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Continuing-Education

Advanced Open Water Diver

eLearning covers self-study material. Your dive shop will charge training fees.
How to Gift This Course

About the Course

The Advanced Open Water Diver course is all about advancing your skills. You'll practice navigation and buoyancy, try deep diving and make three specialty dives of your choosing (it's like a specialty sampler platter). For every specialty dive you complete, you can earn credit toward PADI® specialty certifications.

Here are a few of the many options: Deep, Digital Underwater Photography, Dive Against Debris, Dry Suit, Enriched Air Nitrox, Fish Identification, Night, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search & Recovery, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Navigation, and Wreck Diver.

Check out the Frequently Asked Questions section for a complete list of specialty dive options.

Available Languages
Take This Course If You Want to
  • Gain more diving experience
  • Practice navigation
  • Sample different types of diving
Learn How to
  • Explore below 18m/60ft
  • Improve your buoyancy
  • Use a compass

How to Become an Advanced Open Water Diver

Learn about underwater navigation, deep diving and three types of specialty diving that interest you. After some skill practice with your instructor, you'll make five open water dives. There's no exam because this course is truly about having fun and gaining experience.
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Independent Study

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PADI eLearning®

Advanced Open Water Diver eLearning includes interactive lessons on 13 popular specialty dives: altitude, boat, digital underwater imaging, drift, dry suit, fish ID, night, buoyancy, search and recovery, underwater naturalist and wreck diving.

You'll study deep and navigation diving plus three specialties of your choosing.

  • eLearning time commitment: 6-8 hours
Instructor in pool
At The Dive Shop

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With Your Instructor

The course includes five dives: a deep dive below 18m/60f, a navigation dive, and three specialty dives. Gain experience, build confidence and discover your diving abilities.
  • Prerequisites: Open Water Diver/Junior Open Water Diver (or qualifying certification)
  • Total time commitment: 2-3 days
  • Minimum age: 12 years or older
  • Depth: The maximum depth depends on your age, but maximum depth is up to 30 metres/100 feet
 

How to Gift PADI eLearning Courses

You can now purchase PADI eLearning® and share it with the scuba diving gift recipient of your choice – it’s super easy. Share the fun in 3 simple steps:

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Purchase an eLearning course of your choice

Once you purchase your eLearning course, you will need to log-in to your PADI account to find the course.

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2
Go to your dashboard to find the purchased course

From your dashboard, find the course you’d like to gift under Student Details > Manage Your Course.

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Share the eLearning course via email!

To share the course, simply click on 'Share the course' and enter the email of the recipient to whom you want to gift the course.

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Gifting and Sharing Courses

Want to share the experience or give the gift of endless adventure? You can now purchase PADI eLearning® and share it with a recipient of your choice! Whether you are purchasing the course as a gift or need to assign the it to family members – it’s super easy.

  1. Once you purchase your eLearning course, you can log-in to your PADI account to access the course.
  2. From your Dashboard go to Student Details and Manage Your Courses.
  3. You can then decide to Start the eLearning yourself or ‘Share the course’.
  4. To share the course, simply click on ‘Share the Course’ and enter the email address of the recipient you wish to share the course with.
  5. The recipient will receive an email to create or log-in to their PADI Account to start the course.
 
Medical Requirements

Scuba diving requires a minimum level of health and fitness. Chronic health conditions, certain medications and/or recent surgery may require you to get written approval from a physician before diving.

Avoid disappointment, download and review the Diver Medical form to ensure you won’t need a physician’s approval to dive before enrolling in a scuba course. Instructors, divemasters and dive shop staff are not physicians and should not be asked for medical advice; only medical professionals can give medical clearance to dive.

If you (or your physician) have questions about medical fitness to dive, contact the experts at Divers Alert Network (DAN).

 
Prerequisites & Minimum Age

Course prerequisites: PADI Open Water Diver, Junior Open Water Diver, or qualifying entry-level certification.

The minimum age to start the Advanced Open Water Diver course is 12.

  • Divers 15 or older earn an Advanced Open Water Diver certification
  • Divers between the age of 12-14 earn a Junior Advanced Open Water
  • Diver certification Divers 10-11 can earn a Junior Adventure Diver certification. Upon turning 12, they can complete the deep dive and earn a Junior Advanced Open Water Diver certification.

Divers certified as Junior Advanced Open Water Divers automatically become Advanced Open Water Divers at age 15. Any replacement certification card or eCard purchased the day after the diver's 15th birthday will automatically show an Advanced Open Water Diver (not Jr. Advanced Open Water Diver) certification.

 
Choosing a Dive Shop

You can complete this course locally or while travelling.

There are three parts to certification: knowledge development, skill practice, and open water dives. You can complete all three parts locally, on holiday, or split between the two.

Choose a dive shop close to home to:

  • Support your local diving community
  • Meet dive buddies in your local area
  • Learn about your local ecosystem

Choose a dive shop away from home if you:

  • Plan to travel to a dive destination on holiday
  • Like to meet new people when travelling
  • Have the time to complete your course while on vacation
 
Frequently Asked Questions

Advanced Open Water Depth The Advanced Open Water Diver course includes one deep dive. How deep? The answer depends on your age, local regulations and dive site depths.

  • The maximum depth for divers 15 or older is 30 metres/100 feet
  • For divers 12-15 years old, the maximum depth is 21 metres/70 feet

The depths listed above are the maximum depth, your dive may be shallower. A deep dive is considered anything below 18 metres/60 feet. Put another way, a dive to just 19 metres/62 feet qualifies as a deep dive.

The PADI Advanced Open Water course is like a specialty sampler platter. Review the list below and contact your dive shop or instructor to confirm what they offer.

As an added bonus, each specialty dive may be credited toward the related specialty certification. For example, if you try a drysuit dive during your Advanced Open Water Diver course and like it, you'll already have one of the two dives required for the PADI Dry Suit Diver certification.

These specialty dives are available almost anywhere:

  • Deep
  • Fish Identification
  • Night
  • Peak Performance Buoyancy
  • Digital Underwater Imaging
  • Search & Recovery
  • Underwater Naturalist
  • Underwater Navigation

The specialty dives below may not be available in all locations. If you see something that interests you, contact your instructor or dive shop to confirm availability.

  • Adaptive Support
  • Altitude
  • Boat
  • Cavern
  • Delayed Surface Marker Buoy (DSMB)
  • Dive Against Debris
  • Diver Propulsion Vehicle (DPV)
  • Drift
  • Dry Suit
  • Enriched Air
  • Full Face Mask
  • Ice
  • Rebreather
  • Self-Reliant diving
  • Shark Conservation
  • Sidemount
  • Wreck
 
Other Costs & Equipment

This course requires both knowledge development and inwater training for certification. When you purchase a PADI eLearning course from our website, the cost covers the knowledge development portion only.

There is an additional cost to complete your certification with a PADI Instructor. The cost depends on class size, environment, and whether or not you need to rent equipment. Contact a PADI Dive Center or Resort for more information and pricing.

In addition to basic scuba gear, you will need a compass, dive knife/tool, dive computer and student slate. If you don't own these items, ask your dive shop about renting or purchasing these items.

You may also need specialized equipment for your specialty dives, such as a camera for underwater photography/videography. Your PADI Instructor will advise you about any specialized equipment you may need and how to get it.

 
Time Commitment

PADI eLearning: 6-8 hours

Entire course: 2-3 days

 
Available Languages

English, Espanol, Nederlands, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, 中文简体, 中文繁体, Português, Русский язык, اللغة العربية, Polski, Dansk, Bahasa Indonesia, Ελληνική γλώσσα, Čeština, Suomi, עִבְרִית, Magyar nyelv, Svenska, Norsk, ไทย, Tagalog, Türkçe.

For information on other available languages please contact your PADI Dive Center.

 
System Requirements

PADI's online courses are designed to work on the browsers listed below. For the best experience, make sure your browser is up-to-date.

  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Edge
  • Firefox

If you plan to be somewhere without internet access, use the PADI Training app to download course content and study offline. Content can be downloaded in small sections with a total file size of approximately 540 MB. When you get back online, upload your progress so you can resume your training right where you left off.

The PADI Training app is available for Android™ and Apple® iOS devices. For the ideal experience, devices should be no more than three models old and running with the most current OS (operating system).

 
After this course

During the Advanced Open Water course, you'll try different types of specialty diving and discover your diving aptitude and interests. As an added bonus, each dive you make may be credited toward the related specialty certification.

For example, if you try wreck diving during your Advanced Open Water course and like it, you can credit that dive towards Wreck Diver specialty certification.

Here are some other courses to consider:

  • If you like making multiple dives in one day, or taking multi-day dive trips, getting Enriched Air Nitrox certified will unlock longer, deeper dives and shorter surface intervals.
  • Want to improve your confidence and become a better dive buddy? Sign up for the PADI Rescue Diver course.
  • With each certification you earn, you'll be one step closer to earning the elite Master Scuba Diver™ rating.

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