SSI Open Water Course (Sepanggar Island)

Overview

Curious about how it feels to breathe underwater, how it’s like to cruise alongside turtles and fishes in their natural habitat, or simply want to take in the beauty of colourful coral reefs up close and personal? The Open Water Diver (OWD) qualification is your very first step into the wonderful underwater marine life.

Through the Open Water course, beginners learn to SCUBA (short for “Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus”) dive through structured diving lessons. In general, the Open Water course comprises of three sections:

1. Knowledge Development – where you will learn the theory of scuba diving;
2. Confined Water Dives – where you will learn basic underwater skills in confined shallow waters; and
3. Open Water Dives – the most exciting step where you will head out into the open waters for your first dives.

Upon completion of the course, you will be awarded with a digital Open Water Diver (OWD) certification card in your MySSI app, which will allow you to partake in open water dive excursions anywhere in the world.  Importantly, your OWD qualification will serve as a prerequisite to more advanced scuba diving courses and a lifetime filled with dive adventures.

Short for Scuba Schools International, SSI is an internationally recognised dive certification provider:

“Since 1970, SSI has been designing state-of-the-art education programs. In fact, SSI was first to become a digital-based training agency in 2006, offering a new service portal for SSI divers and members called MySSI. Since that time SSI has continued to develop its digital offerings, resulting in being fully digital since 2015. To this day, SSI is meeting customers’ needs with an online-based system that integrates training materials, training records, dive logs, marketing, and e-communication.”

Instructor’s Profile
With over 20 years of diving experience, Desmond Chong is the first and only SSI Instructor Trainer with active teaching status in Sabah as of January 2021. This is the highest, most prestigious rank in recreational scuba diving. Prior to his crossover to SSI in February 2019, Desmond was a PADI instructor for 15 years, holding ranks of Instructor Development Courses (IDC) Staff Instructor and Master Scuba Diving Instructor.

Desmond’s diving adventures have landed him various dive-based positions in some of the most renowned diving destinations in the world, including Mabul Island, Maldives, Koh Tao, Phuket and Koh Lipe. Aside from being an avid dive instructor, Desmond has also been heavily involved in the supervision of dive course and dive expedition set ups, ensuring that proper safety and risk management standards are met.

Having certified more than 1,000 students, you can be sure that you’re in good hands with Desmond.