PADI Underwater Navigator

Become the diver everyone wants to follow – because of your new found legendary sense of direction! Learn how to find your way around with various navigation techniques.

Finding your way is not a matter of luck! When everyone’s buzzing about a reef or checking out a shipwreck, they’re having a great time – until it’s time to go. Then they turn to you, because as a top-notch navigator, you know the way back to the boat.

1. Course overview

There are a total of 3 open water dives required to complete the course. The knowledge development portion will be carried out through PADI e-Learning in your own time.

You already need to be a PADI Open Water diver (or equivilent certification from another training agency), and you need to be at least 12 years old.

2. What you'll learn

Underwater navigation can be challenging, but in this specialty course you’ll master the challenge.

You learn various tools of the trade, including navigation via natural clues and by compass, navigational patterns, natural navigation techniques without a compass, how to “mark” or relocate a submerged object or position from the surface.

As part of this you’ll also learn underwater map making, including how to follow irregular courses with the Nav-Finder, dive site relocation, and how to esstimate distances underwater reliably.

3. Equipment

Unlike our introductory courses, you’ll either need to provide your own scuba kit, or hire some from us for the duration of your course. If you want to look at purchasing your own, we’d be happy to help you also.

As a minimum, you’ll need a mask, snorkel, fins, buoyancy compensating jacket (BCD), scuba regulator, and the instrumentation to monitor your depth and air supply. You can hire cylinders from us, or bring your own in-test cylinders with you to be refilled at the dive site.

You’ll also need adequate exposure protection for the conditions you’ll be diving in (this could be a wetsuit or drysuit) to keep you comfortable on your dives. If you dive in a dry suit, you need to ensure you have the correct training for this too.

Some courses may require additional equipment, depending on the individual course requirements.

Any equipment you provide yourself must be in a serviced, well-maintained and safe condition. No exceptions!

4. Learning materials

We will send you any e-Learning materials needed for your specialty course, which will take you to the registration area of the PADI site. This teaches you the background information you need for your course, and allows you to study at your own pace.

You can complete this on pretty much any device with an internet connection.

Some courses also have physical learning content, which we can give you once you’re enrolled.

Ready to start?

You can book and pay for your course with us online, either for yourself or someone else. We’ll send over any e-Learning content to your email, and we can then work with you on suitable dates and times for any in-person sessions.

We have availability throughout the year, although if you have specific dates or a timeline in mind, please check with us first.

Your next adventure...

With your newly acquired sense of underwater direction, you’re primed to take on the challenges (and adventures!) of the PADI Search and Recovery Diver course.

Learn how to conduct structured searches while underwater as part of a team, and then to raise items safely to the surface for later recovery. It’s great fun!

The Stellar Crew

We have a very straightforward philosophy; we are totally committed to ensuring you – our customer – have the best, safest and most enjoyable experience possible. It’s as simple as that!

Here at Stellar, we all love to scuba dive, and we love to have fun doing it. We absolutely want you to feel the same way when you dive with us.

We can very proudly boast that we’re a PADI 5-star Instructor Development Centre. Put simply, this means we also train the trainers – so naturally we take our education of safe diving very seriously. You’re in safe hands, and you’ll have a lot of fun in the process too.