Want to manage and supervise adventurous and
challenging diving expeditions and activities?
As a BSAC Advanced Diver you are a highly qualified branch
diver. This course is for divers who are interested in
extending still further their skills in planning and
supervising diving groups, rescue management skills, whilst
building seamanship and developing further leadership
qualities.
The BSAC Advanced Diver course develops knowledge and
skills. Divers gain experience in planning dives at
different sites and circumstances. Additional skills will be
gained in using small boats, chartwork and navigation and
many other related skills. Advanced Divers who are Open
Water Instructors are eligible to progress to Advanced
Instructor.
Prerequisites
To
enrol on the BSAC Advanced Course you must be 14 years or
older. You must have already successfully completed a BSAC
Dive Leader course.
What you’ll
learn
You will learn dive planning and managment
skills through four classroom lessons, two open water
lessons, two dry practical lessons and 20 dives (which may
include the open water lessons) in a range of conditions,
since qualifying as a Dive Leader.
• The BSAC Advanced Diver course covers:
• The role of
the BSAC Advanced Diver
• Advanced diving
• Organising
diving from different platforms
• Review of diving
conditions and on-site first aid
• Expedition planning
• Diving and rescue skills review
• Rescue skills and
management review
• Dive planning and management
The BSAC Advanced Diver course has relatively few ‘formal’
practical lessons and is much more heavily based on a
structured broadening of experience, particularly dive
management.
Experience dives
The BSAC Advanced Diver syllabus includes open water lessons
and experience dives which should total a minimum of 20
dives and 600 minutes underwater time since qualifying as a
Dive Leader. To ensure that students receive experience in a
range of conditions, the open water dives must include the
conditions in the following list. To ensure consolidation of
the skill requirements, each of the conditions should be
experienced on at least three dives:
• planned
decompression dive - dive involving at least two
planned decompression stops
• dive in tidal
waters - dive involving a direct descent following
a shot line, to dive on a specific site in a slack water
window.
• drift dive - dive to a
minimum depth of 15m in water moving at a speed which
precludes a return to the point of entry
Only one of
the above conditions may be logged per dive. In addition to
the above, a further six dives should include at least three
of the following conditions:
• navigation
dive - dive requiring navigation around a site.
• search dive - a dive involving the
utilisation of underwater search techniques.
• no
clear surface dive - a dive involving no clear
surface, either cavern, wreck penetration or ice diving.
• mixed gas dive - a dive involving use of
mixed gas, either closed circuit rebreather or open circuit.
• advanced decompression dive - a dive
involving advanced decompression techniques and emergency
gas deployment using decompression trapeze or lazy shot.
• surface location dive - a dive involving
the surface location of an unknown site using surface
searching techniques, followed by suitable precautions when
diving an unknown site.
Of the 20 dives:
• at
least ten should be carried out from boats.
• on at
least ten the student should act as dive leader
• at
least six should show depth experience greater than 30m
• on at least five occasions the student should act as Dive
Manager (including taking responsibility for carrying out
all planning activities):
• at least two should be full
day diving activities, to sites which are unknown to the
student Dive Manager
• at least one should be for a
duration of at least two days, involving overall planning of
the event
• the remaining two may be to either known or
unknown sites
Qualification and what that
means
A BSAC Advanced Diver is defined as a
diver who is comprehensively trained, experienced and
responsible and who can manage and supervise:
• a wide
range of adventurous and challenging diving activities
• branch diving expeditions to explore unfamiliar locations
• branch diving activities including dives utilising
developing technology and techniques
While Advanced Divers do not necessarily need to be
qualified to use emerging technologies themselves, they need
to know sufficient about them to understand how to safely
incorporate them within branch diving.
Learning
materials
You will be given a pack as part of
your course which includes all the learning materials you
need for the BSAC Advanced Diver course. The pack includes:
Qualification Card application and an A5 binder with your
Student Diver Notes.
Required gear
Full diving equipment.
How to do this course
You can do this
course by joining a North Glos BSAC and training with other
club members.
The BSAC Advanced Diver course
is spread over a number of
evenings and weekends.