[SubMariner]

Not the same.

You have to do the IDC and IE if you want to be a PADI OWSI. No exceptions.

If you are an instructor already, with any other agency, then you can skip the PADI AI course. That is all.

Exactly! Most people don't realize that the IDC is broken down into the Assistant Instructor Course and the Open Water Scuba Instructor Course; they simply see it as a single entity.

As you mentioned, someone who is an Instructor with another agency would be able to skip the AI portion of the IDC, then having passed the OWSI part, go on to the IE.

[Dave1w]

Well that cleared up a lot of issues

I'm probably going to have to save up for a padi idc then, grumble mumble...

Experience wise, I'll just have to make up for it by hounding the more experienced instructors and learning from them since it is PADI after all. but lets not go there...

I'm only going to be in the UK for 4 years and lets face it, the UK isnt the best place to dive, especially when all i want in the winter is to run off to a hot boiling humid place and dive.

thanks for all the advice guys!

If you want to have both PADI OWSI and BSAC OWI, the actual cheapest way to get both is to do the full PADI instructor course, then BSAC will allow you to convert it to BSAC OWI by just attending the Instructor Foundation Course (£120?).

That way you do get both, which could be useful. You could teach for fun in the Uni club and teach for free at local school... PADI doesn't really recognise any instructors, so you end up doing (and paying) for just about the whole thing)

Worth keeping diving with the BSAC club, and even think about working on Advanced Diver. You 'll learn a hell of a lot more than you ever would with PADI

Another alternative is to do the OWI with BSAC then do a relatively cheap and easy crossover conversion to SSI, or SDI. Both of these give you more recognition for alreay being an instructor.

The UK is a much better place to dive than Singapore. Standards are usually higher and safer, there is hell of a lot more diving to do from the South Coast up to Scapa. A week on a liveaboard in Scotland costs about the same as a 2 day liveaboard in Singapore, and you have a whole lot more wrecks!

Dave