What is the PADI Advanced Open Water Course?

The Advanced Open Water Diver course (AOWD) is a scuba diving certification level provided by several diver training agencies. The most popular Advanced Open Water course in the world is run by PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors.

Exploration, Excitement & Experiences. This is what the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is all about. It’s designed for you, so you can go straight into it once you’ve completed your PADI Open Water Dive course. The Advanced Open Water course helps you increase your confidence and build your scuba diving skills to become a more comfortable diver. This is a great way to get more dives written in your logbook while continuing to learn under the supervision of your PADI Instructor.

Why Do A PADI Advanced Open Water course?

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course will give you the tools to become a more well-rounded diver and to vastly extend your range of dive sites. You will be able to extend your depth limits, get an introduction to the basic of underwater navigation and generally improve your dive skills under the superversion of an experienced PADI instructor. It is also a great opportunity for you to try something new underwater, such as, Digital Underwater Photography, Night Diving or any other activity that may interest you.

What Does the Advanced Course Entail?

  1. Some basic theory which can either be completed in a manual or online
  2. 5 Adventure Dives which must include a deep dive (between 18-30m) and a Navigation Dive

What You’ll Learn

The knowledge and skills you get in the Advanced Open Water course vary with your interest, the local diving environment, but include:

  • Practical aspects of deep diving
  • Physiological effects of deeper scuba diving
  • More ways to use your underwater compass
  • How to navigate using kick-cycles, visual landmarks and time
  • How to make better use of your dive computer or electronic Recreational Dive Planner
  • And much, much more depending on the Adventure Dives you choose

How Long Will It Take

The full PADI Advanced Open Water course can typically be completed in two days with a few hours in advance to study the manual.

The Scuba Gear You’ll Use

You’ll use all the basic scuba gear including an underwater compass. Depending on which three adventure dives you choose, you may also try out underwater photography equipment, drysuit, lift bags, a dive flag/float or other specialty gear.

The Learning Materials You Need

PADI’s Adventures in Diving Manual provides you with information on more than 16 types of specialty diving. You’ll use them as a guidbook to improve your diving skills and prepare for new experiences and adventures. For an additional fee you can sign up to the new e-learning course.

What Will You Get Out of It?

Once you’ve completed your Advanced Open Water Dive you will now be able to:

  • Understand how to navigate underwater
  • Be able to dive down to a maximum of 30 metres
You will also feel more comfortable in the water and most divers find their buoyancy control improves, particularly if they’ve done ‘Peak Performance Buoyancy’ as one of their 5 adventure dives.

What You’ll Need to Bring

  • Swim Suit
  • Towel
  • Academic Materials
  • Lunch/Money
  • Proof of your PADI Open Water Scuba Diver Certification
  • PADI froms including medical statement

In addition to the Deep and Navigation Dives, three elective Dives may be chosen from the following List (Subject to local conditions and dive site):- 

  • Fish ID
  • Boat diver
  • Digital Underwater Photographer
  • Drift diver
  • Enriched Air (requires an additional manual)
  • Multilevel & Computer
  • Night diver
  • Peak Performance Buoyancy
  • Search & Recovery
  • Surface Maker Buoyancy
  • Underwater Naturalist
  • Wreck

What’s next?

After you’ve completed the Advanced Open Water Diver course, you’ll probably want to take the whole specialty course and learn more such as: boat diving, deep diving, drift diving, drysuit diving, mulitilevel and computer diving, night diving, peak performance buoyancy, search and recovery, underwater nature study, underwater navigation, underwater photography, underwater video-grapgy and wreck diving.

If you want to take your scuba diving to the next level, then maybe you should look into doing the ‘Emergency First Response’ and Rescue Diver Course.

Where Can I Sign Up?

Oyster Diving offer one Advantage course each month. It takes one weekend to complete the 5 Adventures Dives which normally takes place at the National Diving and Activity Centre in Chepstow. This normally entails an overnight stay in one of their heated Wig Wams or a local hotel. For more details see Oyster Diving’s Advanced Open Water Page.

We Often recommend the following dives to our students:

  • Deep
  • Navigation
  • Drysuit (specialty)
  • Peak Performance Buoyancy
  • Wreck
Other dive centres around the world have their own itinerary and use different dive sites. To find your nearest PADI dive centre to your destination visit www.padi.com

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