About PADI

The Biggest and the Best!

PADI stands for, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors and it is the largest Scuba diving training agency in the World.

That’s some boast about, isn’t it!?

PADI certifies more recreational Scuba divers each year than all the other diver training agencies in the world put together!  This includes BSAC, SSI, SSA, SSAC, NAUI, CMAS,RAID and SAC.

PADI has over 100,000 individual professional members in over 175 different countries worldwide. Between us we teach nearly 1,000,000, that’s one million, individuals each and every year. As a direct result of PADI’s training philisophies and materials, the training manuals and teaching methods of the other diving agencies are all based on PADI. It is perceived as ‘TheWay the World Learns to Dive’ for very good reasons and with a universally recognised continuing education program, why stop at Open Water Diver? Marine life and coral conservation are also an integral part of the PADI ethos and the PADI Project AWARE program allows us as divers, the opportunity to do our little bit for improving our fragile ecology. What does all this mean for you? Well it means that wherever you travel to in the world, you are going to find a diving facility that recognises your certification and knows exactly what’s involved in you reaching that level. They’ll know exactly what you can do and equally importantly, what you can’t do. They can then advise you accordingly. You can also get involved (if you want to) in marine conservation projects both abroad and in your home waters which again will allow you to do your little bit for the marine environment without even leaving home.

PADI diving schools and dive centres are graded depending on what facilities and courses they offer to you, our customers. PADI 5 Star Membership is awarded annually to those dive centres that excel in providing you the customer, with a full range of diver education programs, equipment selection, and dive opportunities. This award is earned year on year to ensure that the high standards required are maintained. If a dive centre does not reach that standard in any given year, then the 5 Star rating is withdrawn. The same critereon applies to the prestigious 5 Star IDC rating and this shows the same level of commitment and training excellence applied to the PADI Instructor training programs.

Dive Odyssea has been a 5 star centre every year since 1998 and reached PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC) Centre status in 2008