We offer a full range of recreational, professional, and technical diving courses all year long!
PADI Skin Diver Course
PADI Skin Diver Course
Let the adventure begin
Skin diving is snorkeling while making breath-hold dives to observe aquatic life, up close and personal. It’s a great way to explore the underwater world when you’re not able to scuba dive or if scuba diving just isn’t your thing.
The PADI Skin Diver course teaches you how to enjoy watching life below the surface and comfortably venture underwater for short visits, whether you dive in a local freshwater lake or the big blue ocean, at home or on holiday at a dive destination.
What will you learn?
- How to choose, adjust and use skin diving equipment
- Basic safety guidelines for being in and around the water
- Snorkeling and skin diving techniques including checking buoyancy, surface swimming, clearing water from your snorkel and performing effortless surface dives
- Going on an optional skin dive at a local dive site
The right gear matters
Most SCUBA divers end up owning all their own gear eventually. The most important gear you will own is your snorkeling gear. It's hard to enjoy SCUBA diving or snorkeling if your mask is always full of water or your fins hurt your feet.
At Scubaland we're all divers and/or dive instructors so we understand the importance of snorkeling gear that fits you the way it's supposed to. In fact, we're serious enough about this to give you a fit guarantee. If you are having a problem with any piece of your snorkeling gear during class bring it back to us for an immediate exchange. We will do this as many times as we need to in order to get it right!
We guarantee that you will be happy with
your snorkeling gear
and that it will fit you properly!
Some of the items you will need...
Mask
If you want to see anything underwater, you need a good mask! With masks, it's all about fit. Does it seal properly? Can you exhale through your nose so you can equalize your mask? Is it comfortable on the bridge of your nose or does it pinch? Our equipment counselors are very good at finding you mask options that fit properly. However, we won't know for sure until you actually get in the water. This is why masks are the item that we exchange the most!
Masks come a staggering number of models, colors, and sizes. Some have one window, some have two or three. Some masks have replaceable lenses for vision correction (like readers). Other masks we can get lenses created with your exact vision prescription. If you are interested in getting vision correction for your mask, let us know and we'll find you a mask that makes it possible!
Fins
A good set of snorkeling fins can be either full-foot or open-heeled so you can wear a dive boot. They are stiff enough to give you the propulsion you need without being so stiff that they wear your legs out when you use them. Scubaland carries both standard paddle fins and the more advanced and more comfortable split fin designs. We'll find you a couple models of fins that fit you properly and then you can choose the most comfortable pair for your feet!
Snorkel
All of the snorkels that we carry will work just as well for snorkeling as they will for diving. They all have purge valves on the bottom so that they will clear water easily. The big difference between snorkels is what's on the top. Some snorkels are open ended (just the tube), while some have splash guards that direct water away from the top of the snorkel.
Probably the most comfortable snorkel to use is a dry valve snorkel. This type of snorkel has a valve at the top that closes when water gets too close to the top of the snorkel. This prevents the snorkel from filling up with water and you inadvertently inhaling water when you were expecting air!
Boots
Dive boots are kind of like tennis shoes. They come in high tops and low tops. A good set of dive boots fits your foot snugly but doesn't cramp your toes. Dive boots come in a variety of shapes and sizes just like feet do. We usually will find you a couple of good options for your dive boots so that you can find the boot that creates the best combination of boot, fin, and foot.
Dive boots have a variety of different soles. Some are thinner and feel more like wearing a soft shoe and other are thicker and feel more like wearing a tennis shoe. Thicker soles are better for areas where you might have rocky shore lines for shore dives. Lake Travis and Bonaire are two good examples.
Most students will invest between $200 and $300 in a good set of basic snorkeling gear. All of the gear we sell is backed by both a shop and a manufacturer warranty and will last many years with the proper care.
Snorkeling gear is available for rent for the Skin Diver certification course for $150. However we do not recommend this as an option because we cannot guarantee you a proper fit with rental gear. If improperly fitting gear prevents you from completing your certification course there will be a rescheduling fee to complete your certification.
