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Dive Schools:
All
the resorts in the Maldives have dive schools on them. Of course the
facilities, equipment and the staff differ from resort to resort,
depending on its size, its location and clientele. However all the
resorts offer beginners’ dive courses and a variety of other courses
towards PADI certification. In almost all the resorts instruction is
available in English and German, however many resorts offer
instruction in Italian, French, Japanese and a host of other
European languages too. While some dive schools are Instructor
Development Centers (IDCs), others too offer a wide variety of
advanced and specialized dive courses. It is advisable to check up
on the languages of instruction and courses available, before you
book at a resort for your diving holiday. Equipment wise, all have
the basics - compressors, tanks, BCDs, wetsuits, weights and weight
belts and can provide a limited number of other accessories such as
lamps and dive computers. Only some dive schools rent out underwater
cameras and video cameras. Dive schools at all the resorts conduct
daily dive boat trips to dive sites around the island, throughout
the year. However, bigger schools offer a variety of trips everyday
to different dive sites. In these resorts, the advanced diver would
have choice of dives daily, to choose from. Night dives and other
specialized dives are not conducted on a daily basis at all the
resorts. However on the more specialized dive resorts, these too are
available. The same goes for night diving in the resort’s house
reef. The dive schools in all the resorts invariably consist of one
or more classrooms - air-conditioned at some, wet room and storage
space for the school’s as well as private equipment. Some of the
bigger schools also have dive shops and video processing facilities.
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