Resident PADI Course Director Ricard Swann (far right) conducting the Nitrox Speciality Instructor course yesterday, before heading off today for some Usukan Bay Wreck diving.

Our recently minted PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors and PADI IDC Staff Instructors gather around Richard yesterday for some fun while acquiring their next speciality qualification.

Downbelow’s resident PADI Course Director, Richard, took the crew under his wing for the Nitrox Speciality Instructor Course at our PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Centre on Gaya island in Kota Kinabalu.

In a nutshell, diving with Enriched Air Nitrox EANx allows you to enjoy more time diving.

There are special considerations when it comes to diving with Nitrox, which is why instructors are needed to teach students the ins and outs about it. That is what our eager instructors were up to yesterday.

To demonstrate the specific skills required from a Nitrox Speciality instructor, the crew head out to the Japanese WWII Wrecks in Usukan Bay today.

The Usukan Bay Wrecks in Sabah, Malaysia are 3 Japanese ships that were sunk by an American submarine during World War 2, on 1 October 1944. The 3 wrecks, the Rice Bowl Wreck, the Upside Down Wreck and the Usukan Wreck, lie at varying depths between 25m – 40m.

This makes Nitrox the perfect choice, because combined with their fascinating history and the beauty that has flourished around them, you want to spend as much time as possible diving these wrecks.

We wish our Nitrox Speciality Instructor students best of luck and look forward to seeing the photos from their dive.