+1
Photos
1/6
1/6
A full-day introductory scuba diving trip from Marmaris harbour — two dives at two protected bays, all equipment provided, English-speaking instructors with CMAS, PADI and NASDS certifications. No experience required. Hotel pickup included from £40.
Some years ago a couple from Newcastle joined us for what they thought would be a one-off Saturday — something they’d ticked off the holiday list and never repeat. The wife had been afraid of putting her face in the water her entire adult life. By the end of the first dive she’d hand-fed a small grouper at five metres. They came back two days later and dived again at the same bay.
Their second visit lasted three hours longer than the first. After the second dive, the husband sat on the deck with a coffee, looked at his wife, and said the words I hear from at least one guest every fortnight: “I think we’re going to do the course.”
The Marmaris scuba diving trip is not the loud, party day of your holiday. It’s the quiet one — the one that gets remembered when people are back in the office trying to explain why they want to use next year’s annual leave for a PADI Open Water week somewhere warm. Some of our regulars came in for their first Discover Scuba Diving here, certified the next summer, and now book us for advanced dives every season.
A full-day introductory dive trip — what PADI calls a Discover Scuba Diving experience — from Marmaris harbour to two protected bays on the Datça peninsula. Two dives across the day, lunch on board between them, hotel pickup included.
The first dive is shallow at five to six metres, designed as a confidence-builder where most guests spend their time watching fish and adjusting to breathing underwater. The second dive is deeper, around eight metres, and runs once the first one has settled everyone in. Both dives are accompanied — every diver descends and surfaces with a certified instructor at their side. Group sizes are kept small, normally six or seven divers on a boat that could legally carry many more.
For certified divers — locals and visitors — the same trip can include access to a Second World War-era wreck site at around 42 metres, depending on conditions, log book and certification level. That’s a separate technical discussion handled the morning of the trip, not a marketing claim.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Trip duration | About 7 hours door to door |
| Number of dives | 2 dives, around 20 minutes each |
| First dive depth | 5–6 metres (introductory) |
| Second dive depth | Approximately 8 metres |
| Group size | 6–7 divers on average |
| Instructor certifications | CMAS, PADI, NASDS |
| Languages | English, Turkish |
| Minimum diver age | 13 |
| Wetsuit | 3 mm provided |
| Water temperature | 20°C April / 25°C July–August / 23°C Sept–Oct |
| Season | April to end of October, daily |
| Suitable for | Healthy adults, teenagers 13+, certified divers |
| Not suitable for | Pregnant guests, ear/sinus issues, mobility limitations |
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 09:15 | Hotel pickup by minibus (Turunc and Hisaronu times vary) |
| 10:30 | Boarding at Marmaris harbour, settling on the dive deck |
| 11:00 | Pre-dive briefing — 15 to 20 minutes, English or Turkish |
| 11:30 | First dive at the introductory bay (5–6 m, ~20 min underwater) |
| 13:00 | Light lunch on board as we move to the second site |
| 14:30 | Second dive at the deeper bay (~8 m, ~20 min underwater) |
| 16:30 | Return cruise to Marmaris harbour |
| 17:00 | Minibus drop-off at your hotel |
The two-hour interval between dives is deliberate. Part of it is logistics — moving the boat to the second site — but most of it is physiology. The break gives your body proper time to off-gas nitrogen at the surface before the second descent, which is what makes a two-dive day safe rather than risky.
This section matters more than any other on the page. Please read it.
The trip carries three different kinds of guest, and the rules are different for each.
| Guest type | Can join the boat? | Can dive? |
|---|---|---|
| Adult (13+) in good general health | ✅ | ✅ Introductory dive (5–6 m and 8 m) |
| Certified diver (Open Water or higher) | ✅ | ✅ Deeper dives possible, wreck site by arrangement |
| Teenager aged 13–17 | ✅ | ✅ Introductory dive with parental consent |
| Child aged 10–12 | ✅ Companion only | ❌ Below minimum dive age (can swim/snorkel) |
| Infant or child under 10 | ✅ Free, on board | ❌ |
| Non-diving companion of any age | ✅ £20 boat fee | ❌ Snorkel, sunbathe, swim from boat |
| Pregnant guest | ❌ Not suitable | ❌ |
| Guest with ear or sinus issues | ❌ Not suitable | ❌ |
| Guest with mobility limitations | ❌ Not suitable | ❌ |
| Guest over 70 | ✅ With medical clearance | ✅ With medical clearance |
The minimum diving age of 13 is set by international safety standards, not by us. Children under 13 are very welcome on the boat as companions and can snorkel during the dive sessions, but they cannot scuba dive on this trip.
Diving puts your body under pressure that affects how nitrogen behaves in your blood. The following matters:
If any of this changes your mind, we’d rather you cancel before pickup than discover at the briefing that you shouldn’t be in the water. Cancellation is free at any point — nothing was paid, so nothing is refunded.
Officially we don’t require swimmers — but in practice we strongly prefer them. Diving and swimming are different skills, but being comfortable in deep water with your face in it is the foundation of both. If you’ve never put your head under water, a Discover Scuba Diving day is the wrong place to find out whether you can. We can run a short surface lesson before the dive for nervous non-swimmers, but please be honest with us at pickup — we’ve turned guests around at the harbour because they’d hidden serious water fear, and we’d rather have that conversation in your hotel reception than on the dive platform.
A sheltered cove on the Datça peninsula, west of Marmaris. The bay sits between low cliffs with a sandy bottom shelving gradually from three to about seven metres. Visibility is consistently good — usually 15 to 20 metres horizontally — and the seabed is busy. Bream, wrasse, parrotfish and the occasional octopus. On most dives the instructor will bring a small amount of feed which the local fish recognise — guests can hand-feed at five metres if they want to, which is many people’s favourite memory of the day.
This is where every first-timer starts. Twenty minutes underwater, hand to hand with your instructor, no time pressure.
Further along the coast, with a steeper bottom that drops to around 12 metres just off the boat. We typically dive to about eight metres here — enough to feel like a proper dive without taking introductory divers below the safe envelope for a first experience. Fish life is similar but the underwater landscape is more dramatic, with rock formations and small swim-throughs at the boundary of our depth limit.
Certified divers who want to go deeper can request it before we leave the harbour. With log book and certification confirmation, the dive plan changes — but that’s a conversation, not a default.
About 42 metres down, in waters we run for advanced and technical certified divers, there’s a Second World War-era wreck. We’re not selling the wreck on this page because it isn’t part of the introductory trip — but if you hold a PADI Advanced Open Water certification or higher and want to dive it during your stay, get in touch and we’ll arrange a separate trip. It is one of the most dived sites in the region for a reason.
Adult (13+, diver): £40 — Includes everything below. Child diver (13–17): £20 — Includes everything below; parental consent required. Non-diving companion (any age over 0): £20 — Boat trip, lunch, snorkel kit, no dive. Infant under 3, companion only: Free
| Included | Not included |
|---|---|
| Round-trip hotel transfer | Drinks (water available, soft drinks/alcohol extra) |
| Two scuba dives with certified instructor | Underwater photo/video service |
| Full equipment — mask, fins, wetsuit, BCD, regulator, tank, weights | Personal expenses |
| 15–20 minute pre-dive briefing in English or Turkish | Tips (entirely optional) |
| Light lunch on board between dives | PADI certification course (separate package) |
| Full safety insurance | Imported alcohol |
| Snorkel set on request for non-divers | |
| Certificate of participation (Discover Scuba Diving) |
No deposit, no card details, no online payment. You pay the driver in cash on the morning of the trip. Cancellation is free at any point before pickup.
Marmaris has many dive operators. The questions worth asking before you book any of them are these:
What certifications does the school hold? We hold three: CMAS (Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques — the international body that effectively wrote the rules for recreational diving in Europe), PADI (the world’s largest dive training organisation, the one most UK divers are certified through), and NASDS (National Association of Scuba Diving Schools). Each certification carries its own equipment standards, safety protocols and instructor requirements. Holding all three means our standards have to meet the strictest of the three at any given moment.
What are the instructors actually certified for? Our team is PADI Open Water Instructor and PADI Divemaster qualified, with minimum ten years of professional dive instruction experience each. All speak English. All speak Turkish. Most speak basic German or Russian as well.
Why does the group size matter? Recreational dive operators are legally allowed to take much larger groups than we do. We run six to seven divers per boat because at that ratio, an instructor can focus on each diver individually — particularly important for first-timers, where the difference between “fun day out” and “I never want to do that again” comes down to the instructor’s attention in the first five minutes underwater.
What does the price actually cover? At £40 for the full introductory day with everything included, we’re in line with the going rate in Marmaris. Operators charging significantly less are usually cutting somewhere — group size, equipment age, instructor ratio. Operators charging significantly more usually have a corporate booking layer between you and the boat. We’re the people on the boat.
You don’t need much.
A swimsuit. A towel — we don’t provide them. Comfortable clothes for the transfer and the deck time between dives. Sunglasses and sun cream for surface time (the wetsuit covers the rest). Cash for anything you want from the bar (water is provided, everything else is extra) and for tips if you’d like to leave one.
You can bring your own GoPro and use it freely on the dives. If you’d like our team to film or photograph the dives professionally, mention it at pickup and we’ll give you a price — it varies with how many dives, how much edited footage, and what format you want.
That’s it. We provide everything else — mask, fins, snorkel, wetsuit (3 mm, suitable for our season’s water temperatures), BCD, regulator, tank, weights. Nothing for you to source in advance.
Round-trip transfers are included from Marmaris centre, Siteler, Armutalan, Icmeler, Turunc and Hisaronu. Pickup times for Turunc and Hisaronu are typically earlier than 09:15 to account for the drive into Marmaris harbour — your exact time is confirmed on your booking voucher and by WhatsApp the evening before. If you’re staying outside these areas, get in touch and we’ll confirm whether we can reach you.
Do I need any diving experience? No. About 90% of guests on the boat have never dived before. The trip is built around Discover Scuba Diving — the standard introductory format used worldwide. A 15-to-20-minute briefing covers everything you need to know before the first dive.
How deep will I dive? Five to six metres on the first dive, around eight metres on the second. Both are well within the safe envelope for a first experience. Certified divers can go deeper by arrangement.
Will I get a certificate? Yes. A Discover Scuba Diving certificate of participation is issued at the end of the day. If you decide you want to become a certified diver, that certificate counts towards the practical hours of a full PADI Open Water course, which we also run as a separate multi-day package.
Do I have to be able to swim? We don’t require it, but we strongly prefer it. If you have serious water fear or have never put your head underwater, please let us know at pickup so we can decide together whether the trip is right for you.
What if I get scared once I’m in the water? The first dive is hand-to-hand with the instructor. You signal — there’s a clear underwater signal for “I want to surface” — and you surface. Nobody is held under or pressured to continue. Some guests do half the first dive and decide to enjoy the rest of the day on deck; that’s completely fine.
Can children dive? The minimum diving age is 13. Children aged 10–12 can come on the boat as companions and snorkel during the dive sessions, but cannot scuba dive on this trip.
Is there an upper age limit? No. We’ve had guests in their 70s do introductory dives. Over 70, we ask for medical clearance from a GP — same as you’d need before insurance covers any active holiday activity.
Can I dive if I’m pregnant? No. Diving is not safe during pregnancy at any stage, for reasons related to nitrogen physiology rather than effort. This is an absolute exclusion.
Can I dive if I’m taking medication? It depends on the medication. Tell us at pickup. Some common ones (paracetamol, most blood pressure medications) are fine. Some (sedatives, certain antihistamines, anything that affects consciousness or balance) are not. The pre-dive medical form covers the standard list.
Can I fly the same day or the day after? No flying within 24 hours of your last dive. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons. Plan the trip earlier in your holiday, not the day before you go home.
What’s the water temperature actually like? 20°C in April, 25°C in July and August, 23°C in September and October. We provide 3 mm wetsuits which are appropriate across the whole season — you won’t be cold.
Are there sharks? Mediterranean sharks exist but are rare, shy, and have never been a safety concern at our dive sites. You’re far more likely to see octopus, moray eels, parrotfish and shoals of bream.
Can I dive the wreck? Only with appropriate certification (PADI Advanced Open Water or equivalent) and confirmed by your log book. The wreck is at 42 metres — well beyond the recreational depth limit for an introductory dive. If you’re certified and interested, get in touch and we’ll arrange a separate trip.
Can I combine the scuba diving trip with other Marmaris tours? Yes — but mind the flight and surface intervals. Diving days work well alongside our Dalyan tour from Marmaris (no water entry, no issue), the Marmaris horse safari (also fine), or land-based excursions on the day before or after. Avoid scheduling diving immediately before a boat-party day or your flight home.
Select your date in the booking panel above. You’ll receive immediate confirmation by email, followed by a WhatsApp message the evening before pickup with your exact collection time and any final instructions. Pay the driver in cash on the morning of the trip — no card, no deposit, no app required.
If you’re planning multiple days of activities across your stay, send us the full list and we’ll build a schedule that respects the surface intervals, flight rules and your overall holiday rhythm. Most people who dive with us once want a second day in the water before they leave Marmaris — we can usually arrange that, often on the same dive sites with one of the same instructors.
This is the quiet trip. It isn’t the loudest day of your holiday. It is, more often than not, the one that gets brought up first when people are back home describing what they actually did.
Your basket is empty.
Browse our tours to add them here.
