What is Deep Diving?
A dive at 18-40 meters or 60-130 feet below sea level is considered “deep diving” in recreational diving. While technical divers often dive to much greater depths.
In recreational diving, the dive must always be a no-decompression dive that is it must remain within the no decompression limits of the dive table. The limit of recreational diving is around 140 feet or 40 meters. Plus, this is the depth that a diver trained in deep diving is certified to descend to. Usually, a deep dive is a dive between 100 feet or 30 meters and 140 feet or 40 meters. However, PADI defines any dive greater than 18m or 60 feet to be classified as a deep dive.
Featured above PADI Deep Diver Specialty Manual available at Scuba.com
Why do a specialty course in deep diving?
The deeper you go when scuba diving, the more careful a diver has to be. Divers have to ensure correct procedures for depression and safety stops. Plus, deep stops are done to prevent decompression sickness. A lot more can go wrong the deeper you go as the pressure builds up, equipment is under greater stress and there are other things that can affect a deep diver such as Nitrogen narcosis that divers need to be aware of to ensure a safe dive. The course helps divers become more aware of the planning and dangers of deep diving and allows you to dive at a depth safely.
Deep diving introduces a whole new level of excitement as it can be exhilarating. The ability to safely dive at deeper depths opens up a whole new variety of dive site to a recreational scuba diver. Many shipwrecks or interesting dive sites are at the edges of recreational limits and can only be safely accessed by those divers who are knowledgeable and have experience diving at depths.
What does the course cover?
The Deep Diver course is to include four open water training dives, which are usually conducted over a period of at least two days. The minimum depth required for open water is between 18 to 30 meters or 60 to 100 feet, with no dive exceeding 40 meters or 130 feet. The instructor ensures that all dives are conducted within the no-decompression limits, with deeper dives being conducted first.
The course covers the following:
- Planning, organization, procedures, techniques, problems and hazards of
- Deep diving.
- Risk factors and decompression-tables review.
- Safety stops and emergency decompression procedures.
- Special equipment, descent lines and buoyancy-control considerations.
- Procedures for flying after diving and high-altitude diving.
- Orientation to recompression chambers.
Prerequisites to do the Course
To qualify for the Deep Diver course, an individual must:
- Be certified as a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver or have a similar qualifying certification from another training organization.
- Be 15 years of age or older.
