PADI Courses

Advanced Openwater Diver

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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.

Course Introduction

That’s what the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is all about. You don’t have to be “advanced” to take it – it’s designed to advanceyour diving, 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 PADI Instructor. You log dives and develop capabilities as you find new ways to have fun scuba diving.

Key Standards

Prerequisite
Prerequsite Certification
  • Be certified as a PADI (Junior) Open Water Diver or have a qualifying certification from another training organization.
    (This is defined as proof of an entry-level scuba certification with a minimum of four open water training dives.)
Minimum Age
  • Be at least 10 years of age to participate in the following Adventure Dives:
    AWARE – Fish Identification, Boat Diver, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Navigation and Underwater Photography.
  • Be 12 years of age or older to participate in all other Adventure Dives except the Enriched Air Adventure Dive.
  • Be at 15 years of age to participate in the Enriched Air Adventure Dive.Note: 10 and 11-year-old divers may earn a Junior Adventure Diver certification. Divers who are 12-14 years old may obtain Junior Adventure Diver or Junior Advanced Open Water Diver certifications.(Note: 10 and 11-year-old divers may earn a Junior Adventure Diver certification. Divers who are 12-14 years old may obtain Junior Adventure Diver or Junior Advanced Open Water Diver certifications.)
Recommended Course Hours
  • Adventure Diver: 9hrs
  • Advanced Open Water Diver: 15 hours
Minimum open water training
  • 3 for Adventure Dives.
  • 5 Adventure Dives including Deep and Underwater Navigation Dives
Paperwork and Administration

The following list identifies all the required and recommended paperwork for the Open Water Diver and Scuba Diver courses.

  • Liability Release and Assumption of Risk Agreement (Adventures in Diving Program and Correlating Specialty Diver Programs) must be signed by the student at the start of the course.
  • Medical Statement and Divers Medical Questionnaire signed by the student. If the student checks “yes” to any item on the statement, a physician must approve the student for diving before they participate in any inwater training by signing the complete Medical Statement, which you keep in the student’s file.
  • Standard Safe Diving Practices Statement of Understanding signed by the student.
  • Student divers must complete and hand in the appropriate Knowledge Review before they receive credit for an Adventure Dive. The student diver must either complete all Knowledge Review questions correctly or you must thoroughly review each missed item until the diver understands the information.
Certification Procedures Any Teaching status PADI Instructor may conduct the PADI Adventures in Diving program and certify PADI Adventure Divers and PADI Advanced Open Water Divers. The certifying instructor obtains certifications by submitting completed and signed PICs to the appropriate PADI Office.
The instructor who conducts the third Adventure Dive with a student diver is the certifying instructor for the Adventure Diver rating. The instructor who conducts the fifth (or final) dive with a student diver is the certifying instructor for the Advanced Open Water Diver rating. The certifying instructor must verify that all course performance requirements have been satisfactorily completed.Note: If a student diver completes three Adventure Dives, thus meeting the requirement for Adventure Diver, but decides to immediately complete the requirements for Advanced Open Water Diver, only one PIC for Advanced Open Water is required for Diver certification – unless the diver requests both certifications.

 

Course Overview

This course consists of 5 open-training dives, two are Core (required) Dives and three are Elective Dives.

Core Dives orientate the students to the fundamentals of advanced diving and include the following:

  • Underwater Navigation
  • Deep Diving

Elective Dives is a choice of three dives from the following:

  • Boat Diving
  • Drift Diving
  • Multilevel Diving
  • Night Diving
  • Peak Performance Buoyancy
  • Search and Recovery Diving
  • Underwater Naturalist
  • Underwater Photography
  • Underwater Videography
  • Wreck Diving

The availability of the different Elective Dives are dependent upon logistic constraints and dive locations. Please check with your instructor to find the dives that best suit you.

Equipment

During open water training, each student diver must be equipped with a mask, fins, snorkel, appropriate exposure protection, dive knife/tool, scuba tank, buoyancy control device with low-pressure inflator, weight system, regulator, alternate air source, submersible pressure gauge, depth gauge, timing device and/or dive computer, compass and Recreational Dive Planner (table or The Wheel.)

For the Night Dive, student divers must each have an underwater light and whistle. A backup underwater light and marker/chemical lights are recommended.

Program Option

The Adventures in Diving program offers two certification options. A diver who completes any three Adventure Dives earns the PADI Adventure Diver rating. A diver who completes the Deep Dive, the Underwater Navigation Dive and three additional Adventure Dives (five total) earns the Advanced Open Water Diver certification.

Adventures in Diving Program and Specialty Diver Course Relationship.

Each Adventure Dive may be counted as the first dive of the related PADI Specialty Diver course. Similarly, Dive 1 of a PADI Specialty Diver course may be counted toward Adventures in Diving program dive requirements.

To allow credit for a particular dive, the student diver must successfully completed the dive performance requirements and completed the associated Knowledge Review.

Dive documentation may include an Adventure Dive/Specialty Dive Training Record signed by a PADI Instructor in the diver’s log book. A completed and signed Knowledge Review from the Adventures in Diving manual or Multimedia, related PADI Specialty Diver manual, or a copy from the PADI Specialty Diver Course Instructor Outline may be accepted as proof of knowledge development.

You don’t have to be “advanced” to take it – it’s designed to advanceyour diving, 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.

BAHAMAN HASHIM

Founder | PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT# 476687), Dive Buddy Malaysia