Our partners
The brands that back diver safety when it matters most.
PADI, DAN, and Garmin do not just lend a logo. Training, a safety net, and the awareness layer that keeps the whole team connected. They work hand in hand to keep you safe in the water. Tap any partner to see what they bring to your dive.
How the three partners work together for your safety. PADI training gives you skills you can trigger. Garmin awareness means an alert reaches help. DAN is the safety net, and the care it provides funds your next training. Your readiness, connected. Select a partner to learn more.
Training
Awareness
Safety NetThe flagship event · 2026
Rescue Ready Weekend is the festival we are building first.
Rescue is the cert most divers know they should have and never take. It is also the only PADI training that fits a true festival format. 150 divers. Ten stations. Two days. Real scenarios. Real instructors. The kind of training that actually changes how you dive on Monday.
The flagship
Rescue Ready Weekend
The cert where you go from someone who needs rescue to someone who can rescue. Love made operational.
September 19-20, 2026
Tigertail Lake · Fort Lauderdale, FL
10 stations · 2 days
150 divers
Rescue from day one
Our Advanced course now teaches rescue skills, too.
Most Advanced Open Water courses skip the rescue moves until you reach the Rescue cert. We do not. Our instructors teach a Rescue Diver adventure dive (self-rescue, panic-diver response, missing-diver protocols) as part of Advanced. PADI added it to the curriculum a couple of years ago. Almost no one teaches it. We do.
Why this matters →The Rescue Diver Ready calendar
It starts in Florida. It does not stay there.
The flagship Rescue Ready Weekend is in September at Tigertail Lake. From there it travels: a destination retreat at Golden Rock Resort, then the markets with the most divers in the country. Same format. Same standard. Sign-ups open as each date locks.
Rescue Ready Weekend
The flagship Rescue Diver certification at festival scale. 150 divers, ten stations, two days of real-scenario training. Walk in qualified, walk out the dive buddy your group counts on.
Rescue Diver Ready Refresher
One day of skills-sharpening for already-certified rescue divers who want to stay sharp. Same stations, same instructors, half the time commitment.
Golden Rock Resort Retreat
Advanced and Rescue at a partner resort in the Caribbean. Come for the week, take two days to train, dive the rest. Open Water needs more pool and class time than a retreat allows.
Rescue Ready Weekend · Texas
One of the three markets PADI flagged as having the most divers in the country. Same two-day festival format, local instructors, the full sponsor pavilion.
Rescue Ready Weekend · Colorado
High-altitude diving country with a serious community. The Rescue Diver Ready format comes to Colorado, the same standard that started in Florida.
Rescue Ready Weekend · Hawaii
Where a lot of divers earn their cert and a lot more should be rescue-ready. The festival format in the most iconic dive water in the United States.
Between the big events
Member dive shops keep their communities together year-round with their own events: lobster hunts, lionfish derbies, full-moon night dives, family days. The cert weekend is the anchor. The community is everything around it. That is how a one-time certification becomes a group of divers who actually keep diving together. And when you dive with a consistent group, you learn each other's habits and tells in the water, and that makes every dive safer.
The inaugural event · Florida 2026
Two days. 150 divers. The training that changes how you dive.
The big idea
Diving is the rare sport where being good means being useful. The Rescue Diver cert is the moment that changes. You stop diving as someone who needs to be looked after. You start diving as someone who looks after others. Rescue Diver Ready exists to make that moment accessible. To the mom who dives twice a year. To the retired teacher who wants to be useful. To the friend certified for twenty years who never re-took the class. Anyone who dives is welcome here. Bring your buddies.
Built by divers, for divers
“I created Rescue Diver Ready because basic certifications do not prepare you for the ‘what if.’ By the end of the weekend, you become the dive buddy everyone can count on. Every diver should be rescue-ready. It should be the standard, not the exception.”
Natalee van Staden
Founder & CEO · PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer
Natalee van Staden is a dive educator and founder of Rescue Diver Ready. Backed by a team that has trained more than 5,600 divers, she is on a mission to bring the dive community together and make rescue readiness the standard.
Meet the team →Meet the partners
Three brands that show up where it counts.
They do not just lend a logo. Each one plays a specific part in keeping you safe in the water, and together they work hand in hand.
Named partner position
PADI
Training Partner
The certification engine behind every cert at the event. eLearning included with every ticket. The global standard that gives Rescue Diver Ready its legitimacy.
Named partner position
DAN
Safety Partner
Divers Alert Network. Dive safety, dive medicine, accident research, and emergency assistance. The organization the whole industry calls first when something goes wrong.
Named partner position
Garmin
Technology Safety Partner
The dive computer in every diver's hand. Descent series, inReach satellite SOS, and the Descent buoy. The technology layer of modern diver safety.
More named positions opening for September 2026: Insurance · Travel · Hydration · Photography · Vehicle.
For dive shop owners
Run your own Rescue Ready Weekend. In your market.
Become an Ambassador dive shop. You get the format, the brand, the playbook, and the same PADI, DAN, and Garmin partner framework behind every event. We do the heavy lifting. You bring the divers and the venue. The community grows. So does your shop.
Become a dive shop ambassadorThe next dive is the one you will be ready for.
Reserve your spot at the inaugural event. Bring a buddy. Become the diver your group is glad showed up.