Search and Recovery Course

This specialty is designed to familiarize the diver with the skills and techniques needed to plan, execute, and evaluate a search and recovery on a special dive.

This course is for:

Certified divers looking to gain more information to maximize the use of search and recovery techniques on a dive.

Course prerequisites:

Be an SNSI Open Water Scuba Diver, SNSI Junior Open Water Scuba Diver or equivalent, or be currently enrolled in one of these courses. Minimum age of 18 years, or 10 years with parental consent.

What you can expect to learn:

The Search and Recovery course provides an in-depth look at all of the following areas and more:

• Navigation

  • Compass Use
  • Estimate of distances
  • Natural Navigation
  • Diving with limited visibility
  • Factors that affect visibility
  • Risks associated with limited visibility

• diving techniques

  • search techniques
  • U-shaped search patterns
  • Circular Search
  • grid search
  • Dealing with currents during the search
  • Signals during the search
  • rescue techniques

• In-depth considerations

  • Use of lifting bags
  • cylinder lifting
  • Required qualities of lifting devices
  • knots and ropes
  • filling techniques
  • Mud / sediment suction considerations

Some of the skills you will need to demonstrate include:

• Use of compass for search techniques
• Execution of different search patterns
• Use of lifting bags
• Retrieve an object in depth
• Rescue and retrieval of an object weighing between 11 and 33 kg / 25 and 75 lbs in water
• Dive emergency simulation using at least 2 search techniques
• dive log

What you can achieve:

After successfully completing this course, you will be able to conduct diving activities without direct supervision of the SNSI Instructor*, provided that the following limits are respected:

• Diving activities should resemble training.
• The activity areas should be similar to the training areas.
• The environmental conditions must be similar to those of training.

*Note: Junior divers (ages 10-14) must participate in advanced buoyancy activities with a parent, tutor or dive professional.

The SNSI Search and Recovery Diver certification is considered a contributing specialization to the SNSI Advanced Diver Development program.

Minimum SNSI Search and Recovery Diver requirements:

• Fulfill all open water requirements efficiently.
• Demonstrate floating techniques.