Peak Performance Buoyancy and Perfect Buoyancy: what the course teaches and who it is for

Any certified diver. PADI says (Junior) Open Water divers or higher who are at least 10 years old can take Peak Performance Buoyancy; SSI's Perfect Buoyancy also starts at age 10, with Open Water Diver, and can even be combined with the Open Water course. It is most useful if you:

• go up and down without meaning to, or keep adding and dumping air
• finish your air before your buddy
• want to take photos underwater, where staying still is everything
• feel you are carrying too much weight

PADI describes the course as improving "the buoyancy skills you learned as a new diver"; SSI covers advanced buoyancy skills and techniques that protect the environment. With us you work on three things:

• Weighting: a proper weight check and moving weight to where it helps you, so you carry only what you need. Our article on buoyancy and weighting explains the check
• Trim: adjusting your kit so you lie flat in the water instead of head-up
• Breathing control: hovering still, then moving through an obstacle course, and fine-tuning your depth by breath alone

Good buoyancy keeps your fins and hands off the coral, which is the main way divers protect a reef: see reef etiquette in the Red Sea. It also saves air, because a diver who isn't constantly correcting their depth breathes more calmly. Our guide on improving air consumption has more on that. And it makes every other skill easier, from safety stops to photography.

SSI gives 5–10 hours for Perfect Buoyancy, with a 30 m open-water training ceiling, reduced to 18 m for ages 12–14 and 12 m for ages 10–11. The dive must also stay within the diver's existing certification limits. With us it runs on our daily boat, with hotel pickup at 08:00 and back at your hotel around 16:30, and a maximum of 4 students per instructor. Today's price for each agency is on the course page and on our price list.

Yes. With SSI, specialties count towards recognition ratings: four specialties and 24 logged dives earn SSI Advanced Specialty Diver recognition. With PADI, buoyancy is one of the adventure dives you can choose on the Advanced Open Water course; ask us how a buoyancy dive you have already done counts towards the specialty.