As a certified diver you will already have discovered that diving is great fun, exciting and adventurous. You will also know that there is much more enjoyment to be had from diving in new locations with new dive buddies. At Puffin Dive Centre the PADI ADVANCED OPEN WATER Programme does all that and more for you, increasing your experience, developing your underwater skills and gives you a taste of Specialty diving activities.
During your course you will have opportunities to concentrate on the growth of your “basic” skills plus additional dive essential skills such as buoyancy, navigation and equipment configuration – equipment review may indicate areas of equipment that may suit you and your future diving.
It may be the first time you have used a surface marker buoy – or the first time you have dived with a torch. What ever the dive type you experience the instructor will guide you through the necessary development and practices to help these skills become second nature.
You can complete the ADVANCED OPEN WATER course as quickly as one weekend. The emphasis during this course is placed on practical application rather than long classroom based presentations. We still need a classroom to review the knowledge reviews and apply pre and post dive briefings and discussions.
Most students prefer to complete their knowledge reviews prior to the start of the course. Either way these will be reviewed and corrected as appropriate by your course instructor.
In addition to the information presented in the course manual your instructor will take you through a course dive briefing and a dive site familiarity briefing incorporating specific local protocol and examples.
During the course you will make two ‘core’ dives. A navigation dive to expand on your underwater navigation skills, which was only touched upon during your OPEN WATER course. This part of the course will start with a thorough dive site plan explaining the course and route to follow, moving then in to the car park where you will get to practice land navigation with your underwater compass. This will make you familiar with bearings, straight lining, turns and contour following and much more.
You will then make the dive following a careful plan and if successfully executed return to your start position. Easier than it sounds!
In the deep dive portion you will learn about the considerations of planning deep dives and plan and carry out your own deep dive with your Instructor. On the dive you will be tested for Nitrogen Narcosis with a simple test or two!
Added to this you then have the chance to choose further dives some of which are Boat, Drift, Drysuit, Wreck, Multilevel, Search/Recovery, U/W Naturalist and U/W Photographer and more.
Sometimes divers take an ADVANCED OPEN WATER course to improve their general dive conduct and skills and have an instructor to guide them. Whilst the advanced course will concentrate on safety and practice it is sometimes not practical to use the elective dives as teaching areas for instance a drysuit elective is very useful but not a substitute for a drysuit specialty.
Low course ratios in the water are assured and mean you are always in good safe hands. Dive sites are chosen in accordance with your previous experience and on site weather conditions. With the emphasis being on an enjoyable and comfortable learning environment and experience building through the instruction, dives and academic knowledge sessions you will know you are in for a good time.
Experience is based on many factors including the number of dives and the type of dives. Although it is always possible to teach yourself it is a lot easier and certainly more enjoyable to learn in a structured way. Often divers who have been taught professionally are capable and very confident – this in turn opens up many more diving opportunities to experience the underwater world.
We provide tuition at your required level and several options exist to suit your personal needs. Look at the contents and decide the best type of Course for you.