BSAC Ocean Diver questions

[PaulStevo]

Morning all ,
Just started my scuba journey and as well as joining BSAC and local club im undertaking Ocean Diver Course.
Was looking at options and need some calrification on what to purchase.
E learning option is £65 which is what im edging towards ,however it recommends purchasing other things like Dive Profile Red Logbook and BSAC Nitrox Decompression Tables.
Do i need these added items to complete course . Also im planning on taking some classroom modules as well ran by the club ive joined. Im presuming i can take my Macbook with me to consult diving manual or other things materials the Ocean Diver e learning package gives me,or is it wise to purchase some hard copies of Diving Manual and Tables.
Cheers Paul

[bottle maker]

I would ask in your club regarding tables. My club has several sets of tables that we lend to students. The reality is most people use personal diving computers to track their Nitrogen uptake during dives once they get pass Ocean diver.

In my experience and it may be an age thing but face to face lectures are much better at imparting information to students then e learning. I suggest you attend as many real lectures as possible.

Graham.

[Energy58]

The tables used to come with the training packs (in ye olden times) so I have a full set but in my club we lend tables to trainees simply because of the cost, plus no one ever uses them to plan real dives (they are used for the exam questions like diving in a lake in the mountains and then driving down to sea level to get on a plane - like we do all the time) - once you pass the OD theory you can get a lifetime licence for multi deco on your phone for £38 which is actually useful in the real world and cheaper than the 88s.

If you were to google something like "BSAC 88 Tables PDF" you might be able to find them but I would never condone that

[Chrisch]

I agree with Graham, the dive tables are yesterday's technology and more of a learning tool than something you are likley to need for diving. People all learn in different ways but the advantage of actual lectures is the ability to ask questions and get clarification. That said lots of clubs rather drag their heels doing lectures as it relies on someone giving up their spare time to do them. I would chceck to see what the timescale is with the club before making a decision.

If you have questions post them on here and someone will give you help I am sure. We all like to see new people make their way in diving.

You will find a lot of resources online and in print to suplement and develop your theoretical knowledge. On the whole it will mostly point you in the right direction although some sources can be a bit innacurate in the very small details. Nothing worth getting stressed about that I have come across over the years, just stuff to argue opinions over. You will find plenty of opinion based arguments on here if you look through the old postings

The basics are the basics. Wherever you find something it will generally be worth a read. Lots and lots on You Tube as well. Ignore the different agencies for the time being - the core skills are the same and the laws of physics are universal.

Chris

[barnaby_s]

In my experience of e-learning vs face to face teaching (not diving related though) the extra conversations that happen with in person teaching add a lot of extra knowledge.
But more importantly if you don't fully understand a concept as taught when you are in an in person situation you can ask for another explanation in a different way, this can be really important for some people to get a proper understanding of a subject.

I am counting video conferencing options as face to face/in person, but even then some nuances can be missed more easily than in true face to face.

[Ian@1904]

Welcome to diving.....

The red logbooks are pretty useful if a bit old school. It makes sense to keep a log of your dives, after twenty years and hundreds of dives I still write stuff up in my logbook. There are online tools that can also be used.
Having the small logbook can then be easily taken with you to show dive businesses overseas your dive history. The books are only a few pounds, and the reality is that diving is going to cost you a lot of money.

Dive computers often come with download tools so that data such as depth, time, temperature, and gas mix can all be stored in log tools. You can then add your own memories of the dive to the log. This can be really important as I still go back to old logbooks to see what happened at dive sites often from many years ago.

I have not done online learning, but the lectures are going to allow for more questions to be answered. It also assists for making friends and dive buddies. This is not a tick box exercise. You really need to understand the basics about diving, as this might save a life when things go wrong.

[PaulStevo]

Thanks everyone for your advice,
I agree with the classroom based route being much more interactive and usefull for many reasons as quoted.
I will have a few more conversations with club members before deciding ,as it will depend on the appropriate modules being ran in house by the club.
It all seems a bit daunting and very technical at the moment,however its nice to have the knowledge and experience you all have to tap into.
Never been this excited for years undertaking a new advneture into Scuba.
Cheers all im sure you will be hearing from me with lots of questions

[bottle maker]

The ocean diver theory can be the hardest to understand but it's the foundation for all other diver theory.

Don't over think it just enjoy diving.

Graham.

[Ian@1904]

Once signed up to BSAC you should be able to access quiz tests. These will help test your knowledge

http://library.bsac.com/quiz/ot1.htm

[barnaby_s]

If you feel that your club isn't doing the theory when it is convenient for you can always use a BSAC Centre for the course and then continue to dive with and progress with the club
List of BSAC centres is at https://www.bsac.com/this-is-bsac/wh.../bsac-centres/

[Energy58]

[QUOTE=Ian@1904;481889

The red logbooks are pretty useful if a bit old school. It makes sense to keep a log of your dives, after twenty years and hundreds of dives I still write stuff up in my logbook. [/QUOTE]

This ^

I massively regret not logging my dives after about 150 - I thought it was a bit spoddy to be honest - but a few years later a mate got to some significant big number (4000 dives or something) and I realised I had no idea how many I had done so I started logging them again but couldn't reconstruct the "lost" dives. So even now I have 700 and something logged dives plus several hundred from the "gap" so I have probably passed 1000 but will never know.

[Chrisch]

Don't overlook resources that seem to be advanced either. This online "revision" guide is aimed at instructor candidates but offers a quick overview of what you need to know.

https://www.idc-guide.com/dive-theory/

Lot of good data there.

[Edward3c]

Morning all ,
Just started my scuba journey and as well as joining BSAC and local club im undertaking Ocean Diver Course.
Was looking at options and need some calrification on what to purchase.
E learning option is £65 which is what im edging towards ,however it recommends purchasing other things like Dive Profile Red Logbook and BSAC Nitrox Decompression Tables.
Do i need these added items to complete course . Also im planning on taking some classroom modules as well ran by the club ive joined. Im presuming i can take my Macbook with me to consult diving manual or other things materials the Ocean Diver e learning package gives me,or is it wise to purchase some hard copies of Diving Manual and Tables.
Cheers Paul

Hi Paul,

Welcome to BSAC and the adventure that awaits.

The Red Logbook is free format, allowing you to tailor what you record to you needs as you’re skill set develops and what you end up doing when diving.

Others have covered the nuances of e-learning and face-2-face, my preference is face-2-face, but then I’m old school.

If anything doesn’t make sense ask one of the instructors in you club to explain it, or drop me a PM on here.

When you’ve got your Ocean Diver you have a choice getting to Sports Diver (SD):
1. do Advanced Ocean Diver (gives 30m and DSMB) then the SD top-up, or
2. go straight into the full SD course.
Both routes cost the same, the AOD opens up more diving opportunities on you way to SD.

[Allan Carr]

Our club has sets of tables to loan out to OD trainees. As has been mentioned above, they are useful training aids but not really applicable in the real world. When they first came out, dive computers were very expensive but you now pay less for one than I did for my first back in 1985 and that's not including any inflation!

I started doing the theory lectures online at the start of the Covid lockdown and have continued doing them that way since we don't have a dedicated room we can use as a classroom and it saves the hassle of organising various different locations. This works well in that the students can ask questions and the lecturer can add material which is appropriate to the branch.

[Energy58]

When you’ve got your Ocean Diver you have a choice getting to Sports Diver (SD):
1. do Advanced Ocean Diver (gives 30m and DSMB) then the SD top-up, or
2. go straight into the full SD course.
Both routes cost the same, the AOD opens up more diving opportunities on you way to SD.

I was a real sceptic about the AOD but having just done the entire course comfortably within a week for a diver who had masses of dives (70-plus) but had never managed to get her arse into gear to do SD I am a convert. It is a real qualification which - as Edward says - opens up a bunch more diving but is also a useful waypoint on the way to SD that shows the trainee that they are actually achieving something and you can then do the rest of the SD stuff on more interesting dives as and when the opportunity arises.

It is also much more user-friendly as you can easily fit it into a weeks diving trip and they get something concrete at the end not a few signatures in a QRB and a "next time you need to do..." REAP debrief.

Not sure how it works with Q cards - you only get one code with the SD Training Pack so do they have to pay for the SD card when they finally get that having used the code for the AOD card?