Sidemount Diver Certification

In this Sidemount diving course, you’ll learn all you need to go single or two-cylinder recreational Sidemount diving up to a maximum depth of 30 meters or to your certification depth, whichever is deeper. Sidemount diving is already common practice for wreck, mine, and cave divers, but now the benefits are being discovered by more recreational divers. With no heavy tank on your back, you’ll be more comfortable in the water and find your streamlining and trim improve effortlessly. By using less energy, you may reduce your gas consumption so you can make the most of your dive time. With better buoyancy control, easier access to your valves and more redundancy as well, Sidemount diving offers safety and peace of mind. This is the best Sidemount diving course to discover and enjoy the enticing advantages of this dive style. You learn all the skills and knowledge you need to safely and comfortably dive with a single or two-cylinder Sidemount equipment configuration.

What is the Sidemount  Diver Certification?

SSI Recreational Sidemount gets you into the Sidemount diving world and a new configuration, training requires that you dive with two tanks but we love the fact that for recreational diving you can use JUST one! That’s about as comfortable as you can get in the water and the core skills are all the same.

Once in Sidemount few divers go back-to-back-mount through choice, with easy set-up and user-friendly equipment if you asked your Salty Endeavors Instructor what system they would use for a bit of fun diving then a single tank Sidmeount set-up would be it!

In the course you will learn:

  • Equipment Assembly
  • Sidemount Cylinder Removal and Replacement (Surface)
  • Weight and Trim Checks
  • S-Drill (Surface or Shallow Water)
  • Deploy Lights (Optional)
  • Neutral Buoyancy (Hover) and Trim
  • Cylinder Gas Balancing
  • Sidemount Flow Check
  • Flutter Kick and Modified Flutter Kick
  • Frog Kick and Modified Frog Kick
  • Backwards Kick
  • Cylinder Trimming
  • Out-of-Gas Diver (Hover and Ascent)
  • Surface Air Consumption (SAC) Rate Check
  • Sidemount Cylinder Removal and Replacement (Underwater)
  • Sidemount Cylinder Removal and Replacement (Single-Mount)
  • Free-Flowing Regulator (Basic)
  • SMB Deployment

Pre-requisites:

  • Minimum age: 12 years old.
  • SSI Open Water certified or industry equivilent 

 

With online learning with this SSI course, you can complete all of the academics prior to arriving here at Salty Endeavors.

Day 1:

Your SSI Sidemount Diver Course starts in our classroom where you will get introduced to our instructor. To begin with we would complete the digital paperwork (if any pending) and review the online academics. Your instructor will discuss all the relevant and important points regarding Sidemount diving, including equipment selection and set up, gas management and the amazing opportunities utilizing Sidemount configuration.

Following a lunch break we head up to our pool for a practical training session which will include donning cylinders in shallow and deep water, buddy checks, gas switches underwater, removing and replacing cylinders and out of air drills.

Day 2:

Your instructor will review all academics with you to ensure you have a thorough understanding of all aspects of Sidemount diving and dive planning. This is the time we will fine-tune equipment set up ready for our afternoon open water dives after our lunch break.

Dive 1 Shore Dive – These will be primarily skills dives, repeating and mastering the skills initially attempted in the previous day pool session.

Day 3 Boat Dive:

Dives 2 and 3 – Now it’s time to put those mastered skills in to practice and truly enjoy the benefit of Sidemount diving.