ScotSAC has a similar structure to PADI. Where PADI has an Openwater diver, ScotSAC has a Branch Diver. While at each level ScotSAC divers have a longer training time, they also tend to have a richer set of competencies but a greater number of restrictions in the early stage. For example Branch Divers are required to dive with someone more qualified ScotSAC diver (a sport diver or master diver) when not out with an instructor training.
This is a good thing and it means inexperienced divers shouldn't find themselves in positions where they are putting themselves in any significant danger and will always have a more experienced buddy in the early stages.
Today I had volunteered to dive with one such diver in my club. He was restricted to 15m as a Branch Diver. I had suggested Twin Piers:
- As a site he had never dived
- A site where there are some cool things to see within the depth range
We arrived at the site in the midst of the three days of Scottish summer sunshine and bumped into a few of our Kilmarnock ScotSAC cousins. We chatted and got a vis report. It wasn't good.
They were right, I abandoned my plan to try and find the old truck axle and instead lead us down into the dark but relatively clear area around 15m.
On the first dive we did OK, spotting the small wreckage of a the barge, a lobster and a conger eel.
The second dive was to be a little shorter largely so that I could get way with using just the one tank. By the time we re-entered the water the tide had gone out and the visibility had improved. It meant we had a nice wee descent through the big pier to the truck axle and by the time we were on the reef the we could see around 5m below us.
It was an almost perfect day for it and it meant a new diver could get another couple of dives under his belt and another 1hr 25 minutes logged underwater in the shallows.
Great dives and a cracking day.
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