We are proud to announce that we are an official SSI dive center since May 2023.
As both owners are PADI instructors, Anne and Manua needed to do the crossover course to SSI.
For everyone who doesn’t know the difference between PADI and SSI, there is not a lot of difference for the courses, some skills are taught a bit different but nothing major. The biggest difference is that it was easier for us to become a registered dive center and the online platform is pretty advanced.
We are still teaching PADI courses, but our main focus will be on SSI.
How it all began
When we first opened Bubbles Up! Dive Center in November 2021, it was natural for us to teach PADI courses as it is easier to start with what you already know. As we both have been teaching these courses for years, it was easy to keep going like we did with our former dive center (we had to close because of COVID).
As it was still COVID when we opened and didn’t have a big budget, our main priority was to make sure our dive equipment was up-to-date, serviced and good to go before the season started.
Our first high season (after COVID) started in November 2022. We worked around the clock, so we could save money and think about what we want in the future. We discussed changing from PADI to SSI and started to gather information how and when to do this. First we contacted SSI Thailand and got a lot of information and our interest grew. There was a big obstacle though, we needed to go to Thailand to do the crossover. We were very busy and it was not an option to close the dive center in the high season, so we postponed this process and figured we wait till there was a better time to do this.
Unsuspected phone call
As we were very busy with fun divers, teaching courses, try dives and the day-to-day business with Bubbles Up! we didn’t really think about the SSI crossover until I suddenly got a phone call. The person who called me was Manfred, an SSI Instructor Trainer who happens to live in Phnom Penh! He heard from SSI headquarters in Thailand that we were interested in becoming an SSI Dive Center so he decided to contact us.
We knew it was a good opportunity to do it sooner rather than later, after a few messages/calls it was arranged. Manfred was coming to the island to train us!
The crossover itself
Beginning of May 2023 Manfred came to the island to teach us. It was a bit tricky as we were running our daily operations, and we were actually quite busy, (no complaints of course!). As we are a small and new dive center, even Manfred was (pleasantly) surprised. Luckily he was very patient and after the dives we sat down with him to study, show presentations and discuss a lot of topics.
One day when we were a bit quieter, we could go in the water to practice some skills that are a little bit different from PADI.
The last day we showed our PADI credentials and it turned out that instead of becoming Open Water Instructors, Anne upgraded to Divemaster Instructor and Manua an Assistant Instructor Trainer! This means that we can teach more courses than we initially thought and in the future (when we become an SSI Diamond Training Center, hopefully in 2024) we can even train SSI instructors.
We are proud of what we have achieved in the 1,5 years that we are open and are excited to see what the future brings. Stay tuned for more updates!
