Is Advanced Open Water Worth It? Required Dives and Best Electives

What is the Advanced Open Water course?

It is the second step after entry level: a short course of supervised dives that adds a deep dive, a navigation dive and a few new kinds of diving. More training articles sit under Training & Certification. At PADI and SSI the course is five open water dives. PADI describes it as having no exam and six to eight hours of eLearning, with the whole course taking two to three days.

The two required dives are the same at both agencies. The deep dive takes you below the Open Water limit, somewhere between 18 and 30 m (60 and 100 ft) at PADI. The navigation dive covers compass work and natural navigation. The other three are electives. Each one counts as the first dive of the matching specialty course, so a dry suit dive during the course is already one of the two dives needed for PADI's Dry Suit Diver certification.

To start, PADI asks only for an Open Water Diver or other qualifying entry-level certification. No extra logged dives are required. The theory is sold separately from the dives: PADI's US store lists the Advanced Open Water eLearning at US$240, and the dive centre prices the in-water part. The wider ladder of cards is set out in our certification levels explained post.

Advanced course requirements by agency

The name and the number of dives change from one agency to the next. So does how much experience you need before you start. NAUI adds a sixth dive and makes night or limited visibility diving compulsory. CMAS asks for ten logged dives after One Star before the Two Star course and sets eight open water dives of at least 20 minutes each. BSAC's Advanced Ocean Diver takes you to 30 m in two depth progression dives, first to 25 m and then to 30 m.

What does the card let you do?

Mainly, it opens dives between 18 and 30 m and the boats that run them. On the DECO 2000 table taught in CMAS courses, the no-decompression limit on air is 45 minutes at 18 m and 15 minutes at 30 m. That drop is what the deep dive is meant to prepare you for, and you can check any depth in our DECO 2000 table.

The card is often the minimum at remote, current-swept destinations, and it rarely stands alone. Galapagos Sky, a Galapagos liveaboard, lists Advanced Open Water or equivalent as its minimum certification and tells guests to aim for at least 40-50 logged dives. Galapagos Shark Diving says most of its Galapagos dives reach 20-25 m, so it requires certification to 30 m, at least 50 logged dives and one dive in the six months before boarding. For its Cocos Island trips the same company accepts Open Water with a Deep Diver specialty as a minimum, recommends 25 hours of diving and says most dives go deeper than 18 m.

Specialty cards can matter too. SSI notes that resort centres may require training such as Wreck Diving or Waves, Tides and Currents before they take you to specialised sites. Check the operator's requirements before you pick electives.

What are the common criticisms, and what do agencies say?

The obvious criticism: one deep dive with an instructor, and you are qualified to 30 m. Five dives can be done in a weekend, and PADI says the course has no exam. Other systems are slower. BSAC's Advanced Ocean Diver steps you to 25 m before 30 m and then limits you to no-stop dives accompanied by a Sports Diver or above. CMAS wants ten logged dives before Two Star training even begins.

Depth is where that matters. DAN writes that nitrogen narcosis on air or nitrox is generally felt at around 24-30 m (80-100 ft), and that effects vary between people and from dive to dive. Symptoms include impaired judgment, overconfidence and difficulty concentrating, and fatigue, cold water and alcohol raise the likelihood. That is exactly the band an Advanced diver is newly allowed into, with a single dive of experience there.

The agencies do not claim the card equals experience. NAUI says its graduates are competent to dive without supervision only where the environment, activities and equipment approximate those of training. The CMAS standard says the same about conditions similar to training. PADI calls the course a sampler that builds skills and confidence with an instructor beside you, and it offers a separate Deep Diver course with three more dives for depths to 40 m (130 ft). Treated as a licence to start building deep experience, and not as that experience, the course does what it claims.

Which elective dives should you choose?

Pick the three dives that match where you will dive next, because that is where the supervised practice pays off. PADI lists more than two dozen options. Some are offered almost anywhere (Night, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search & Recovery, Fish Identification), while others such as Drift, Wreck, Dry Suit and Delayed Surface Marker Buoy depend on the centre. Good choices for most new divers:

• Peak Performance Buoyancy, if you still rise and sink more than you want to. A PADI instructor writing on PADI's blog says she always recommends it to her students.
• Enriched Air, if your next trip has repeated dives in the 18-30 m range. Check the mix against your depth: for a 30 m deep dive at a ppO2 of 1.4, our nitrox calculator gives a best mix of 35%, EAN32 has a MOD of 33.7 m and EAN36 only 28.8 m.
• Drift, and the Delayed Surface Marker Buoy dive, if you are heading to current sites. Galapagos Sky describes blue-water ascents where you deploy an SMB so the boat can track you, and lists Drift Diver among the courses it recommends.
• Night, if your first night dive would otherwise be on holiday with no instructor.
• Dry Suit, if you will dive in cold water at home. It gives you the first of the two dives for the specialty.
• Wreck, if wrecks are the reason you dive. It starts the Wreck Diver specialty, which some centres ask for before specialised sites.

When should you take Advanced Open Water?

When your basic skills no longer take all your attention, and you have a reason to go deeper. PADI and SSI let you start straight after Open Water, and PADI says many divers do. CMAS builds a gap in with its ten-dive rule. Neither approach is wrong. What matters is what you get out of the five dives.

Taking it straight away works if you are already comfortable descending, holding buoyancy and clearing your mask, and you want your next dives in new conditions to be supervised. Waiting a dozen dives works if your first dives after certification still felt busy. In that case the course becomes a place to refine skills, not to catch up on them.

Timing it before a trip is sensible, but not on the trip itself if you can avoid it. Galapagos Sky tells Open Water divers to complete Advanced and Nitrox training at home, in conditions that challenge them, so they arrive with proven skills. Dives done at home also go into the logbook that operators ask to see. Switching agencies is not a barrier either: PADI accepts a qualifying entry-level card from another organisation, and our PADI vs SSI vs CMAS comparison covers how the systems relate.

What comes after it?

Specialties and rescue training. The electives you took already count toward their specialties. SSI issues free recognition cards as you add training and dives: Specialty Diver after 2 specialty programs and 12 logged dives, Advanced Specialty Diver after 4 and 24, and Master Diver after 3 specialties plus Diver Stress & Rescue and Deep Diving, with 50 logged dives.

BSAC takes a different route. Its Sports Diver grade covers rescue skills, including self-rescue and recovering an unresponsive diver, and depth progression in 5 m steps to 40 m, with decompression stops if needed. CMAS strongly recommends that Two Star divers train in oxygen administration and CPR.