Most diving agencies offer a range of Speciality Courses that covers a variety of training with different types of diving.

In relation to these courses you can sometimes hear comments like 'it's just another course to get more money' or people question their overall value. While others see them as opportunities to gain more diving experience under the guidance of a professional, to enable them to do dives that they are not currently qualified for, or to continue to gain valuable knowledge to extend their diving abilities and experience levels.

For us the latter is true, but as we have always highlighted you should make sure that you get a professional and experienced Instructor within a good Dive Centre to get the most from any new learning experience.

Speciality courses are an excellent way to broaden your overall diving knowledge, choose the type of diving that you are more interested in and gain extra qualifications that enable you to do more of the same types of dives. For example you cannot use Nitrox (Enriched Air) until you are qualified and the benefits of this will enable you to use Nitrox anywhere in the world and for any of the rest of your future dives. The Deep Specilaity qualifies you to dive to a new maximum depth of 40 metres. So for those who are currently qualified to a maximum of 30 metres this opens up another world of dive experiences and dives that they previously were not allowed, or shouldn't be allowed, to do.

Completing these two specialities together is a perfect combination when diving deeper. Using Nitrox on deeper dives gives you much more time at depth to explore and you will soon realise that diving anything past 30 metres is normally so much more beneficial when diving it on Nitrox. These two speciality courses are among the most popular in the world and divers quickly see the future diving benefits for gaining these qualifications.

Nitrox is also the only Speciality you can combine with another course, so doing it in this way is even better value for money too.

Speciality Courses open up new interests in many areas of diving to all experience levels, and divers can delve more into the types of diving they are more interested in.

Many divers want to improve their navigational skills to lead more of their own dives. Many want to improve their buoyancy or want to do more night diving. It is difficult to gain the necessary skill sets and proper knowledge with your diving peers or with just yourself and your buddy, a professional Instructor will go above and beyond the course content to ensure that their students abilities are such that they can see a credible difference from completing a Speciality Course. It is also an opportunity for your Instructor to help you brush up on any other diving abilities that you may require or that they see. A true professional will have the ability to improve your overall diving to new levels.

Other Speciality Courses include Wreck Diving, Search and Recovery, Dry Suit, Photography, Drift Diving, Boat Diving, Cavern Diving, Fish Identification and many more. Most are now available with the online eLearning option. These cover a great range of interests for a variety of tastes.

Some are purely 'dry' courses like Equipment Specialist which can be of great benefit to those looking to better look after or maintain their equipment.

So choose the course that you are going to get the most benefit from and for where you are planning to do a lot of your diving. Follow your interests and keep your diving interesting by exploring new types of diving or by just simply improving your buoyancy. Chosen and taught correctly the Speciality Courses can open up another world of diving to enjoy.