PADI Advanced Open Water

This course can be taken after completing the PADI Open Water Diver certification. It’s titled PADI Advanced Open Water Diver because it advances your diving knowledge & skills.

Description

When you took your Open Water Diver Course, everything during the course focused on getting you breathing underwater and how to be a safe diver. The PADI Advanced Open Water course puts the emphasis on different types of diving and all the fun things you can do while diving. You don’t have to be “advanced” to take it – it’s designed to advance your diving skills, so you can start right after earning your PADI Open Water Diver certification. The course helps build confidence and expand your scuba skills through different Adventure Dives. You try out different specialties while gaining experience under the supervision of your Low Key Watersports PADI Instructor. You log dives and develop capabilities as you find new ways to have fun diving.

Get credit! Each Adventure Dive may credit toward the first dive of the corresponding PADI Specialty Diver Course. If you’ve already taken a specialty diver course, ask your Low Key Watersports instructor if you’ve earned credit for an Adventure Dive.

PADI (Junior) Open Water Divers who are at least 12 years old are ready to step up and enroll in an Advanced Open Water Diver course. Young divers may only participate in certain Adventures Dives – check with your PADI Instructor.

If you’re already an Adventure Diver, you only need to complete two more Adventure Dives to earn the Advanced Open Water Diver certification.

Academics

After completing the online portion of the course, you will plan your learning path with your instructor by choosing from a long list of Adventure Dives. PADI requires 2 dives – Deep and Underwater Navigation, and we also require Peak Performance Buoyancy – you will choose the other two, 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 chosen from the following specialty areas:

• Boat diving
• Delayed Surface Marker Buoy
• Digital Underwater Photography
• Fish Identification
• Exploring Wrecks and many more

You may be able to get college credit for the Advanced Open Water Diver course, just ask us to send you the form.

Equipment

Beyond using basic scuba equipment, you’ll need a compass and dive knife or dive tool. A dive computer or timing device and eRDP ml/RDP Table.

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 (yes, we can teach that here in St. John, but you would need to bring your own dry suit) or a lift-bag for lifting heavy objects during the Search and Recovery Adventure Dive. Some of the equipment is provided and some you may need to have to complete the dive. Your PADI Instructor will explain the equipment that you need and may suggest additional gear, such as a dive light for night diving or a lift bag for search and recovery diving.

Sign up for Advanced Open Water Diver Online – PADI’s eLearning option – to get started immediately. The web-based system lets you learn about 14 of the most popular Adventures Dives – including the required Deep and Underwater Navigation Adventure Dives, plus Altitude, Boat Diving, Digital Underwater Imaging, Drift Diving, Dry Suit Diving, Fish Identification, Night Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Naturalist and Wreck Adventure Dives. You study at your own pace through an easy-to-use, interactive program.