PADI Specialty Scuba Courses

Most Popular PADI Specialty Scuba Courses
These are the most popular specialties that divers like you choose on their way to the
Master Scuba Diver rating.

Enriched Air Diver
Stay down longer and get back in the water sooner. Learn how to dive using Enriched Air Nitrox, PADI’s most popular specialty course.

Deep Diver
Explore the wonders of the deep. Learn techniques for diving in the deeper ranges of 18-30 metres / 60-100 feet

Wreck Diver
Learn how to explore mysterious sunken shipwrecks, planes and even automobiles.

Peak Performance Buoyancy Diver
Neutral buoyancy is the key to conserving your air consumption and leaving minimal impact on the aquatic environment. Learn how to achieve neutral buoyancy with ease.

Night Diver
Learn about night dive planning, equipment and navigation. Plus, see a whole new cast of critters
that comes out at night.

But there is much more...

Specialty Dives available to scuba divers 10 years old and older:

AWARE-Fish Identification
Boat Diver
Digital Underwater Photography
Peak Performance Buoyancy
Underwater Naturalist
Underwater Navigator

Additional Specialty Dives available to scuba divers 12 years old and older:

Deep Diver
Drift Diver
Multilevel Diver
Night Diver
Search and Recovery Diver
Wreck Diver

Prerequisites:
To take the Specialty Diver course, you must be:
A PADI Open Water Diver or Junior Open Water Diver certification (or qualifying certification from another organization)
Minimum age: 15 years old (10 years old for PADI Junior Adventure Diver)

Price:
course price: price on application

all courses:

The PADI Project AWARE Fish Identification Course
Have you ever been scuba diving and asked yourself, "What was that?”
The PADI Project AWARE Fish Identification Specialty course provides you with the fish identification basics so that next time, you know the answer.

The Fun Part:
You’ll find you enjoy your dives even more when you recognize the creatures that you see. The fun part about this course is you can use the skills you learn on every scuba diving vacation because once you learn the main fish families and characteristics it will help you decipher the species you see all over the world. For example, a butterfly fish in the Caribbean has a similar shape to a butterfly fish in Southeast Asia, but their colors and markings maybe wildly different. If you know what fish family it belongs to, it becomes much easier to look up the local name or at least be able to intelligently ask the local scuba instructor what you saw. That works better than asking about a “yellow thingy with a funny tail fin.”

What You Learn:
During two dives you gain hands-on (okay, eyes-on) experience in looking for and identifying the fascinating fish you see underwater. You’ll learn :

How to identify characteristics of local fish families and species
Fish survey techniques and strategies
How to practice fish identification dive planning, organization and procedures

Underwater Naturalist
The PADI Underwater Naturalist Course
Look closer to see more on your next dive. Look for symbioses, predator/prey and other relationships between aquatic plant and animal life. Learn not just what fish and animals are, but how they interact with each other and the environment.

The Fun Part:
Learn about why some creatures behave the way they do and what their role is in the aquatic ecosystem.

What You Learn:

The major aquatic life groupings, interactions and factual information that dispels negative myths.

The role of aquatic plants, food chains and predator prey relationships
Responsible interactions with aquatic life
The underwater naturalist’s view of organisms and their roles in the environment

You put this information into practice during your two open water dives.

Boat Diver
The PADI Boat Diver Course
Whether you’ve never made a boat dive or you’ve logged dozens, the PADI Boat Diver Specialty course can benefit almost every diver because different boats in different parts of the world do things differently.

The Fun Part:
Diving from a boat is fun, especially when you look at ease when maneuvering around on it. It’s fun to know what you’re doing.

What You Learn:
Learn the tips, tricks and ways to

Dive from boats ranging from small inflatables to giant live-aboards :
how they differ from place to place
gain experience and training from diving on boats in your local area
Safely enter and exit the water :
sometimes it’s better to hand your gear up to the crew and then climb in the boat
sometimes you just take off your fins and weights and walk up the ladder
Stow your gear in the most appropriate areas
Use surface lines to initiate or conclude your dives.
Locate basic boat safety equipment

Underwater Navigator
The PADI Underwater Navigator Course
Be the diver everyone wants to follow and make your sense of direction legendary with the PADI Underwater Navigator Specialty course.

The Fun Part:
Finding your way is not a matter of luck! When everyone’s buzzing about a reef or checking out a shipwreck, they’re having a great time – until it’s time to go. Then they turn to you, because as a PADI Underwater Navigator, you know the way back to the boat.

What You Learn:
Underwater navigation can be challenging, but in the PADI Underwater Navigator Specialty course, you master the challenge. You learn the tools of the trade, including navigation via natural clues and by compass.
You learn

Navigation patterns
Natural navigation (without a compass)
Compass navigation
How to “mark” or relocate a submerged object or position from the surface
Underwater map making
How to follow irregular courses with the Nav-Finder
Dive site relocation
How to estimate distance underwater

Prerequisites:
You must be:
A PADI Open Water Diver or Junior Open Water Diver (or qualifying certification from another organization)
At least 10 years old

Peak Performance Buoyancy
The PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy Course
What is neutral buoyancy? Scuba divers like to be neutrally buoyant so they neither sink nor float. It can be a tricky thing. Divers who’ve mastered the highest performance levels in buoyancy stand apart. You’ve seen them underwater. They glide effortlessly, use less air and ascend, descend or hover, almost as if by thought. They interact gently with aquatic life and affect their surroundings minimally. The PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy course refines the basic skills you learned as a PADI Open Water Diver and elevates them to the next level.

The Fun Part:
The fun part of this course is giving your dive skills a polish you may not have thought possible.

What You Learn:

How to trim your scuba gear so you’re perfectly balanced in the water
Nuances in determining weight so you’re not too light nor too heavy by even a slight degree
How to streamline to save air and move smoothly through the water
How to hover effortlessly in both a vertical position and a horizontal position

Digital Underwater Photographer course
Underwater photography is one of the most popular diving specialties, and the rise of digital underwater photography has made it easier and more fun than ever. This is why there are actually two PADI underwater photography courses. The PADI Digital Underwater Photographer course gets you going quickly with today modern digital equipment, whether you use a point-and-shoot snap camera or a sophisticated D-SLR like the pros. The PADI Underwater Photographer course is a more traditional photography course designed for conventional film equipment.

The Fun Part:
It's a great way to relive the adventures you’ve had. Plus capture images to share with your friends and family.

What You Learn:

How to choose the right underwater camera system for you
The PADI SEA method for getting great shots quickly
The three primary principles for good underwater photos

Multilevel Diver
The PADI Multilevel Diver Course
Maximize your dive time so you can explore more!
In this course, you learn how to plan dives that extend your bottom time by crediting you for slower nitrogen absorption when you ascend to a shallower depth. That’s the way you really dive, after all.

The Fun Part:
This is a great way to learn how to make multilevel dives even if you forget to bring your dive computer.

What You Learn:
You'll learn what multilevel diving is and why you want to plan for multilevel dives. You'll also get to see the various types of multilevel dive calculators (including dive computers), as well as learn about multilevel dive planning, organization, procedures, techniques, and potential problems. You'll plan a multilevel dive profile and dive it with your PADI Instructor.
You learn how to:

Plan and execute multilevel dives (different depths on the same dive)
Back up your dive computer and plan multilevel dives
Maximize your no stop time

Deep Diver
The PADI Deep Diver Course
After your first few scuba dives, you soon want to explore a bit deeper. There’s something exciting and mysterious about the depth that attracts dives.

The Fun Part:
The fun part about this course is the opportunity to explore the deep. It’s exhilarating.

What You Learn:

Techniques for diving in the deeper range of 18-40 metres/ 60-130 feet
Deep scuba diving equipment considerations
Experience in planning, organizing and making at least four deep dives under the supervision of your PADI Instructor

Night Diver
The PADI Night Diver Course
As the sun sets, you don your dive gear, slip on your scuba mask and bite down on your dive regulator. A deep breath and you step off the boat – into the underwater night. Although you’ve seen this reef many times before, this time you drop into a whole new world and watch it come to life under the glow of your dive light.

The Fun Part:
Introduce yourself to the whole new cast of critters that comes out after the sun goes down. See your favorite dive sites from a whole new perspective at night.

What You Learn:

Night dive planning, organization, procedures, techniques and potential problems
How to control your buoyancy at night
Entries, exits and underwater navigation at night
Nocturnal aquatic life, since many of the plants and animals you'll see are different

Search and Recovery
The PADI Search and Recovery Diver Course
Have you ever dropped something in the water? Are you looking for lost “treasure”? The PADI Search and Recovery Diver Specialty course will teach you effective ways to find objects underwater and bring them to the surface. Small, large or just awkward, there is a way to bring them up.

The Fun Part:
Find lost items and lift them to the surface. It’s fun to use the lift bag. Not only are these skills fun, but very practical and ultimately useful because eventually, you’ll lose something in the water. As a Search and Recovery Diver, you’ll know how to search for and recover it.

What You Learn:

Search and recovery dive planning, organization, procedures, techniques and how to deal with potential problems
How to locate large and small objects using search patterns
How to use a lift bag and other recovery methods
Limited visibility search techniques

Drift Diver
The PADI Drift Diver Course
The PADI Drift Diver Specialty course introduces you to the coolest magic carpet ride you’ll ever experience. This course shows you how to enjoy rivers and ocean currents by “going with the flow,” staying with your dive partner, communicating with the dive boat and knowing where you are the whole time.

The Fun Part:
Drift Diving is nearly effortless and relaxing. You simply glide along and enjoy the rush of flying underwater while the current does the work.

What You Learn:
During your PADI Drift Diver certification course, you learn about:

Planning, organization, procedures, techniques, problems and hazards of drift diving
An introduction to drift diving equipment -- floats, lines, reels
Buoyancy-control, navigation and communication for drift diving
Site selection and overview of aquatic currents – causes and effects
Techniques for staying close to a buddy or together as a group

Wreck Diver
The PADI Wreck Diver Course
Whether sunk on purpose as an artificial reef or the result of mishap, wrecks open fascinating windows to the past. Most divers find wrecked ships, airplanes and even automobiles nearly irresistible because they’re intriguing to explore, exciting avenues of discovery, and usually teeming with aquatic life. The PADI Wreck Diver course teaches you the ins and outs of rewarding, responsible wreck diving.

The Fun Part:
The fun part of the PADI Wreck Diver course is visiting wrecks, unlocking mysteries and starting to gain the knowledge and experience that allows you to see things that others overlook. Sometimes, only the trained, experienced eye recognizes that a small hole or open door likely caused the vessel’s demise.

What You Learn:

Techniques for diving exploring shipwrecks, and how to avoid common hazards
How to research and learn the background of your favorite wrecks
Wreck scuba diving equipment considerations
Considerations and techniques for entering intact wrecks
Experience in planning, organizing and making at least four wreck dives under the supervision of your PADI Instructor

Diving with enriched air - the most popular course
Enriched Air Diver
Scuba Diving with Enriched Air Nitrox
The PADI Enriched Air Diver course is PADI’s most popular specialty scuba diving course, and it’s easy to see why. Scuba diving with enriched air nitrox gives you more no decompression dive time. This means more time underwater, especially on repetitive scuba dives.

The Fun Part:
You can typically stay down longer and get back the water sooner. No wonder many divers choose this as their very first specialty.

What You Learn:

Techniques for getting more dive time by using enriched air nitrox
Enriched air scuba diving equipment considerations
Enriched air considerations, including managing oxygen exposure, how to tell what’s in your scuba tank and how to set your dive computer

Price:
Ca. 1-1,5 days education, inclusive theory, Workshop and book
Pro NRC course price: 99,- EUR
PADI Nitrox course price: 119,- EUR