Dive Courses & Schools

Courses such as naturalist and shark specialist courses have proved most popular due to the growing interest in the marine environment. At resorts, diving is conducted daily all year around and it is only rarely that diving has to be cancelled. Most resorts would have access to a protected reef on the leeward side of the island that enables them to dive even during times of rough seas and strong winds.

All the resorts in the Maldives have dive schools on them. Of course the facilities, equipment and the staff differ from resort to resort, depending on its size, its location and clientele. However all the resorts offer beginners' dive courses and a variety of other courses towards PADI certification. In almost all the resorts instruction is available in English and German, however many resorts offer instruction in Italian, French, Japanese and a host of other European languages too. While some dive schools are Instructor Development Centers (IDCs), others too offer a wide variety of advanced and specialized dive courses. It is advisable to check up on the languages of instruction and courses available, before you book at a resort for your diving holiday. Equipment wise, all have the basics - compressors, tanks, BCDs, wetsuits, weights and weight belts and can provide a limited number of other accessories such as lamps and dive computers. Only some dive schools rent out underwater cameras and video cameras. Dive schools at all the resorts conduct daily dive boat trips to dive sites around the island, throughout the year. However, bigger schools offer a variety of trips everyday to different dive sites. In these resorts, the advanced diver would have choice of dives daily, to choose from. Night dives and other specialized dives are not conducted on a daily basis at all the resorts. However on the more specialized dive resorts, these too are available. The same goes for night diving in the resort's house reef. The dive schools in all the resorts invariably consist of one or more classrooms - air-conditioned at some, wet room and storage space for the school's as well as private equipment. Some of the bigger schools also have dive shops and video processing facilities

Resorts and live-aboards in the Maldives provide high quality and often the latest in diving equipment. All resort dive schools and live-aboard diving dhonis are equipped with compressors, tanks, regulators with octopus, BCDs, masks, fins and snorkels and other equipment such as dive computers, wetsuits, weights and weight belts. The equipment is well maintained and stringent safety checks are regularly made. You may bring your own mask, fins and snorkel. If you wish to bring your own wetsuit a 3 mm full-length wetsuit or lycra suit is perfect for any time of the year. However some prefer a 5 mm wetsuit when doing more than one dive a day. Ocean temperatures rarely vary beyond 27 - 30 degrees Celsius. During hot periods water temperatures inside the lagoon increase measurably, and most divers are comfortable without a wetsuit during this period.