Advanced Open Water Diver Course

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is designed to improve your underwater knowledge and skills. You can enroll immediately after earning your PADI Open Water Diver certification regardless of your skill level. The course helps you build confidence in navigation, fine-tune buoyancy skills and introduces you to different diving activities such as wreck diving, night diving or underwater imaging. After completing the reading and knowledge reviews in your PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Manual, you’ll make five Adventure Dives: a deep dive (beyond 18m/60F), a navigation dive, and three additional Adventure Dives of your choice to earn your certification.

You’ll plan your learning path with your instructor by choosing from a long list of Adventure Dives. There are two required dives – Deep and Underwater Navigation – and you choose the other three, for a total of five dives.  
During the Deep Adventure Dive, you learn how to plan dives to deal with the physiological effects and challenges of deeper scuba diving. The Underwater Navigation Adventure Dive refines your compass navigation skills and helps you better navigate using kick-cycles, visual landmarks and time.

The other knowledge and skills you get vary with your interest and the adventures you have – photography, buoyancy control, fish identification, exploring wrecks and many more.

You may be able to get college credit for the Advanced Open Water Diver course.

Beyond using basic scuba equipment, you’ll need a compass and dive knife or dive tool. You’ll also use specialized gear depending on the Adventure Dives you choose. For example, you’d obviously use a dry suit for the Dry Suit Adventure Dive or a sidemount configuration during the Sidemount Adventure Dive. Your PADI Instructor will explain the equipment that you need and may suggest additional gear, such as dive light for night diving or lift bag for search and recovery diving.

You can read the Advanced Open Water Diver manual and watch the Advanced Open Water Diver video (a book and DVD package). Stop by your local PADI Dive Center and Resort to enroll in the course, get your materials and start learning. Your PADI Instructor will meet with you to schedule knowledge review sessions along with your Adventure Dives.

FULL COURSE  
(Must purchase AOW Crew Pack or online elearning through PADI)