There’s perhaps no better motivator to become a better diver than a liveaboard trip. It’s the perfect place to learn—you’ll spend several days with staff instructors on board, and you’ll be doing a lot of diving. The best argument? On a liveaboard, you’ve got nothing but time. As delicious as it is to tuck into that new thriller novel and the just-out-of-the-oven banana bread post-dive, you could choose instead to devote time to a specialty course—taking that next step toward becoming the diver you always wanted to be. Take advantage of the idyllic setting and the wealth of staff knowledge—whether about dive techniques or local marine life—and start to learn something new!

The Maldives

There’s an art to drift diving, and it starts with learning to read the water.

In the Maldives, a country of low-lying atolls, just about every dive is a drift dive—that is, there is a current at most every site. Technically, drift diving refers to riding a current from point A to point B.

In the Maldives, the goal is to negotiate the current so you can stay in one spot on the reef and fully enjoy point A.

The PADI Drift Diver course can help. It’s the course Thomas Pauwels, assistant manager of Emperor Divers’ five Maldives boats, most recommends—after nitrox and advanced open water.

Lesson one: Learn to identify the “up-current site.” Water flows toward a pinnacle, hits a particular spot, then gets diverted, flowing around and on top of the pinnacle. That point where current meets rock is the up-current site—where a current split is found. “The marine life is all centered in that little place,” says Pauwels. Small fish, tuna, jackfish and sharks gather here. To see it all, divers should do the same.

The PADI Drift Diver certification requires just two dives, but if the course is taken on a liveaboard, it can be practiced for the entire trip. Skills include learning how to use floats, lines, reels, reef hooks and other equipment to dive in currents and drifts. Much of the education centers on reading the environment as well as best practices when diving in unexpected—or expected— currents and drifts.

The easy answer is a reef hook, but the longer answer is more complicated: “You want to learn to swim against the current with the least amount of effort—to be as aerodynamic as possible,” he says.

To do so, take a cue from the oriental sweetlips fish.

“The oriental sweetlips is a lazy fish,” says Pauwels. “It’s always hiding behind a rock or tucked in close to the reef. They find the spots where they can just hang. You will never see one struggling against the current.”

Emperor Divers

Belize

To experience many of the thrills of Belize—wall diving, big animals and natural wonders such as the famous Great Blue Hole—divers often need to reach depths past 100 feet.

Belize Aggressor III and Belize Aggressor IV visit a mix of all these attractions every week, and thus its instructors frequently teach the PADI Deep Diver course. This specialty teaches students how to plan and execute multilevel deep dives, how to manage their air at deeper depths and how to recognize and respond appropriately to the symptoms of gas narcosis.

Most divers experience gas narcosis, which can feel like a drunken euphoria, paranoia or confusion, at about 100 feet and deeper. Being under the watchful eye of an instructor adds a level of safety and confidence if this happens on a deep dive. “I am getting to learn in a structured, controlled environment what it feels like to get narced,” says Larry Speaker who works in operations at Aggressor Adventures.

The PADI Deep Diver specialty helps you gain a better grasp of your air consumption rate at various depths, as well as how to plan a multilevel dive to make the best use of your air. You’ll also complete a timed task at the bottom to help you understand how gas narcosis can affect your focus. Changes in weight and medical history can affect how you react to depth, so it’s worthwhile even if you have deep-diving experience.

Just like alcohol, depth affects everyone at different rates and intensity. Taking the Deep Diver course allows students to get a feel for how depth and gas narcosis affect them personally in a controlled environment.

Belize is an ideal dive destination in which to learn this, with its warm waters and visibility of 100 feet or more, and its shallow, sandy patches where divers can complete some of the course skills. For one skill, divers practice unlocking a combination lock at 30 feet, and again at 100 feet or so. The exercise is timed because divers sometimes don’t even realize when they are narced.

Knowing what that feels like and being able to recognize the symptoms in yourself is just one more piece of becoming a more responsible and safe diver.

Aggressor Adventures

Indonesia

We’ve all done it—come out of the water, asking the impossible of our dive guides: “What was that blue fish with the stripe?”

Granted, the pros often can answer that question even based on these few clues, but the goal of the PADI Fish Identification course is to teach you to more reliably identify marine species.

All Star Liveaboards’ Velocean yacht, sailing Indonesia, teaches this course, taking advantage of the most biodiverse reefs in the world. This destination might seem like an overwhelming place to take the Fish ID course— that is, until you find out what you’ll learn during the two dives. “No one will learn every fish in the course,” says Kevin Purdy, president of All Star Liveaboards. “There are too many fish in the world to take a one-week course and learn every species.”

If you like to log fish encounters, the PADI Fish Identification specialty is a must. The course focuses on the species in the environment you’ll be diving. It’s a fun way to learn local species, including which fish are more common and which are rarer. It’s also a great way to learn or brush up on the body shapes of the main families of fish, so when you talk reef life, you’re better able to discuss species and behaviors you encounter.

Instead, what you learn is how to identify common fish groups: reddish with big eyes, small ovals and heavy bodies with large lips, for example. The course also teaches which parts of the fish are most commonly used in identification. Plus, Velocean’s ratio of four dive guides to every guest means ample attention in the water and post-dive to discuss what you’ve seen underwater.

The biggest thing this course teaches is how to open your eyes to what lives on the reef. “You can easily drift over a reef and miss seeing half the stuff that is burrowed inside or on the sand below,” says Purdy. “The biggest thing this course teaches is where and how to look for life.”

All Star Liveaboards

Turks & Caicos

The answer is never a bigger tank. The PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy specialty isn’t called the Better Air Consumption course, but it could be.

Turks and Caicos, with its sheer walls and flat reefs, serves as an ideal environment to practice these skills. The walls especially help alert a diver to a possible need to upgrade their skills in this area. “With the deeper dives, it’s common to see divers burning through air consumption,” says Sarah Dauphinee, operations manager for Explorer Ventures liveaboards, which operates Turks and Caicos Explorer II.

“Sometimes someone just got a camera, for example, and they are adapting how they dive. Or maybe someone hasn’t been diving in 20 years. Or maybe they have been diving regularly for the past five years but go through air quickly,” Dauphinee says. “I could list a dozen reasons why peak performance buoyancy is vital to diving.”

The PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy course is often taught in a day, but it’s a skill that takes time to master. You’ll log your weight amount and placement after each dive. Liveaboards tend to offer four to five dives a day, giving you many chances to see what works best. Plus, most divers find they need less weight as the week progresses, so it’s an ongoing adjustment that makes each day more enjoyable.

Weight gain or loss, transitioning from a regular kick to a frog kick or switching from a jacket-style to a back-plate BC are a few more reasons to work on buoyancy.

The walls are an ideal environment to start fine-tuning buoyancy. “One of the tendencies is that divers will use a reference point, such as the top of the wall, and they don’t have the confidence to get away from that point,” she says.

This course helps a student redistribute lead and try different combinations of weights. Through continued trial and error, the diver will reach that sweet spot where they feel more comfortable, improve air consumption and have more confidence on the wall—which is where so much of Turks and Caicos’ best magic happens.

Explorer Ventures

Palau

The archipelago nation of Palau is home to one of the world’s largest marine parks, the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, established in 2015. Today, 80 percent of the waters in the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) prohibit all forms of fishing, mining and other destructive behaviors.

It’s an excellent classroom for taking the PADI AWARE specialty course, which teaches divers how to join conservation efforts. “Not only do you learn indepth facts about amazing marine animals but you also discover how you can dive more responsibly and become an ‘eco-tourist,’ says Abdul Latheef, cruise director of the Four Seasons Explorer liveaboard, based in Palau.

The PADI AWARE specialty course teaches about threats to the reefs and ways that divers can engage in best practices to save them. Much of the workshop covers the ways that divers can strengthen conservation efforts in the destinations they visit, as well as what can be done at home.

Dive instructors on board teach the course upon request when divers want to learn more about Palau’s unique ecosystem. As divers learn how to protect the reefs, they also learn what they’re protecting. The course includes a more intimate look at local species. “It makes you notice the details and really enjoy every moment underwater,” Latheef says. “Learning about these amazing habitats also means you get excited when you spot something rare.”

Palau is home to 500 coral species and 1,400 fish species. Several days or a week aboard Four Seasons Explorer isn’t enough to learn about every species, but it offers an overview, including the most rewarding highlights.

Four Seasons

Galapagos

There are two components to the PADI Whale Shark Awareness specialty: One is about understanding biology, distribution and the threats that the world’s biggest fish faces, and the other is a cheat sheet on the fish’s behavior. That is, divers learn how to score the best and longest encounters with this animal—which, for many divers, is one of the biggest reasons to travel to the Galapagos Islands, about 600 miles off mainland Ecuador.

Related Reading: Top 6 Questions to Ask When Booking a Liveaboard

It’s taught aboard both Galapagos-based Explorer Ventures liveaboards: Humboldt Explorer and Tiburon Explorer. The course consists of two dives, but the teachings can make a huge difference on any trip during whale shark season, which is July to November in this region.

The waters can be thick with whale sharks, most of which are pregnant females. The first tip is to always be sure to check the water before back-rolling from the dive tender, taking care not to land on top of the animals below.

The Whale Shark Awareness specialty course consists of two required dives, but the teachings can be spread out and elaborated upon, as each whale shark encounter will likely launch more questions. Course content teaches divers about the potential hazards of swimming with these animals, the best ways to ensure their safety and your own, and all the tips and tricks for encouraging them to swim close and stay.

In the water, calmness is key. Jennifer Cummings, general manager of the Explorer Ventures Galapagos boats, recalls her most memorable dive with a whale shark, spotted within the first five minutes of the dive. “The five other guests go chasing the whale shark out into the blue, which you never do, because, for starters, you can never keep up,” she says.

Cummings and her husband stayed put on the reef, which is the recommended place to be. “Once the whale shark is out in the blue, it goes down, and when they go down, they really go deep,” she says, which she learned from lessons in whale shark behavior.

Within moments, the female returned to the reef, right where Cummings and her husband were. “She was swimming ever so slowly, just looking at us and letting us see how she moved. That lasted 20 minutes, and was the longest encounter I have ever had,” she says.

Explorer Ventures

Get a Head Start

When taking PADI courses such as Drift Diver, Deep Diver, Enriched Air Diver or Advanced Open Water Diver, much of the coursework can be completed online before you even get on the boat, leaving more time to complete the in-water portion and dive during your vacation. Be sure to print and bring your eRecord if you intend to complete a specialty on a liveaboard. When possible, it’s suggested to alert your liveaboard operator about the specialty you intend to take. Different instructors teach different courses, and requests can best be accommodated with advance notice.