Course overview

Become a PADI Rescue Diver in the Solomon Islands and learn to prevent and manage diving emergencies on the Pacific's wreck-and-reef playground around Iron Bottom Sound. This challenging, rewarding course sharpens your awareness and self-rescue skills while you practise realistic scenarios in calm-to-moderate conditions off Guadalcanal and Munda. You finish a more confident, capable diver ready to help others.

What you’ll learn

• Recognise and prevent dive problems before they escalate
• Perform self-rescue and manage stress and fatigue
• Assist tired, panicked and unresponsive divers at the surface
• Search for and recover a missing diver
• Surface an unresponsive diver and provide in-water rescue breaths
• Manage a dive emergency and coordinate first aid

Prerequisites

• Minimum age 12 (Junior Rescue Diver)
• PADI Adventure Diver or Advanced Open Water (with Underwater Navigation)
• 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 & EFR

   Work through rescue knowledge development and refresh Emergency First Response primary and secondary care.
2. Day2
   Rescue skills

   Practise self-rescue, tired-diver tows and surface assists in calm sheltered water near shore.
3. Day3
   Open-water scenarios

   Run search-and-recovery and unresponsive-diver drills on reef sites along the Guadalcanal coast.
4. Day4
   Scenario assessment

   Complete two full emergency scenarios bringing every skill together, then certify.

Verified through iDive

Every partner school in the iDive network is vetted on safety, instructor credentials, equipment standards and student feedback. Talk to a iDive dive pro on WhatsApp for current availability and reviews specific to Solomon Islands.

Frequently asked questions