PADI Wreck Diver Specialty
Minimum age: 15
Minimum qualification: PADI Adventure Diver
PADI Wreck Diver is one of the most popular dive specialties taught in the UK and for very good reasons. There’s a lot of shipwrecks around our coast. A figure generally banded about places the amount of wrecks in the English Channel alone at something like four and a half thousand. That’s 4,500 different play sites just waiting to be explored by you. Now we’re not suggesting that you’re going to get to dive on all of them, or even most of them, but it’s worth giving it a go don’t you think?
The vast majority of UK divers are in to wreck diving mostly because there’s not that many tropical reefs along our coast; actually there’s none at all! So, if you’re hitting the water here in Blighty, the chances are you’re doing it on a wreck. The PADI Wreck Specialty gives you the skills required to safely explore those wrecks both on the inside as well as the outside . If you’re happy just poodling along the decks of the wreck that’s great, but you’re missing most of the experience.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to drop down below the decks and explore the cargo holds? What cargo was she carrying when she went down? Is it still there? What’s in the wheel house after all these years? They are also home to a great deal of sea life inside and out. They are usually covered in colourful soft corals and anemones with huge shoals of fish circling them. This is why divers explore wrecks. They are a moment in time captured on the sea bed, and we are lucky enough to briefly catch a glimpse. The rules and safe diving practices learned on this course apply equally well in tropical seas in clear blue water. After all, a wreck is a wreck wherever it’s found.
The course will teach you the techniques you will need to enter a wreck safely and more importantly, find your way out again. You will learn how to assess each wreck for safe access as well as being shown how to attach guidance lines for penetration.
The course requires an academic portion and four open water dives. If you completed a wreck dive on the Advanced Open Water course, only three dives are required. (You could join us on an overseas trip and do the qualifying dives in blue water rather than in the UK)
Any other options?
Of course there are. We always have options in life.
If time constraints are a problem, instead of coming along to us for your self study and classroom sessions, why not complete the PADI eLearning course at home or in the office? That way you can complete all your academic studies on line in your own time and then come to us for the open water dives.
You can find details and sign up for your PADI eLearning materials here.
(NB: the cost quoted on the PADI website is for the training materials only: call us to find out the cost of the diving element of the course)