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.

PADI (Junior) Advanced Open Water Divers who are at least 12 years old can enroll in the Search and Recover Diver course. PADI (Junior) Open Water Divers with a PADI Underwater Navigator certification also qualify.

Gathering information and resources, then carefully planning a search are the first important steps you learn. During four scuba dives you’ll practice:

• Swimming search patterns using your compass and natural navigation
• Locating large and small objects using various search patterns
• Using a lift bag for large or heavy objects, plus other recovery methods
• Planning a search operation based on facts gathered about a lost object prior to the dive

You may be able to get college credit for the Search and Recovery course – ask your instructor.

Also, the first dive of this PADI Specialty Diver course may credit  as an Adventure Dive toward your Advanced Open Water Diver certification – ask your instructor about earning credit.