All 88 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. |
