Dear Fellow Diver,

When divers socialize and the talk turns to big, high-adventure dives, you can count on deep diving to come up. There’s no doubt about it – many of my most memorable dives were deep dives. But, the motives divers have for deep diving can be poor ones or good ones. Deep diving can be a thrill - and that can be good or bad, depending on your approach.

“Thrill” is a word with many shades. It can mean sticking your neck out irresponsibly and recklessly, purely for a rush. If that’s your idea of fun, please don’t get on the same boat with me. On the other hand, a thrill can be the excitement that comes with doing something potentially hazardous and challenging, but in a way that responsibly manages the risk. There’s nothing wrong with deep diving for the reward of extending your personal limits and accomplishments this way, and the best way to do it is through PADI Deep Diver training.

The reason training is important is that our margin for error narrows with depth – and that’s not really an issue provided absolutely nothing goes wrong and you make no mistakes. As we go deeper, we use air faster and have shorter no stop limits. The surface is much farther away and harder to reach. Dive accidents usually result from not one, but several errors that link into a chain leading to disaster. On a deep dive, that chain is very, very short.

Conditions, combined with depth, also affect your risk. In recreational diving, we define “deep” as 18 metres/60 feet to no more than 40 metres/130 feet. But, 30 metres/100 feet in warm, clear water may be a milk run compared to 12 metres/40 feet in a cold, low-viz current. So, training as a PADI Deep Diver sometimes pays big dividends on surprisingly shallow dives.

If the idea of deep diving excites you and you’ve yet to take the PADI Deep Diver course, I encourage you to do so. Not only will you get one step towards your PADI Master Scuba Diver certification, you’ll learn how to manage the added risk that comes with deep diving, and how to be prepared for emergencies and errors that can happen. You’re likely to find it a rewarding challenge that helps you grow as a diver. And, it’s a thrill. The good kind.

Good diving

Sincerely,



Drew Richardson
President and Chief Operating Officer
PADI Worldwide