Improve Your Diving With PADI Specialty Certifications
Written by Shaun Swartz
Recognizing inexperienced divers isn’t difficult.
Any number of things can give them away: swimming vertically through the water like a seahorse tangled in a yard-sale of hoses and equipment – perhaps an inability to navigate obstacles or see through their fogged, flooded mask. Certainly, a sign of bad diving etiquette is kicking or touching coral and other fragile marine habitats.
Becoming a good diver takes practice, and believe it or not, there’s more to scuba diving than simply learning how to use the gear and occupying space underwater while breathing. Professional athletes run sprint drills, musicians play scales and practice a new song until it becomes second nature – why should scuba diving be any different? Becoming a good diver is a skill honed with time, and the old adage of improvement should apply: “Good, Better, Best – never rest until the good is better and the better is best.”
In the spirit of continued education, PADI Specialty Diver courses help to improve diving techniques and to enhance the exploration experience of divers. With more than a dozen PADI specialty courses to choose from, expanding your knowledge base to improve your diving has never been easier.
Peak Performance Buoyancy
The benchmark of a good diver is the ability to effectively maintain proper buoyancy. Maintaining proper buoyancy allows divers to maximize the efficiency of their air consumption, more easily observe their surroundings, and minimize their impact on the environment by avoiding collisions with fragile habitats like coral reefs and seagrass beds. Far and away, this PADI specialty certification is the best way to quickly improve your diving.
Night Diver
Diving at night opens up an entirely new world of experiences. Like many terrestrial creatures, a large number of marine species are nocturnal – resting in deep, dark crevices of the reef during daylight hours to reemerge at dusk and hunt under the cover of darkness. While the thought of diving at night can be unnerving, building the confidence to expand your diving practice begins with proper training. Night Diver PADI specialty courses focus on dive light handling techniques, entering the water, exiting, and navigating in the dark, and identifying how marine organisms differ or change behavior at night.
Search and Recovery
Anyone who has spent time on a dive boat knows one simple truth: if an object can fly or roll overboard while underway, it will. Cameras, lights, knives – more gear on a dive simply equates to more opportunity to lose said gear. With a Search and Recovery PADI specialty certification, divers learn a variety of search methods that will increase the likelihood of success during a search and recovery effort.
Over the course of this PADI speciality certification, divers practice a number of techniques: Swimming search patterns while using a compass, locating large and small objects using various search patterns, using a lift bag for large or heavy objects, and planning a search operation based on facts gathered about a lost object prior to the dive.
Research Diver
Research Diver PADI specialty courses train you in a “distinctive” specialty, meaning that it is available only through a limited number of dive facilities. The Research Diver specialty is designed to teach students the basic techniques and methods used to conduct marine research. In the classroom, students learn about the scientific method and the basic procedures used while research diving. In the water, transect lines, quadrats, and related biological equipment are used during these PADI speciality courses to teach divers to follow research protocol while diving.
Underwater Navigator
Underwater Navigator PADI specialty diver courses fine-tune observation skills and teach divers to more accurately use a compass underwater. Over the course of this PADI specialty certification, divers learn methods to estimate distance underwater, practice compass navigation while making at least five turns, marking or relocating a submerged object or position from the surface, and even underwater map making.
Good, better, best. Never rest until the good is better and the better is best. How can you improve your diving?
Featured Adventures
View All Adventures Carina
British Virgin Islands
Advanced Sailing & Scuba with Watersports
Requirements
- PADI Open Water (or equivalent)
- Applicable for all ages
- Extensive Sailing Experience - Click for a self-assessment
Certifications
- PADI Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver
- + 2 PADI Specialities
- IYT Int. Crew & VHF Radio
Sessions
| 21 Days | 6/15/25 - 7/5/25 | $7,970 |
| 21 Days | 7/7/25 - 7/27/25 | $7,970 |
| 17 Days | 7/29/25 - 8/14/25 | $7,270 |
Neptune
British Virgin Islands
Focused Advanced Scuba Diving with 6 Certifications
Requirements
- PADI Open Water (or equivalent) or PADI referral
- Ages 15 and up
Certifications
- Most scuba intensive Adventure we offer
- PADI Advanced Open Water
- + 5 PADI Specialities
Sessions
| 21 Days | 6/15/25 - 7/5/25 | $7,970 |
| 21 Days | 7/7/25 - 7/27/25 | $7,970 |
| 17 Days | 7/29/25 - 8/14/25 | $7,270 |
Dolphin
British Virgin Islands
Focused Tropical Marine Biology with Scuba Specialties
Requirements
- PADI Open Water (or equivalent) or PADI referral
- Ages 15 and up
Certifications
- AQ Tropical Marine Bio Course
- Research Diver Distinctive Specialty
- + 3 Additional PADI Specialties
Sessions
| 21 Days | 6/15/25 - 7/5/25 | $7,970 |
| 21 Days | 7/7/25 - 7/27/25 | $7,970 |
| 17 Days | 7/29/25 - 8/14/25 | $7,270 |
