To get started on Sidemount diving you don’t need more than an Open Water Diver. Mind you, it obviously helps to have good buoyancy and trim and you should be able to set up and handle your equipment comfortably by yourself. Sidemount diving will add a whole new dimension when it comes to equipment setup and skills.
Sidemount rigs also include tank bands, clips, bungees, and likely some more to store your regs. The clips are attached to your harness. Also, their position will affect the position of your tanks.
We offer the TDI course as an option, although we can also teach the SDI course if asked. This course can be taken on its own, or with the Apprentice Cave Diver course.
You are interested in becoming Sidemount Diver? This article will provide all the information you need about what it takes to become a Sidemount diver.
New gear means new techniques. Even though sidemount diving is simple, you will need to master some new skills.
Scuba diving sidemount is becoming more popular than ever in open water. You are more streamlined than having to carry a tank around your back.
It's normal to be anxious about how it will all work out. Your instructor will assist you with everything!
All Tec diving (open circuit and closed circuit rebreather), as well technical scuba diving courses, are taught at Scotty’s dive centre headquarters facility. It is located in Mactan in Cebu province. You are welcome to walk in or have us pick you up from your hotel if you are not a Shangrila guest.
Becoming a technical diver is equal parts training, experience and passion. If any of the three are lacking the added risks in technical diving aren’t worth it.
Sidemount diving requires only an Open Water Diver to begin. Although it's important to have excellent buoyancy and trim, you should also be able handle your equipment independently. Sidemount diving offers a whole new level of skill and equipment setup.
If you want some diving classes alternative and lessons or want to know what's best next for your education, take a look at the three options below.
If you're a Tec diver and want to do sidemount diving, it's important to know how to set up your new rig, adjust it, enter the water with it, and much more.
And of course, the book of Verna Van Schaik ‘Fatally Flawed – The Quest to be Deepest’, the one woman who succeeded to break the female world record in depth in Bushman’s hole in South Africa and how she god there.
I have just arrived in Malapascua Island on the Philippines. Over the next two months, I will work my way to becoming a Tec dive instructor. I've been a recreational dive instructor in Bali for two years. I would like to add more experience to my portfolio. Sidemount PCB was my first experience with technical diving. Tom West (PADI instructor-trainer) made me a certified Tec-50 diver.
- Increased Bottom Time A Closed Circuit diver is not concerned with running out of gas because they are only limited by decompression. This can also be reduced by selecting an oxygen partial pressure that provides the diver with virtually limitless bottom times in 60 feet or less of water.
To begin a technical diving course, you must have completed the following prerequisites: a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certificate or equivalent, a PADI Enriched Air Diver certificate or equivalent, and a PADI Deep Diver certificate or proof of at least 10 dives to 30 metres/100 feet.
2-3 hours
Even with small cylinders, you can usually dive for 2-3 hours (rebreathers typically have two 2/3l cylinders or one 3/5l cylinder).