PADI Suba Diving Courses

While PADI is not the only diving association in the world, it is most definitely the most widely known, and almost an household name even among non-divers. It is PADI's simplicity and excellent marketing acumen that has helped PADI become so popular and respected as it is today.

If you are planning to dive while on your next holiday, we would strongly recommend you to try and take the Open Water Diving Course before you leave. We advise this because it will save you time and once you have the certification you will be able to start diving straight away, without the need for pool swims or written exams!! If you are new to diving and have already passed the Open Water Diving Course then why not take the Advanced Diver Course when you are on holiday. This course will help to build you underwater confidence enormously, which in turn will make each dive you make all the more enjoyable. Which courses you take after that is up to you, but we do recommend that everyone takes the Advanced Diver Course at some stage. All the below courses should be available at almost every single Dive Resort / Shop in Asia.

Generic Courses and their Details

Discover Scuba Diving: (should be skipped if you plan to do the Open Water Diving Course) This introduction to scuba diving takes about one day, and includes a little theory with an instructor and a few exercises first in the swimming pool to make sure you will feel comfortable in open water. Upon completion of this you will go for 2 dives on a day trip to a destination of your choice and start the adventure of open water diving.

Scuba Diver Course: (should be skipped if you plan to do the Open Water Diving Course) This course, as an entry level, is a limited certification and takes two days to complete. The first day is a mix of theory and pool and the second day is pure diving. The advantage with this course is to provide the opportunity to complete the course towards the open water certification within one year at any PADI training centre in the world.

Open Water Diving Course: This is a four day course, which gives you an international diving certificate valid all over the world. The first two days contain theory lessons and confined water dives, where you do the exercises you discussed during the lessons. The last two days are pure diving where you will put into practice all that you have learnt in open water. We advise anyone travelling on holiday who is considering whether to dive or not to take this before leaving. It is not a difficult course but there is no need to waste precious days of your holiday learning a new skill.

Advanced Diver Course: This course can be taken once you pass the Open Water Diving Course and in our humble opinions should be mandatory for anyone who wishes to dive. It is an enjoyable two day course which contains 5 dives, before each dive you read about it in a book and answer the questions at the end of each chapter. There is no final written exam for this course, so it can quite easily be done while already on holiday. No matter how confident you may feel in the water, we strongly recommend everyone who has passed the Open Water Diving Course to complete the Advanced Diver Course. After all, it is not overly expensive, does not take long but will reward you with better and more confident dives for years to come.

Rescue Diver Course:  PADI likes to call this course serious fun, and we have to admit that this pretty exhausting three day course lives up to that promise. The Rescue Diver Course is where you will learn how to handle incidents that may occur while you are diving. You learn to see and hopefully prevent the problems before they happen. The brief Emergency First Response course needs to be completed before this course.

Special packages such as 6 dives in 3 days or 10 in 5 etc are normally available. Technical dives for the more advanced are also available such as NITROX (boat trip) or TRIMIX (deep wreck) dives.

Once you have completed the above, PADI has a few more courses and certifications available, but like with anything the best course is experience itself. Happy Diving!