This is a common follow up to the Open Water Course. The Advanced Open Water Course is an experience based, fun program where you gain a range of additional experience and skills under the direct guidance of a dive instructor.

What it is:
The Advanced Open Water course fine tunes your dive skills, equipment and theory to enable you to dive and explore deeper (up to 130 feet/40 meters) and more challenging environments of the underwater world. You will have new experiences, learn new skills, and expand your diving limits.  

Course Cost:
$175

This includes: educational materials, your dive training, certification card.

Other costs:
What’s not included is gas fills, food, lodging, dive site fees & transportation. Dive site fees range from $10.00-$75.00, depending on site and boats.

Gear you need to provide:
You will need to have your own basic gear: ie: mask, fins, booties, and snorkel. BC, regulator, wetsuit and weights are available for rental; reduced for alumni.

What the course entails:
Throughout your advanced open water course, you will do several specialty dives, in order to expand your diving knowledge, experience and limits.

How we teach it: 
There are two parts, the academics and the “wet” portion.

* The academics are done at home from your Advanced Open Water Manual, at your own pace. The manual is well structured, and a very informative learning tool, and an excellent alternative to multiple day or evening lectures.

As you work through the manual you will fill in your workbook , until you have completed all the material. There is no test for the Advanced Open Water course, but all the academics are enforced through detailed dive briefings and debriefings as you complete your “advanced dives”.

* For the wet training, you will do a series of specialty dives, aimed to introduced different types of diving.

Typically, the wet part takes place over 2-3 days. NAUI requires 6 dives. Students must do one deep dive (60-100 feet), a navigation dive, boat dive, drift dive and the other dives are chosen from night/limited visibility, fish identification, u/w photography, wreck, search and recovery, etc.
Some vital skills practiced and learned throughout the Advanced Open Water Course are:

* Leadership skills: you will be the leader on many of your advanced dives….a good dive leader makes a better diver.
* Towing, air sharing and basic rescue skills
* Physical and physiological aspects of deeper diving
* Understanding and application of good navigation skills
* Trim and good buoyancy
* Planning and conducting advanced dives
* Dealing with some scuba emergencies
* Better use of your dive computer/tables

Note: this is not a fully inclusive list, just an overview!

After successful completion of your academics, and the required number of dives, you will be awarded your certification as an Advanced Open Water Diver!

Age requirements: 
You must be at least 15 years old to receive an Advanced Open Water Diver certification; there is no maximum age. Those aged 10-14 can enroll in the Junior Advanced Open Water Diver certification, which means they must dive with a certified adult until their 15th birthday.

Minimum # of students per class: 
We need 2 or more people to make an Advanced Open Water Class; private, one-on-one classes can be organized for a separate fee.

How many people are in each class?
Our Advanced Open Water classes range in size, from 2-4 students, and usually some extra help too (Divemasters).

Schedule/Timing for Advanced Open Water Course: 
We train all the time, so we do weekday and weekend classes.

Call us or check out our Calendar for dates of upcoming courses.

How long does the course take?
Usually we complete the Advanced Open Water Course in 2-3 days.

Where we do our course:
We use at least two different dive sites when training Advanced Open Water Divers. The local springs (Alexander, Devils Den, Blue Springs, Rainbow River) are common options, but we also have to visit a “deep” site. We also like to visit the ocean for Advanced Open Water Classes.