The Padi Advanced Open Water Course is the second level of open water qualification after your Padi Open water certificate and a prerequiste to gaining your Rescue Diver Certification.
The Advanced open water really opens up your options when you are learning to dive.
What is the Advantage of your Advanced Open Water Certification?
Well it qualifies you to dive deeper (up to a depth of 30 metres, as opposed to just 18 metres (which is the limit for the open water qualification).
Once you are a diver you will soon realize that you want to go deeper to see more things that live a little deeper, there is nothing more frustrating than seeing a whale shark disappear from view because you can not chase it into the depths.
It is not just about depth though, you advanced also improves your diving skills, which is vital to improve things like your buoyancy (consider the impact on the coral of hundreds of out of control, novice divers banging their tanks on the sea bed an you get the idea) and navigation.
The advance open water is made up of 5 specialty dives so you choose what you want to specialize in but you must also complete 2 modules: Navigation underwater and Deep Specialty. The Deep specialty is important because the risks of diving in particular the dangers associated with Nitrogen narcosis become a lot more serious below 18 metres.
Once these two modules are out of the way you can choose to complete 3 of the following (some dive locations exclude some options, for example diving in Thailand you will not use a dry suit):
- Altitude diving
- AWARE-fish identification
- Boat diving
- Diver propulsion vehicle use
- Drift diving
- Dry suit diving,
- Multilevel and computer diving
- Night diving
- Peak performance buoyancy,
- Search and recovery
- Underwater nature study
- Underwater photography
- Underwater videography
- Wreck diving
