Ice Diver

This course invites you into the thrilling world of ice diving, where you’ll explore beneath a solid ceiling of ice and encounter breathtaking underwater landscapes unlike any other. Under the expert guidance of our PADI Professionals, you’ll learn how to properly plan and execute ice dives, manage buoyancy, and navigate under the ice using specialized techniques designed for cold, overhead environments. With an emphasis on safety, communication, and team coordination, this course builds confidence and prepares you to dive under ice with competence and calm.

During the course, you’ll dive with a PADI Professional as you practice the procedures and skills that make ice diving one of the most distinctive specialties in recreational scuba. Ice diving isn’t just a technical challenge — it’s an experience that sharpens your awareness, precision, and teamwork, and expands what you thought possible in your diving journey.

The Fun Part

Explore the unique aquascape found only beneath the ice and discover a world few divers ever see. Feel the quiet brilliance of crystal-clear water under a frozen surface, watch your exhaled bubbles drift up against the ice, and experience playful moments like upside-down ice “skiing” near the hole. You’ll become one of the few divers who’ve earned the Ice Diver certification — and bring stories and confidence back to future adventures.

What You Learn

You’ll complete a minimum of three ice dives for your certification, typically done as a group with support personnel, divers, tenders, and safety divers. Throughout the course you’ll learn how to:

• Plan and organize ice dives
• Understand reasons and opportunities for ice diving
• Select and prepare dive sites, including hole-cutting procedures
• Practice ice diving procedures and techniques for handling hazards
• Use specialized ice diving equipment, signals, and communications
• Manage equipment issues and cold-related considerations
• Apply emergency procedures and safety-diver protocols

Your Next Adventure

For many divers, Ice Diver becomes more than a course — it becomes a gateway to new challenges. If you haven’t already, becoming familiar with dry suit diving will increase your comfort and control in cold conditions, and the PADI Dry Suit Diver course is a natural next step. And while you’re expanding your skills, the Rescue Diver course brings you closer to the Master Scuba Diver rating — a goal many of your peers aspire to.