SSI Open Water Diver

The SSI Open Water Diver is one of the most recognised diving qualifications in the world — and the one course we run every day, year-round.

By the end of three days you’ll be a certified diver, free to descend to 18 metres anywhere in the world with a buddy at your side. No instructor required, no annual renewal, no expiry date.

At a glance. The SSI Open Water Diver is a 3-day entry-level scuba certification that lets you dive to a maximum depth of 18 metres with a buddy, anywhere in the world, for life. It is recognised on equal terms with the PADI Open Water by every WRSTC-member training agency (see the SSI / PADI cross-certification statement). The course is 6 dives total — 2 in confined water (pool), 4 in open water (reef) — capped at 4 students per instructor at our centre.

What you’ll actually do

Day 1 — Theory and pool. Your instructor walks you through the basics: how pressure affects your body, how gear works, how to plan a dive safely. We do one confined-water dive in our shallow pool to practise the skills: clearing your mask, recovering your regulator, neutral buoyancy, controlled ascents. You’re not memorising — you’re building muscle memory.

After the pool session and a short break we’ll go through the first Open Water Dive briefing and embark aboard one of our boats toward the local reefs around Gili Air or Gili Meno. First bubbles underwater and first memories, down to a max of 12 metres. Turtles almost guaranteed. Back from the dive we’ll debrief and log your experience at the dive centre. You have the rest of the day to finish your Academics and Theory in the SSI App — it needs to be completed by the morning of Day 2.

We also recommend completing the SSI Online Training theory before you arrive. It’s free, takes about 3–4 hours from home and means you can spend our three days together in the water rather than reading. We’ll send you the access when you book, or start your e-learning here right away.

Day 2 — Pool, skills, and Open Water Dive 2. You start the morning learning to prepare your equipment independently before entering the training pool to cover the remaining skills from the course. This is serious fun. You’ll learn in more depth how to be neutrally buoyant, remove your mask, share air, ascend in an emergency, and more. By the end of the pool session we’ll jump aboard the boat for Open Water Dive 2. This dive has a specific skill set (you might practise removing your weight belt at the surface, or navigating with a compass), but most of the time is spent simply diving — looking at turtles, watching parrotfish chew the coral, hovering motionless above a cleaning station. We’re still limited to 12 metres.

Day 3 — The big one: to 18 metres. Today’s the day. You’re in charge of your dive parameters and planning, and we might see some reef sharks at that depth. Two Open Water Dives are planned — we still have a few skills to perform, but this is the moment you get away from intellectualising your actions and really get “out of the mask” to focus on the marine life and hover elegantly above the buzzing reefs.

Coming back from those dives you’ll be officially certified as an Open Water Diver. Congratulations. Let’s log them and talk about your Advanced Open Water Course — or some extra fun dives.

What’s included

• 3 days of training with an SSI Instructor
• Maximum 4 students per instructor
• SSI Online Training (free) access
• 2 confined-water dives in the pool
• 4 open-water dives at our local sites
• All equipment for the duration of the course
• SSI certification fee
• Digital logbook with every dive recorded

Why us, specifically

Small groups are the single biggest difference. The Recreational Scuba Training Council (the umbrella body whose standards SSI and PADI both build on) caps Open Water training at 8 students per instructor; we cap at 4 (see the WRSTC Recreational Diver Training Standard). Half the ratio means each student gets roughly twice the supervised water time per dive — measurably faster skill acquisition and noticeably calmer first descents.

Three things make a difference: small groups, instruction in English-French-Spanish-Indonesian, and reef sites no more than 15 minutes by boat all around the three islands. We don’t run dives where the instructor babysits eight strangers — you’ll have between one and four classmates, and you’ll know your instructor’s name by the second hour. Most students leave with another diver’s WhatsApp number too.

If you’ve done your Basic Diver with another centre, ask us — we credit the time you’ve already spent in the water.

Looking for “PADI Open Water”?

You may have searched for “PADI Open Water Gili Air”. We’ve moved fully to SSI certification — but our instructors hold both PADI and SSI ratings, and the two agencies’ courses are recognised interchangeably worldwide. Identical training, same depth limits, different paperwork. Bibi, our founder, was a PADI IDC Staff for many years before becoming an SSI Instructor Trainer in 2013; almost everyone on the team is dual-rated. Same dive, different card.