Spend time around water (as a diver, how can you avoid it?) and sooner or later, you come across someone who lost something underwater. If you’re looking for the challenge and excitement – along with doing your good deed for the day – the PADI Search and Recovery Diver Specialty course is for you. It gives you the skills you need to find what’s been lost, and how to get it to the surface.

In the PADI Search and Recovery Diver Specialty course, you learn search and recovery dive planning, organization, procedures, techniques and how to deal with potential problems. You learn how to locate large and small objects using search patterns, and various ways for lifting them to the surface. Not only do these skills make you more capable and confident in the water, but most Search and Recovery Divers eventually end up searching for and recovering something they lost themselves.

Must be a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver or a PADI Open Water Diver with the PADI Underwater Navigator Specialty (or equivalent certification from another organization)
Must be at least 12 years old
Number of Dives: Four
Search patterns, lift bag use and recovery methods
Limited visibility techniques and navigation for search and recovery

Materials: You’ll Need Search and Recovery-Pak, which includes the PADI Search and Recovery Diver Manual and the Search and Recovery video.

Certification counts toward the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating

For advice regarding specialties, contact us remembering that you would have taken certain specialty dives already in your PADI Advanced Diver Course or click on the link below for a profile of the courses available.