Solo Diver / Self-Reliant Diver

A program designed to introduce the scuba experience to non-certified participants meeting minimum age and health requirements. This may be conducted in a pool or confined water, and if certain conditions are met, may be expanded to include an actual open water dive.

Exclusively offered at IVS, our PADI Open Water +Plus! program is based on the complete standard PADI open water diver certification program, and so much more. For the past twenty-some years, we have continued to evolve our program to be the industry's leading diver training center in the Northeast US, and one of PADI's top 5-Star Dive & Instructor Development Centers in the nation - and we're located in Harleysville, not at a beachfront location! To ensure that divers truly emerge as great divers, with the skills, knowledge and experience for a lifetime of safe and wonderful diving, we've included two additional open water dives, both planned and led by the student-divers, plus the completion of PADI's Peak Performance Buoyancy and A.W.A.R.E Coral Reef Conservation specialty certifications. An IVS diver can take pride in the fact that they truly earned their certification!

Learning to dive is just Step One towards a lifetime of underwater adventures!
Once you’ve got the basics out of the way, it’s time to turn our focus ‘outward’, and expand our diving skills, knowledge, and experiences! Indian Valley’s exclusive PADI Advanced Open Water +Plus! Certification far exceeds the industry's minimum requirement and includes a comprehensive evening of academics in the classroom, covering multiple different aspects of diving beyond Open Water, plus a minimum of six adventure dives. These include the mandatory Deep, Underwater Navigation, and SMB Deployment dives, plus three additional adventure dives of your choosing.

Recognition of a potential dive accident is the main focus of this course. This program makes the subject of accident prevention and management interesting, challenging and extremely rewarding. The focus is on both self-rescue techniques and assisting others in the prevention of dive emergencies, and how to best respond in the event of an emergency. The Rescue Diver course is perfect for any diver who plans to dive with family members or friends or those that want to sharpen their dive skills and help other divers. It will also prepare the diver for accident prevention and the application of rescue techniques and skills in diving.

This certification is recognition to divers who have reached the pinnacle of recreational scuba certifications. Educational advancement including Rescue Diver, a minimum of 50 logged dives, and completion of five specialty certifications are required to earn this rating.

Designed to be an introduction to altitude diving and to help the student diver develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary for altitude diving.

The AWARE - Coral Reef Conservation Specialty course teaches divers, snorkelers and non-divers about the vital role coral reefs play in the marine environment and how these ecosystems are currently threatened. The course familiarizes participants with the current state of the world’s coral reefs and explains how individuals can help protect the living reef from further decline.

This course is designed to introduce divers to the most common families and species of fish found in temperate and tropical waters. Divers learn basic fish identification and scientific surveying techniques. Through an overview of Project AWARE and other preservation and research efforts, such as the REEF Fish Survey Project, divers also learn the importance of personal involvement in aquatic environment conservation.

Some of the greatest diving takes place from boats of all sorts, and this course is designed to be an introduction to boat diving from a variety of platforms. It will help the student diver develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary for safe & comfortable boat diving.

Designed to introduce divers to the skills & excitement of using diver propulsion vehicles. Familiarizes student divers with the knowledge, planning, organization, procedures, techniques, potential problems & hazards associated with using DPVs.

Drift diving allows the diver to cover a large expanse of water during a dive, and makes diving where currents are present much more enjoyable. This course is designed to be an introduction to drift diving and to help the student diver develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary for safe & comfortable drift diving.

The purpose of the PADI Multilevel Diver Specialty course is to familiarize divers with the theory, skills, knowledge, planning, organization, procedures, hazards, benefits and enjoyment of multilevel diving with PADI’s eRDP/ML dive planner and/or with modern dive computers.

This course is designed to be an introduction to night diving and to help the student diver develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary for safely executing dives after dark.

The Project AWARE Specialty program is designed to familiarize divers and non-divers with the plight of worldwide aquatic ecosystems. It also describes what individuals can do to help protect aquatic resources.

PADI’s Search and Recovery Diver Specialty course will teach you effective ways to find objects underwater and safely bring them to the surface. Small, large or just awkward, there is a safe and proper way to bring them up.

This exclusive IVS program is designed to provide our divers with the skills and techniques necessary to locate and take undersea game in a legal, ethical manner. Shellfish, crustaceans, and gamefish are covered and tips on best methods to approach, take, transport and prepare are included. Learn to recognize legal species and understand complex game regulations specific to the area you will be hunting.

This course is designed to be an introduction to the underwater aquatic environment and to help the student diver develop safe and responsible interaction with aquatic life.

Be the diver everyone wants to follow and make your sense of direction legendary with the PADI Underwater Navigator Specialty course. This program includes techniques for navigating open water, wrecks, reef systems, confined spaces and more!

The PADI Underwater Videographer Specialty course shows you how to create videos that are interesting, entertaining and worth watching again and again.

Wanna stay warm and toasty on a dive? Then dive dry. Yes! Unlike a wetsuit, a dry suit seals you off from the outside water and that keeps you warm! Even in surprisingly cold water. Dry suits let you dive more challenging dive sites, and extend your dive season. When you have the right cold water scuba diving attire, you can stand up to the elements and take advantage of the generally better visibility offered by winter months — especially at inland dive sites such as quarries, lakes, sinkholes and caves etc. As a dry suit diver, you’re equipped to scuba dive some of the world’s most incredible dive sites in the cooler regions that are best enjoyed in a dry suit even in the warmer months.

Ready to venture off the beaten path of shallow reef diving? The ocean, as well as the lakes and rivers we visit, is teeming with fine examples of maritime construction that for one reason or the other, is not afloat today. The Wreck Diver program is your entryway into safely exploring these manmade treasures lurking beneath the waves. The course is designed to familiarize divers with the skills and knowledge to explore wrecks safely in a variety of conditions with an emphasis on fun and safety.

The Cavern Diver course offers the certified diver a introductory glimpse into the truly amazing and beautiful world of underwater caves. This course allows the diver to explore that portion of the cave system within the daylight zone. You have the opportunity to experience the overhead environment in a controlled setting to determine if cave diving is of interest to you.

If the spirit of adventure and unusual, challenging diving appeals to you, try diving under the ice. During the course, you dive with a PADI Professional in one of the most extreme adventure specialties recreational diving offers. Explore the unique aquascape found only under the frozen surface of a lake or river. You can be one of the few that have ever dived under a solid ceiling of ice. Plus, imagine the look on your Divemaster’s face on your next Caribbean trip when you flash your PADI Ice Diver certification. You might even get a chance to play with your exhaled air bubbles on the bottom of the ice or an opportunity to try the unique sport of upside down, bottom of the ice, skiing. For safety, all open water dives require the use of a tether line to surface support personnel.

What better way to share the wonders of the underwater world with non-divers than to take great photographs of whate you see on your dives! This course is designed to be an introduction to underwater photography and to help the student diver develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary to compose, capture and edit great underwater digital pictures. eLearning option available.

So now you're a recreational scuba diver, and have gained enough experience and knowledge to earn your Advanced Open Water certification. But you know there's a whole lot more to learn, and experience, in your diving. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to dive in double tanks or a sidemount configuration? How about that reassurance of a redundant air source, such as a pony bottle? Or being comfortable enough to think it's high time to be less attached to your dive buddy, and more confident in your ability to take care of yourself? If you want to find out but aren’t quite ready to take the plunge into technical dive training, IVS's Technical Diving Fundamentals program will let you try technical dive equipment in a controlled environment to see if you like it. These experience programs are conducted under the direct supervision of a technical dive instructor who will not only get you comfortable in the gear but will also available to answer your questions about your future as a self-reliant and possibly even a technical diver. Includes Tec Basics (PADI) and Intro to Tec (TDI).