Level 2 · go deeper, dive more
Advanced Open Water course: five dives, new skills
The Advanced Open Water course is less about being "advanced" and more about trying new kinds of diving with an instructor. You make five dives, including a deep dive and a navigation dive, and come away trained to 30 m / 100 ft.
What the Advanced Open Water course is
The Advanced Open Water course is the second step on the scuba certification ladder. Instead of one long syllabus, it is built from five "adventure dives." Each one is a taste of a specialty: you get a short briefing, learn a few new skills, and make the dive with your instructor. Two dives are core to the course at most agencies, deep and underwater navigation, and you pick the other three.
There is very little classroom time. Each adventure dive has a short reading section, often done online, and a few knowledge review questions. The rest of the learning happens underwater.
Not just for experienced divers: you can start the Advanced Open Water course the day after you finish Open Water. Many people do them back to back on the same trip, and the extra five supervised dives are a good way to build confidence.
The two core dives
Deep dive
On the deep dive you go below 18 m / 60 ft, usually to between 18 and 30 metres (60 to 100 feet). You learn how depth affects your air supply, why your no-decompression time gets shorter, what nitrogen narcosis feels like and how to manage it, and how colors fade as you descend. Instructors often bring a simple task, such as reading a slate or doing a sum, to compare how quickly you think at depth and at the surface.
Underwater navigation dive
Navigation is one of the most useful skills in diving. You practice swimming a set distance by counting kick cycles, following a compass heading out and back, swimming a square pattern, and using natural features such as sand ripples, reef edges and the angle of the sun to keep your bearings. Good navigation means fewer long surface swims back to the boat.
Popular elective dives
Your choice of the other three dives depends on where you train and what interests you. Common options include:
| Adventure dive | What you learn |
|---|---|
| Peak performance buoyancy | Fine-tuning your weighting and trim so you hover without effort and use less air |
| Night | Using dive lights, communicating in the dark and finding your way back |
| Enriched air nitrox | Planning dives with higher-oxygen air for longer no-decompression times |
| Wreck | Diving around wrecks safely, from the outside, and spotting hazards |
| Drift | Going with the current, staying with your group and using a surface marker |
| Boat | Boat etiquette, entries and exits, and finding the boat at the end of the dive |
| Search and recovery | Search patterns and lifting objects with a lift bag |
| Fish identification | Recognizing common fish families and their behavior |
A good rule: pick buoyancy if you are not yet completely comfortable hovering, and pick whatever matches the diving you plan to do most. If you will dive from boats in current, boat and drift dives are more useful than fish identification.
Dives that count toward specialties
Each adventure dive usually counts as the first dive of the matching specialty course. If you enjoy the night dive, for example, you can complete the night diver specialty later with fewer additional dives.
What other agencies call it
Course names vary. PADI calls it Advanced Open Water Diver. SSI's equivalent five-dive program is Advanced Adventurer, while SSI awards its own Advanced Open Water Diver rating for completing several specialties and logging a set number of dives. NAUI's Advanced Scuba Diver includes navigation, night or limited visibility, and deep dives. All of them are widely accepted as the "next step" by dive operators. More on the differences in our PADI vs SSI vs NAUI comparison.
Is the Advanced Open Water course right for you?
It is a good fit if you want to dive deeper reefs and wrecks, if you are planning a trip where many sites start below 18 m / 60 ft, or if you simply want more guided dives before diving on your own with a buddy. It is not a fix for poor basic skills: if your core scuba skills still feel shaky, a refresher or a buoyancy course may help more.
After Advanced Open Water, the natural next course is Rescue Diver.
Want to look after your buddy too?
Rescue Diver is the course many divers call the most rewarding.