SSI Extended Range Course XR45

The SSI XR45 at Dive Rutland is priced at £1,200 and is a full decompression diving course using gas blends including Trimix. It's the most demanding course in the recreational-to-technical progression and requires solid prior experience — this isn't a course you book off the back of an Advanced Open Water.

Dive Rutland has built out the SSI XR pathway in full: Extended Range Foundations (£600), Extended Range Nitrox 40m (£900), XR45, and CCR options including the XR CCR Diving 30m Course (£1,200) and SCR Extended Range Diving with the Mares Horizon (£900). The infrastructure — gas blending, Trimix fills, the technical equipment knowledge — is in place.

With Scapa Flow on the trips calendar for August 2027, the XR pathway has a clear local destination for divers who complete it. Scapa Flow's deeper wrecks push beyond recreational limits, and a decompression diver who trained here is better prepared for that environment than one who took a technical course somewhere warm without ever diving cold UK water.

Instructor-level oversight from Tracey Roberts and the in-house training structure mean the course is delivered with the same consistency as the recreational programmes — not handed off to an external technical instructor for the more niche modules.