The PADI system of diver education allows anyone from the age of 8 to experience the thrills of the underwater world. Diving allows you a degree of freedom and weightlessness that is normally only experienced by astronauts.

Most people begin their diving education with the PADI system, the PADI Open Water Course. This takes three to four days depending on where you learn and qualifies you to dive to 18m with any other similarly qualified diver.

If you don't have three or four days to learn then you can gain the Scuba Diver qualification in just two days and extend it to the Open Water Diver Course when you have time.

If you are unsure about whether you want to learn to dive then you have the option to do an introductory dive, Discover Scuba Diving, under the supervision of a qualified PADI instructor. This will allow you to experience the feel of diving without committing to a course.

All PADI courses have professional educational materials available to help you learn and retain the knowledge for your future enjoyment and safety. We cannot emphasise strongly enough about how important it is to own your own personal copies of the course material.

The PADI dive schools, dive centres and resorts will often loan you a copy of your course material but this is far from ideal as you cannot reference relevant notes or important information on completion of your studies. Unless you dive regularly it is unlikely that you'll remember all that you've been taught, highlighting the need for your own reference guides.

Before your next dive, take a few minutes with your personal manual to review the key points before returning to the underwater world.

REMEMBER: DIVE SAFE, DIVE EDUCATED, DIVE PADI.

Specialty Courses
Once you have learned the basic mechanics of SCUBA then a whole world of Diving possibilities will open up before you!

A huge variety of specialty courses are available that give you specific knowledge in varying areas. These are quick and fun to do and allow you to learn about those areas of diving that interest you the most. Almost all can be done in a single day with some requiring two and there is always something new for you to learn if you wish.

Advanced Open Water Diver
To enable you to progress onto all of these specialities we recommend that you complete your PADI Advanced Open Water Course.

With no swimming pool sessions the emphasis on this course is just getting out and doing it. It is designed for newly qualified Open Water Divers as well as more experienced ones and introduces you to five new areas including underwater navigation & deeper diving.

The remaining three dives are for you to choose but you can be guided in your choices by listening to what your instructor suggests for the local area.

Here in Thailand with the huge range of tropical fish and coral formations the U/W Naturalist dive is always popular giving you ample opportunity to identify the vivid and abundant marine life. The U/W Photography dive is another popular choice with the Multi-Level Dive rounding off the course.

All of the possible dives are explained in the PADI Advanced Open Water Course book so even though you do five dives on the course, you can still read about any additional ones that interest you.

Rescue Diver
As your skills develop and your in water comfort level increases you now need to be able to assist fellow divers should they get into difficulty.

The Rescue Diver course is the next logical step in your dive education. It builds your rescue scenario management skills as well as your personal rescue techniques. A recognised first aid certificate is required for completion of the course so often the PADI EFR (Emergency First Response) course is taught with the Rescue Diver Course to fulfil this requirement.

Divemaster & Dive Instructor
Divemaster is the first professional level within PADI. You learn how to supervise students in training with an instructor and how to lead groups of certified divers.

Divemaster and Instructor coursed are available in Thailand for those who wish to go-pro. For detailed information on these courses it is best to visit a local five star dive canter or a Career Development Centre.