Course overview

Become a calmer, more capable diver with the PADI Rescue Diver course in Malta and Gozo, learning to prevent and manage problems for yourself and others. The sheltered shore entries and shallow bays around Cirkewwa and Gozo provide controlled, realistic settings to drill self-rescue, tired-diver tows and missing-diver searches. It is widely regarded as the most rewarding course in the PADI system and a prerequisite for going pro.

What you’ll learn

• Recognise and manage diver stress before it becomes an emergency
• Perform self-rescue and tired-diver tows
• Search for and surface an unresponsive diver
• Give in-water rescue breaths and manage a panicked diver
• Run emergency-management and accident-response scenarios
• Coordinate a search using established patterns

Prerequisites

• Minimum age 12 (Junior Rescue Diver) or 15 for full certification
• PADI Adventure Diver or higher (with Underwater Navigation completed)
• Emergency First Response (primary and secondary care) within 24 months
• Diver medical clearance signed by a physician

What's included · What's not

Probability of sightings · month-by-month

What you're likely to see each month, based on historic operator logs.

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1
   Theory & self-rescue

   Knowledge development plus self-rescue and diver-stress skills in a sheltered bay.
2. Day2
   Rescue skills

   Practise the ten core rescue exercises, including tows and unresponsive-diver lifts, at a calm shore site.
3. Day3
   Rescue scenarios

   Run full open-water emergency scenarios at Cirkewwa or a Gozo shore site, then certification.

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Frequently asked questions