PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course

PADI Advanced Course Dates 2024

June 14 – 16  Kingston Dive Weekend

July 5 – 7  Tobermory Dive Extravaganza

August 16 – 18  Brockville Dive Bonanza

September 21- 23 Tobermory Dive Extravaganza II

Oct 25 – Nov 1 Blackbeards, Bahamas

What will you learn?

Our PADI Advanced Open Water Course is a great “next step” in your diving career enroute to bigger and better things.  You’ll learn more modern skills in a better equipment configuration as we introduce you to a number or new and exciting environments. Take Your Advanced as a Stand Alone Class with us or combine it with our Master Diver Bundle.

Dive the amazing Tiller Wreck in Lake Ontario

Designed as the next component to your dive education, new or experienced divers will learn a multitude of new diving skills, styles of diving and dives in different types of diving environments under the supervision of one of our PADI Instructors.

As our Open Water Course taught you a more progressive way to streamline you and your equipment, we take those basic concepts and improve your fin techniques, balance you more in the water, reduce the overall amount of excess weight from your bcd/weight system, introduce you to a new fin kicks, improve your trim, buoyancy, buddy awareness and air management techniques using the “rule of thirds” and even let you benefit from the warmth and comfort of a drysuit for all training dives.

Many “non certified” Dan’s divers take this course and quickly see the difference in our awesome dive training too, so don’t be intimidated we’ll improve your diving beyond your wildest expectations., so You don’t have to have had any previous training with us, although we may ask you to do a checkout dive with us to see where you’re at in your diving before doing any training dives just to give us an idea of where you’re at skill wise.

Divers will be conducting a dive in Peak Performance Buoyancy, which is your most important dive in the Advanced Course because it fixes many of the typical equipment and dive related problems that often make new divers struggle.  This helps move safely forward in your diving with less effort and more awareness.

Generally speaking the next dive would be Underwater Navigation which is a core dive. You will learn how to use your compass for additional navigational challenges, as well as kick to distance ratios while improving your natural navigation skills.

The next diver of Your PADI Advanced Open Water Course can be an elective dive. Some of our most popular electives are Diver Propulsion Vehicle (DPV), Night Dive, Search and Recovery, Drift Dive, Underwater Photography or Boat Dive.  Of course diving Dry is likely our most popular now and you’ll do an orientation in shallow water prior to Peak Buoyancy to learn how to use a drysuit and you can combine this course with your PADI Drysuit Diver Speciality rating also.

After you’ve complete 4 dives your next dives are generally the Deep Dives, which is the most serious dives. We expect you to be able to control your buoyancy without any silt or environmental impact, while maintaining your air supply following safe air usage guidelines surfacing with 1/3 of your air supply as a gas reserve.  Diving dry will keep you warmer, improving air consumption and attentiveness at depth.  Divers must ascend and descend at a controlled rate including a mandatory safety stop for a minimum of 3 minutes at a depth of 15 feet.

If you exceed your maximum dive plan depth or violate thirds you will not pass this skills dive and have to re-do it.

Your Final dive for your PADI Advanced Open Water Course could be a wreck dive, where you’ll learn about the features of the shipwreck, hazards, benefits, additional equipment used to engage in shipwrecks and much more.  Divers can also choose to do a “boat dive”or something different all together.  Please ask us for recommendations, but regardless of what we do (deep or wreck)  your final dive will see you hovering motionless on a safety stop like you’ve been doing it for years.

After you’ve completed your Advanced Open Water Course, we recommend you continue through either via specialties and of course take the PADI Rescue Diver Course, which is the minimum certification level we would suggest you achieve in diving.


Training Agency:

PADI

A classroom session (while not a normal requirement of this course) will take place prior to deep diving. In this session, we ensure that there is a thorough understanding of the features, benefits and safety aspects of deep and wreck diving are covered. Divers will learn what advanced diving is all about and what’s required to be an Advanced Open Water Diver.

Additional training and information is conducted on the dive site prior to the dive.

Prerequisites:

Open Water Diver
Minimum Age 15

Costs:

PADI Advanced Open Water Course with PADI Drysuit Certification cost is only $550+HST  including all required materials for both the PADI Advanced Open Water & Drysuit Diver Specialty Courses, as well as PADI certification card fees.  Divers wishing to dive colder and less comfortably can choose to complete Advanced Open Water dive checkouts in a traditional 7mm wetsuit at a discounted rate of only $395+HST.

Any park entry fees, parking, boat charters are all additional expenses unless otherwise specified.  If you’re joining  us for your Advanced course on a formal DDS Store Trip, the cost of the trip will most times include all boat diving fees, lodging and food.

The course cost and rental costs are never included in the trip cost unless specifically specified.

What gear will you need?

All of our PADI training requires the use of a dive computer, so you’ll need to make sure you have one as part of either your personal dive kit or as part of your scuba equipment rental package.

Any course above the Open Water Course rentals are not included.  This is because many open water divers have began to purchase some or all of their scuba equipment at this point, so you can rent additional pieces of gear as appropriate.

Students will also need a minimum of 2 lights (1 primary, 1 backup) if conducting a night dive. One light would suffice on a daytime deep dive. You’ll also need a surface marker buoy or SMB (We recommend one that can be sent up from depth on a spool of line).

DIVE DRY!

Drysuits will be provided as part of the PADI Advanced Open Water Course with appropriate undergarments and fins.

Experience diving smarter, not harder! Dry is more comfortable, less effort, warmer and extends your dive season!

 

For students wishing to be more comfortable during open water training dives, students can take advantage of diving dry in a DUI drysuit and experience how much more fun and enjoyable drysuit diving is with increased mobility, more precision buoyancy control, faster heat rejuvenation and less post dive fatigue, which are just some of the  many benefits of diving drysuit vs. wetsuit.

Students can choose to dive a wetsuit as well at a lesser cost.

Where do I go from here?

Here are some popular courses divers are often interested in taking after Advanced Open Water.

  • Enriched Air Nitrox
  • Drysuit Diver
  • NTEC
  • Deep Diver
  • Wreck Diver
  • Rescue Diver
  • Intro to Tech