Once you complete your PADI Open Water Diving course, there are many more skills to learn and new types of diving to try out! The top dive courses are summarised below to give you a starting point at where to begin. These are specialty courses designed to give you as a diver more experience and a specific field or type of diving.
1. Top Dive Courses: Peak Performance Buoyancy
The PADI Open Water Diving course is often referred to as your learner’s permit. You have been taught all essential skills to be a safe diver. Not always is there enough time to practice your Buoyancy. Perfect Buoyancy is crucial in diving and this is why it is our top choice among the top dive courses to take after your Open Water certification. Being properly weighted, employing proper body positioning during every dive and mastering breath control are all essential to making your dive more comfortable and enjoyable as well as longer since you will learn how to bring your air consumption down! Get a head start and read this article on buoyancy tips.
2. Top Dive Courses: Underwater Navigator
Were you wondering how you ended up near the boat after your Open Water dives? How did the instructor know? Moving effortlessly through a three dimensional world can quickly lead to losing a sense of direction. Does the though of a compass raise the hairs on your neck? Never fear. Underwater navigation is incredibly fun and you will soon learn that there is a lot more to underwater navigation than simply following your compass. Even getting a little lost can be fun. Having confidence in navigating a dive site after seeing a topographical map of it will make your dive far more relaxing. This is why underwater navigation comes in at number two of our selection in the top dive courses to take after your PADI certification.
3. Top Dive Courses: Deep Diver
Being limited to 18 meters is an obvious limitation to accessing many dive sites around the world. Deep diving is not necessarily more dangerous, however you do need a little more training and guidance in order to make you comfortable diving down to 40 meters. Knowing about deep diving will allow you to take the plunge and confidently dive on the deeper parts of the reef. Since it opens up many more dive sites and possibilities we thought this to be an obvious choice in our top dive courses to complete.
Maybe you are a little overwhelmed having to decide on one of these top dive courses to continue your diving experience with. Why not just try them all a little bit to decide later down the track? The PADI Advanced Open Water course is designed to do exactly that. It allows you to try one dive of each of the 3 top dive courses without having to commit and complete an entire Specialty course.
This will make you a well-rounded and more experienced diver, prepared to dive in various situations and locations around the world.
Have you taken a Specialty course? Share your experience with us in the comments below.
By Lionel
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