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Continuing-Education

Drift Diver

eLearning covers self-study material. Your dive shop will charge training fees.

About the Course

Diving in a current can feel like flying underwater. In the PADI® Drift Diver course, you’ll learn drift diving tips from an experienced instructor and practice buoyancy control, navigation, use of surface signaling equipment and buddy communication.
Available Languages
Take This Course If You Want to
  • Try drift diving with an instructor
  • Feel confident diving in a current
  • Learn about aquatic currents - causes and effects
Learn How to
  • Use surface signaling equipment
  • Stay close to your buddy
  • Make entries and descents in a current

Why Take a Drift Diving Course?

Scuba diving in a current can be both relaxing and exhilarating. You may slowly glide over a reef, or zoom over an underwater landscape so fast it feels like flying. By the end of your drift diver course, you’ll have the skills you need to confidently go with the flow.
Mobile phone in plane
Independent Study

1
PADI eLearning®

PADI eLearning makes it easy to fit scuba lessons into a busy schedule. Complete the independent study part of your course whenever, wherever it’s convenient for you.

Work at your own pace, online or offline, using a computer or mobile device. Connect with your instructor for inwater training, or whenever you have a question.

  • eLearning time commitment: 2-4 hours
Instructor in pool
At The Dive Shop

2
With Your Instructor

During two dives in a current, you’ll practice buoyancy control, navigation and buddy communication. Practice using a delayed surface marker buoy (DSMB), float, line, reel, or other drift diving safety equipment.
  • Prerequisites: PADI (Junior) Open Water Diver (or qualifying entry-level certification)
  • Total time commitment: 1-2 days
  • Minimum age: 12 years or older

More Info

 
Medical Requirements

Scuba diving requires a minimum level of health and fitness. Chronic health conditions, certain medications and/or recent surgery may require you to get written approval from a physician before diving.

Avoid disappointment, download and review the Diver Medical form to ensure you won’t need a physician’s approval to dive before enrolling in a scuba course. Instructors, divemasters and dive shop staff are not physicians and should not be asked for medical advice; only medical professionals can give medical clearance to dive.

If you (or your physician) have questions about medical fitness to dive, contact the experts at Divers Alert Network (DAN).

 
Prerequisites & Minimum Age

Minimum Age: 12

Course prerequisites: (Junior) Open Water Diver or equivalent certification

 
Choosing a Dive Shop

You can complete this course locally or while travelling. 

Choose a dive shop close to home to:

  • Support your local diving community
  • Meet dive buddies in your local area
  • Learn about your local ecosystem

Choose a dive shop away from home if you:

  • Plan to travel to a dive destination on holiday
  • Like to meet new people when travelling
  • Have the time to complete your course while on vacation
 
Other Costs & Equipment

This course requires both knowledge development and inwater training for certification. When you purchase PADI eLearning from our website, the cost covers the knowledge development portion only.

There is an additional cost to complete your certification with a PADI Instructor. The cost depends on class size, environment, and whether or not you need to rent equipment. Contact a PADI Dive Center or Resort for more information and pricing. 

In addition to basic scuba equipment, you'll use various surface marker buoys and floats with lines and reels. A surface marker buoy (SMB) is important safety equipment - no matter where you dive. Consider buying one prior to your course so you can practice using it and become familiar with how it works.

 
Time Commitment

PADI eLearning: 2-4 hours

Entire course: 1-2 days

 
Available Languages

English.

For information on other available languages please contact your PADI Dive Center.

 
System Requirements

PADI’s online courses are designed to work on the browsers listed below. For the best experience, make sure your browser is up-to-date.

Chrome
Safari
Edge
Firefox

If you plan to be somewhere without internet access, use the PADI Training app to download course content and study offline. Content can be downloaded in small sections with a total file size of approximately 177 MB. When you get back online, upload your progress so you can resume your training right where you left off. 

The PADI Training app is available for Android™ and Apple® iOS devices. For the ideal experience, devices should be no more than three models old and running with the most current OS (operating system).

 
After this course

The first dive of the Drift Diver Specialty course may count toward your Advanced Open Water Diver certification – ask your instructor about earning credit.

Every PADI Specialty certification you earn takes you one step closer to becoming a PADI Master Scuba Diver™. This elite rating is only achieved by two percent of divers.

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