Top 10 Scuba Diving Specialties in Thailand
Phuket, Thailand. Welcome into the warm & tropical waters of the Andaman Sea. Scuba divers all around the world love to dive in our beautiful underwater world and most of them want to expand their skills and knowledge during their holidays.
While you can enjoy underwater sightseeing for years, you get the most out of diving through different activities that expand your opportunities of discovery, exploration and creativity. You can get into most of these simply by seeing your local PADI dive center or PADI Instructor about the associated Specialty Diver courses. In most cases, these PADI diving lessons take only one or two days, and they’re fun to learn. Here are the Top 10 scuba diving specialties to learn during your diving holidays.
“The more you involve yourself in diving, the more likely you are to engage in some of the best scuba diving activities in Thailand and beyond.”
The PADI Top 10 scuba diving specialties you can learn in Thailand
Deep Scuba Diving Specialty
Activities like underwater photography are a goal to themselves, whereas other things you do underwater are a means to an end. A good example of this is deep scuba diving, which provides you access to dive sites in deeper water. In recreational scuba diving, deep diving is defined as the depth range of 18 metres (60 feet) to 40 metres (130 feet). Beyond 40 metres (130 feet) is defined as technical deep diving.
When diving deep, you have less bottom time due to short no stop limits and the fact that you use your air faster at depth. Training in deep diving teaches you how to plan accordingly so that you avoid and manage problems such a gas narcosis and have the resources to handle emergencies.
Enriched Air Diving Specialty – Nitrox
Extend your dive time limits, comfort and safety.
Enriched air – called “NITROX” – is an oxygen/nitrogen gas mix like air is. However, while air consists of 21 percent oxygen, enriched air has more oxygen – typically 32 or 36 percent. Increasing the oxygen lowers your exposure to nitrogen, which increases the time before you reach a no stop limit. Using high oxygen percentages creates a few easily managed concerns, which you learn to handle in the Enriched Air Diver course. The more oxygen and the less nitrogen, the more diving time you have. Actually NITROX course is one of the most popular in Thailand mainly because is very easy to learn and almost all dive computers integrate NITROX diving calculations. This combination is the key of more comfortable and safer diving.
Wreck Diving Specialty
Scuba Diving on wrecks appeals to most divers, though for many different reasons. You may find yourself attracted to the challenge of exploring the wreck, or a fascination with its historical nature and mystery. Underwater photographers love wrecks for their picture potential, while those interested in nature like the fact that wrecks quickly become artificial reefs. Wrecks are typically ships, but can also include railroad cars, aircraft and automobiles. In these, you’ll find wreck sites range from those open to novice to those only accessible by the most experienced scuba divers.
Digital Underwater Photography.
Digital imaging has revolutionized taking pictures underwater just as much as it has on dry land. Compact, easy-to-use underwater digital camera systems have become so simple that some people begin taking underwater snaps on their very first dive. At the opposite end of the spectrum, you can also take some of the best, high-end systems professional digital cameras diving. As a result, digital underwater photography suits itself to practically all scuba divers, whether you want fun snapshots or to pursue it as a dedicated artist. This dive course is certainly one of the most fun of the top 10 scuba diving specialties presented here.
Don’t miss our post of The Success of Underwater Photography
Diver Propulsion Vehicles.
If you want to save time and save air on a dive, Diver Propulsion Vehicles (DPVs – a.k.a. “underwater scooters”) are one answer. DPVs tow or, in some cases, push you through the water, making them excellent tools for a variety of diving situations. But, it’s also a thrill to zoom over a reef or through a kelp forest like you’re flying a jet or racing a motorcycle. For this reason you may find you love DPVs simply because they’re so much fun. It’s not hard to drive a DPV, and training focuses on maintenance, safe ascents, planning your dives with DPV malfunctions in mind, and avoid damaging the environment.
Underwater Naturalist and Fish Identification.
While most scuba divers enjoy the unique and beautiful organisms they see underwater, you may want to go beyond casual sightseer to informed observer. With a little bit of information, the fish and other marine organisms you encounter become creatures with known names, habitats and roles. Instead of simply seeing fish or coral, you observe interactions and behaviors within ecosystems.
Layperson diving naturalists are becoming increasingly important to marine ecologists and biologists. These scuba divers participate in fish counts and cleanups that produce large data sets for study. By understanding what they see, naturalist divers are often the first to notice and report new or rising damage to underwater environments.
Underwater Search and Recovery.
Search and recovery is just that: looking for, finding and bringing lost objects to the surface. You may look for something you know someone lost in an area, or you may be bottom combing for whatever someone may have lost in the past.
Search and recovery skills can come in handy because you need them – i.e., when you lose something in the water, but you may find you enjoy search and recovery for the challenge it presents. In recreational scuba diving, search and recovery involves navigating along patterns that assure you cover an area thoroughly, plus techniques for getting small to medium size objects to the surface in recreational diving environments. Commercial and public safety divers use more sophisticated equipment and techniques to recover large objects when working in environments that are inappropriate for recreational scuba divers.
Coral Reef Conservation.
Coral reefs are very fragile and grow a few centimeters/inches per year. The human activity is actually interacting negatively with this very important ecosystem ignoring that coral reef growth is the most significant of all the biological processes that affect the coast.
As a scuba divers, our role in the Oceans’ future is crucial. We are becoming important ambassadors for corals reef ecosystems and the need for preserving them. The more you understand these ecosystems, their important roles in the global environment and the many threats they face, the better you care and can help others understand the need to protect them.
Night Scuba Diving Specialty.
Diving in the dark may sound eerie, but most divers find it exciting and intriguing. As the sun goes down, and nocturnal organisms emerge at night, a dive site becomes something different from what you see during the day. The night diving specialty focuses on navigation, using a torch and managing your dive skills in the dark.
Drift Scuba Diving Specialty.
Some places have prevailing currents that are so strong, you can’t swim against them. Does that rule out diving? Hardly. You can still dive by drifting along in the current, watching the sights go by. In this type of diving, your main concern is staying with your buddy and coordinated with the boat. By learning to drift dive, you learn several techniques that assure that when you surface, the boat is there waiting for you.
The Top 10 scuba diving specialties described above are not in an order of importance. This order depends only on your own interest for this extraordinary adventure and your desire to explore those amazing underwater worlds that are the Oceans.
LET’S GO SCUBA DIVING 🙂
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