Search and Recovery diver course: search patterns, lift bags and who can join

SSI's 30 m ceiling is reduced to 18 m for ages 12–14. Your existing certification limits still apply.

SSI lists search patterns, specialised dive plans and equipment such as lift bags, lines and reels. In practice you practise:

• planning a search with your buddy: the area, the pattern and who does what
• search patterns such as expanding squares and arcs on a line
• using a reel and line, and the knots that hold a load
• lifting an object with a lift bag, slowly and under control
• marking a position so you can find it again

Few divers ever need to recover a lost anchor, but the skills make you a better diver on every dive: you learn to navigate in a pattern, handle a line without tangling and control your buoyancy while working with your hands. It is also a good preparation for the Rescue Diver course, which includes searching for a missing diver, and pairs well with an underwater navigation course.

It can be if it is done badly. An object that suddenly becomes buoyant can rise fast and pull a diver up with it. That is why the course teaches you to lift slowly, never to clip a lift bag to yourself, and to stay in control of your own ascent. During the course your instructor controls every lift.

Usually 2 days on our daily boat, with hotel pickup at 08:00 and back 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.