PADI Specialty Dive Course
PADI Specialty courses get you to the Master Scuba Diver rating.
PADI Specialty dive courses are programs that enable you to actually learn about the kind of diving that you are interested in. Perhaps you like to take photos on land and would like to transfer this love of photography to be able to take good photos underwater. Perhaps you would love to be able to explore shipwrecks or be able to search for things underwater. PADI has a long list of different specialties available, a majority of which are offered here in Pattaya by Real Divers, including Wreck diving, diver propulsion vehicles, enriched air (nitrox), deep diving, night diving, underwater video/photography, full face mask, Underwater, Navigation, side mount (tanks) they are all possible here.
Most PADI Specialty dive courses take between 1 and 2 days and are a great way to add work towards the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating, the highest rating diver in the PADI (non-professional) system.
Fun PADI Specialty dive courses
Digital Underwater Photographer
Learn to take pictures with a digital camera underwater. How many times have you heard a diver say “I wish I had a camera with me.” Seeing something wonderful on a dive is great but being able to show other people what you saw makes it even better.
Even with today’s easy-to-use digital cameras, it’s still worth learning some of the tricks of the trade as shooting underwater has some quirks that screw up your pictures and camera.
The course also includes invaluable advice on how to protect your equipment from sun & seawater. The older generation will tell you that it’s a case of “When” not “if” when it comes to having the housing flood and destroy the camera or camcorder.
There is still some truth in saying the equipment is good if well cared for, we will show you how to prepare the camera as well as how to look after and store it.
We’ll also teach you how to maintain your position in the water and avoid damaging the coral or yourself while shooting your snapshots.
Course Length: – 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 10
Dives- 2
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Drift Diver
The Drift Diver is one of the real fun PADI Specialty dive courses, it introduces you to the coolest magic carpet ride you’ll ever experience. This course shows you how to enjoy ocean currents by “going with the flow,” staying with your dive partner, communicating with the dive boat and knowing where you are the whole time. Pattaya has some great drift diving sites such as Koh Man Wichai, Koh Klung Badan and probably the fastest drift dive in Pattaya Koh Krok.
During your PADI Drift Diver certification course, you learn about:
• Planning, organization, procedures, techniques, problems, and hazards of drift diving
• An introduction to drift diving equipment — floats, lines, reels
• Buoyancy-control, navigation, and communication for drift diving
• Site selection and overview of aquatic currents – causes and effects
• Techniques for staying close to a buddy or together as a group.
Course Length: – 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 2
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Enriched Air Nitrox Diver
Have you ever been on a deep dive or an interesting shipwreck and your dive computer has warned you that you have reached your no decompression limit?
This is particularly annoying when you still have plenty of air in your tank and that’s where the problem lies – you are breathing air. Time to take the Enriched Air Specialty course. This is designed to show you how to dive on different oxygen contents that have been raised to the normal air you breathe, which in turn reduces the amount of potentially harmful nitrogen that can build up in your body tissues causing the bends.
But you will also learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch, the elevated level of oxygen can also create problems and it is essential you know about this and the need to learn new dive tables to determine the limits of the gas mix you are using.
You can take this course two ways, the first is to learn the theory on a one-day classroom course or you can take a two-day course where you get to do two enriched air dives. How effective is EANx or nitrox as it is usually known? Well, if you dived on a wreck at 30m on air your bottom time would be 20minutes, on nitrox where the oxygen level had been raised from the normal 21% to 36% you would get 50mins – provided you were carrying enough air to last that amount of time.
Course Length: – 1-2 Days
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 2(although not required)
Price 8,000 Thai Baht (1-day class) includes manuals and certification
11,500 Thai Baht (class plus 2 dives) includes manuals and certification
Multilevel and Computer Diver
Maximize your drive time so you can explore more!
In this course, you learn how to plan dives that extend your bottom time by crediting you for slower nitrogen absorption when you ascend to a shallower depth. That’s the way you really dive, after all.
The Fun Part
This is a great way to learn how to make multilevel dives even if you forget to bring your dive computer.
Pattaya has 3 shipwrecks that are all great for multi-level diving so you can get more time on the wrecks safely without pushing limits.
What You Learn
You’ll learn what multilevel diving is and why you want to plan for multilevel dives. You’ll also get to see the various types of multilevel dive calculators (including dive computers), as well as learn about multilevel dive planning, organization, procedures, techniques, and potential problems. You’ll plan a multilevel dive profile and dive it with your PADI Instructor.
You learn how to:
• Plan and execute multilevel dives (different depths on the same dive)
• Back up your dive computer and plan multilevel dives
• Maximize your no stop time
Course Length: – 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 2
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI specialty dive courses manuals and certification.
Peak Performance Buoyancy
The Peak Performance Buoyancy course is designed to help get your buoyancy in the water perfect and thus make it easier for you to move through the water and conserve energy and thus air.
On the course, you will perform different skills such as calculating the correct weighting for you when wearing your equipment and exposure suit and hovering in different positions to enable you to be able to dive with more skill.
Course Length: – 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 2
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Search and Recovery Diver
If you drive regularly it’s only a matter of time before another diver will ask you to help find his mask, dive computer, knife, weight belt or something else, which they have accidentally dropped or has fallen over the side of the boat. Luckily this usually happens when the boat is moored.
Well as a Search and Recovery specialist you have a good chance of finding the missing object. Thanks to your training you know what equipment is needed to suit the bottom conditions, what the best search method is and how to brief your buddies.
You will know that the bottom conditions determine the search method. Expanding circles using a rope are great for finding small objects on a sandy unobstructed bottom but coral heads and rocks would rule out this search pattern because the line would get tangled, fortunately, your training will allow you to introduce one of several other options to find what you are looking for.
But what if you have been called in to find a speedboat engine that dropped off its mountings, now your biggest problem is not only locating it but getting it to the surface safely. Knowing how to use a lift bag to do this job is just another part of the course and recovering an engine should also cover your costs if you negotiate in advance!
Course Length: – 2 Days
Pre-requisites- Advanced Open Water
Jnr. Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 4
Price 11,000 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Underwater Navigator
Most people like to be independent, to know where they are going and how to get there and that’s the same in scuba diving. It’s so much more fun for you and your buddy to work together navigating around the reef at your own pace, relaxing and having fun exploring the aquatic marine life.
It’s also very satisfying to be able to get back to the “up” line without the need to surface for a quick look, hoping that the Divemaster won’t spot you!
On the PADI Navigation specialty, you will learn different methods of judging distance; using a compass and combining that skill with natural navigation.
There are several good reasons to be a proficient navigator, you won’t waste air and bottom time getting lost, you will get exactly where you want to go without popping your head up all the time, you can plan your dive to end on the “Up” line and avoiding long swims and surface traffic and it’s a nice feeling when the Divemaster who has been watching your surface marker or bubbles comes up and says: “Well done.”
Course Length: – 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 10
Dives- 3
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI materials and certification
Adrenalin PADI Specialty dive courses
Deep Diver
Once divers hear that the site ahead is a deep dive there is usually an air of excitement. As you descend slowly down the line the light and colors change and big, flying saucer bubbles float slowly up from divers below.
Then you see the bottom and it’s time to explore, most of the shipwrecks in Pattaya are deep dives around the 30-meter mark that’s where we do most of the dives on this course. The Deep Diver course is a two-day course and you will learn safe dive planning including; safety stops, navigating at depth, controlled descents and ascents and much more. If you have plans to move into technical diving this is a good starting point.
Course Length: – Two Days
Pre-requisites- Adventure diver
Minimum Age- 15
Dives- Three dives
Price 11,000 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Diver Propulsion Vehicle (Scooter) Dive
Ok time for diving like you have seen in the movies. Have you ever seen the James Bond film “Thunderball” or “Into the Blue” for example? Divers in these movies are using DPVs (underwater scooters) to move around quicker and use less energy. This PADI specialty dive courses are the great especially if you have the AV2 Apollo dpv’s like we have.
These devices are seriously cool and the course teaches you how to get them ready for diving, operate them and deal with potential problems such as a runaway motor and ascending and descending with them, probably the best, fun PADI Specialty Diver course of them all.
Course Length:- 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver(Jnr)
Minimum Age- 10
Dives- 2
Price 11,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Full Face Mask
In my experience, the distinct advantages of using the full face mask are the much greater field of vision, the ease of breathing and the ability to breathe through the nose. The biggest plus for me would be for cold water diving as it provides excellent coverage and protection against cold water and no more numb teeth! Obviously, in Pattaya, we don’t have that problem.
The full face mask specialty starts at the dive shop. There is about an hour of dive theory to look over, we will look at the benefits, different equipment, and the advantages of diving in the full face mask. You will learn how we set these masks perfectly before adjusting them correctly makes all the difference.
The next step on the course is the pool, underwater you will find your breathing will be easier and quieter with the full face mask, vision is amazing and most important of all no leaks because of a slow continuous flow coming out of the mask seals.
In the pool, you will learn equalization techniques and skills such as buoyancy with the full face mask, mask removal and out of air drills. The pool session usually takes about two hours to complete.
With the skills, the instructor will demonstrate them to you first and then have you practice them. Once you’ve mastered the skills you will be feeling confident and ready for the fun part, the ocean dives.
On ocean dive #1 we will go over set up and the dive planning. On the dive, the instructor will get you to do the skills that you learned already in the swimming pool and then take you on an underwater tour of the coral dive site.
In the afternoon we do dive #2 which has no real skills, just dive planning and having fun diving with the full face mask. At Real divers, we have two different models of the full face mask so you can try both on the course.
Course Length:- 2 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver with a minimum of 20 dives
Minimum Age- 15
Dives- 2
Price 11,000 Thai Baht includes PADI materials and certification
Night Diver
It’s nighttime, you are standing on the dive platform ready to do a giant stride entry. You know there’s an island about 100 meters in front of you but you can’t see it, then you look up and see the bright lights of Pattaya in the background.
Your instructor is beside you and gently reminds you that you dived in exactly this spot two hours ago and you weren’t worried then. On goes your torch and you step forward into the unknown, one giant step for mankind. Guess what? they were right, there’s the big coral head brilliantly lit up in the torch beam and there’s the sea anemone bed, there’s a big turtle on the sand inspecting a parrotfish in its nighttime protective mantle.
Scared! Me? Hey, this is fun and there’s no time to be scared…in any case, my instructor and my buddy are right beside me and we’ll stick together throughout the dive, which is actually easier because you can see each other’s lights.
On the PADI Night diving specialty course, you will learn how to take care of your lights, how to use chemical light sticks, how to navigate at night without being disorientated, how to use your torch for hand signals without dazzling other divers and correct descent and ascent methods.
Course Length:- 2 Days
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver (Jnr)
Minimum Age- 12
Dives- 3
Price 11,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Sidemount Diver
Sidemount diving is the newest craze to hit scuba diving. You can now take these PADI specialty dive courses with tanks in a side mount configuration rather than a single tank on your back. This allows you to carry more tanks (greater air supply) and gear up in the water if you desire. You can also monitor all of your equipment more easily as it is in front of you and investigate different streamlining techniques.
Course Length:- 2 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver
Minimum Age- 15
Dives- 3
Price 12,500 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Of all the PADI specialty dive courses in Pattaya the Wreck diving is one of the most popular types because we have 4 great wrecks to dive. Wreck diving is one course that really does require specialist training, particularly if you wish to penetrate the wreck. Most wrecks are in deep water – otherwise they would have been salvaged – and usually, students take the Deep Diver Specialty and the Enriched Air Specialty in order to get the best out of their wreck dives.
They also offer good photo and video opportunities as they provide a haven for marine life, particularly big groupers, rays, and turtles.
Penetrating a wreck is really easy – getting out safely can be the hard part and several factors have to be taken into consideration – exhaled air hitting a ceiling can wipe out visibility if it dislodges silt; getting lost in the dark, entanglement, running out of the air, losing your buddy….
Why would anyone in their right mind want to do this?
Because with the right training wreck diving is immense fun and when you’ve taken this course you will know how to how to fix an escape line to help you get out in zero viz and various tricks of the trade. Then a whole new world is waiting for you to explore, Divers often help research the history of the wreck – where they came from and how they sunk.
Pattaya has several wrecks you can dive on including a WW2 cargo ship called the Hardeep, the HTMS Khram and the HTMS Kood.
Course Length:- 2 Days
Pre-requisites- PADI Adventure Diver
Minimum Age- 15
Dives- 4
Price 11,000 Thai Baht includes PADI materials and certification
Environmental PADI Specialty dive courses
AWARE Coral Reef Conservation
Learn about what different life makes up the underwater environment and what we can do to protect it.
Course Length:- 1 Day
Pre-requisites- None
Minimum Age- None
Price 8,000 Thai Baht includes PADI materials and certification
AWARE Fish Identification
Learn about the different species and types of fish that live on the coral reefs, especially those that can be found at the Pattaya dive sites. You will find out how to identify the fish from their shape and colors.
Course Length:- 1 Day
Pre-requisites- Open Water Diver
Minimum Age- 10
Dives- 2
Price 8,500 Thai Baht includes PADI materials and certification.
Equipment Specialist
Don’t miss a dive due to a scuba gear issue.
Whether it’s a blown o-ring, regulator problem, wetsuit tear or a broken fin strap, you can learn how to manage basic scuba equipment adjustments.
As a PADI Equipment Specialist, you are prepared for the basic scuba equipment maintenance, care and adjustments you’ll encounter every day. In addition, you’ll learn interesting background information about how your gear works, how it’s repair and other information that helps you with your equipment investment.
The Fun Part
The more you know about how your dive gear works, the more
• Comfortable you are with it
• Performance you get from it
• You can care for it and trust it
What You Learn
• Review the theory, principles, and operation of scuba diving equipment
• Learn about routine, recommended care and maintenance procedures, and equipment storage
• How to overcome common problems with equipment and recommended professional maintenance procedures (may include a demonstration of repair procedures)
• Gain simple suggestions for comfortable equipment configurations and an introduction to new gear.
Course Length:- 1 Day
Pre-requisites- PADI Scuba Diver(Jnr)
Minimum Age- 10
Dives- None
Price 8,000 Thai Baht includes PADI manuals and certification.
Class Details
The good news here is There is NO classroom session on most of the PADI Specialty Diver courses (Excluding Equipment and Enriched Air Nitrox Diver).
If the specialty you are doing has a manual you will be issued by Real Divers when you sign up for the course, you need to read the manual and complete the two knowledge reviews.
Your PADI Instructor will then run through the knowledge reviews with you and go over anything you have got wrong or not understood. Some courses such as the Enriched Air Nitrox Diver course have a DVD to watch with a final exam as well.
Master Scuba Diver
PADI Master Scuba Diver is regarded as “The black belt of scuba diving.”
Become a PADI Master Scuba Diver and you’ll be one of the privileged few that have worked to enhance your knowledge and dive skills to the very top, with your knowledge and experience you’re second to none, this is the highest level a non-professional diver can reach.
As well as being a Rescue Diver to become a Master scuba diver you’ll need to complete 50 logged dives as well as five PADI specialty diver courses that can be chosen to meet your specific interests.
At Real Divers, we recommend any 5 out of these specialties, Enriched Air Nitrox, Deep Diver, Wreck Diver, Navigation, Night Diver, Dive Propulsion Vehicle, Full Face Mask, Drift Diver, Multi-level Diver, Search and Recovery, U/W Photography and Equipment specialty.
Once you hold five of these ratings and have logged at least fifty dives, you’ll be eligible for the black belt of scuba diving. We encourage every diver to strive for this level so they will get out of diving what they put in and wherever you go in the world you will always have the respect of the dive industry for reaching this achievement.
PADI SPECIALTY DIVE COURSES Prices (THB)
AWARE Coral Reef Conservation* 8,500 Baht
AWARE Fish ID* 8,500 Baht
Most courses are run from our 12-meter speedboat “Reef Seeker”
Boat Diver* 8,500 Baht
Deep Diver* 11,000 Baht
Digital Underwater Photography* 8,500 Baht
Diver Propulsion Vehicle*11,500 Baht
Drift Diver* 8,500 Baht
Enriched Air Diver(inc 2 Dives)* 11,500 Baht
Equipment Specialist 7,500 Baht
Full Face Mask specialty 11,000 Thai Baht
Multilevel Diver* 8,500 Baht
Night Diver* 11,500 Baht
Peak Performance Buoyancy* 8,5oo Baht
Search & Recovery* 11,000 Baht
Sidemount Diver* 12,500 Baht
Underwater Navigator* 8,500 Baht
Wreck Diver* 11,000 Baht
EMAIL: realdiverspattayathailand@gmail.com
PHONE: Dive Shop – 038-232-476
Neil – 087-602-1411
Kat – 093-594-9191
Contact details plus map to the dive center
Cancellation policy; 100% deposit refund if the day is red-flagged by the coast guard because of sea conditions, this doesn’t happen too many times in a year.
Directions to the dive center in Thai show a taxi driver. ซอยโรงแรมเวลคัม2 จอมเทียน ถนน เลียบชายหาดจอมเทียน ระหว่างซอย 11-12
Contact details for google map if you would like to come to the dive center.
Please NOTE: If you are doing 2 dives you will need 18 hours after your last dive before flying for safety reasons and 12 hours after 1 dive. If in doubt e-mail us.
Do you want to do more that one course? Perhaps make your way up the PADI diver ladder to professional levels. Then check out the Real Divers Internship offers, which can save you a lot of money.
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