What is Altitude Diving?
Any dive performed in a water body at 300 to 3000 meters/1000 to 10,000 feet above sea level, is known as altitude diving. Often a large variety of mountain lakes, springs or quarries may be nestled in mountain ranges and offer remarkable and often unexplored dive sites. Knowledge of Altitude dive planning opens up this whole range of scuba sites for you to explore.
Why do a specialty course in Altitude Diving?
Diving at altitudes isn’t as simple as it sounds as the effect of atmospheric pressure changes as altitude increases, thereby changing the rate of nitrogen absorption by the human body and making the standard dive tables ineffectual. The PADI Altitude Diver Specialty course helps divers learn the effects of pressure at higher altitudes and how to adjust your dive plan accordingly.
What does the Course cover?
The PADI Altitude Diver Specialty course can be completed within 24 with time being equally divided between classroom training and practical water-training sessions. There is no exam but two open water training dives at an altitude above 300 meters are required to successfully complete the course and logged in the divers logbook. The certification counts toward the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating
The course covers the following:
- Understanding the problems and hazards of altitude diving.
- planning, organization, procedures and techniques for altitude diving
- Recreational Dive Planner procedures
- Safety stops and emergency decompression procedures.
- Special equipment, scuba gear, descent lines and buoyancy control considerations.
- limited visibility diving and underwater navigation techniques.
- The Physical affects of freshwater diving
- Recognizing, preventing and treating hypoxia and hypothermia while altitude diving
Prerequisites to do the Course
To qualify for the Altitude Diver course, an individual must:
- Be certified as a PADI Open Water Diver, PADI Junior Open Water Diver or have a qualifying certification from another training organization.
- Be 10 years of age or older.
photos from flickr by: Saspotato & zlatkarp
