PADI Advanced Open Water Diver – Expand Your Skills and Explore Deeper Diving Adventures

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is the perfect next step after earning your Open Water certification. This training helps you build confidence, improve your diving abilities, and experience new types of underwater adventure—all under the guidance of a professional instructor. Instead of classroom sessions, you’ll focus on real diving while completing fun and educational “Adventure Dives” that enhance your skills and introduce exciting new environments.

You’ll complete two required dives—Deep and Underwater Navigation—to strengthen essential safety skills. Then you’ll choose three additional adventure dives based on your interests, such as Night Diving, Wreck Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search & Recovery, or Underwater Photography. This flexibility lets you tailor the course to your goals, whether you’re preparing for travel, diving locally, or pursuing more advanced certifications.

Why Take the Advanced Open Water Course?

• Increase your certified depth limit to 100 ft / 30 m
• Improve buoyancy, trim, and underwater awareness
• Learn essential navigation and dive-planning skills
• Explore new environments like wrecks, night diving, or deeper sites
• Build confidence and comfort in a wide range of conditions
• Seamless progression toward Rescue Diver or specialty certifications

What You’ll Learn

• Deep diving procedures and gas management
• Precision compass navigation and natural navigation skills
• Specialty-style skills such as buoyancy control, limited visibility diving, and more
• How to assess dive conditions and make informed decisions underwater
• Enhanced buddy skills and situational awareness

Course Includes

• PADI Advanced Open Water eLearning
• 5 instructor-guided adventure dives
• PADI certification card upon completion

Students are responsible for quarry entry fees, air fills, and all equipment required. We have a rental package available at a student discount HERE.

Take your diving to the next level with Southern Maryland Divers—gain confidence, explore deeper sites, and build the skills that make every dive more rewarding.