Advanced Open Water Diver

Your scuba diving certification is for life! However, diving regularly is highly recommended to maintain your dive skills and knowledge. Try to avoid long periods without diving (6 months or longer). If you haven’t been scuba diving recently, you should take the PADI Reactivate Scuba Refresher.

You'll complete five adventure dives including the required Deep and Navigation adventure dives. The other three adventure dives are your choice. You could choose from Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night, Search & Recovery, and many more. After you sign up for the course we'll talk about what you are interested in and tailor your class to your interests.

Beginner: PADI Open Water Diver is the world’s most popular and widely-recognized scuba diving certification. This is where you will want to begin if you are new to diving. You can become a certified diver in as little as four days, or over the course of a year. With PADI Open Water Diver you can dive anywhere in the world up to 18m/60ft.

Specialty Courses or Continuing Education: Many divers take PADI Specialty Courses to advance their dive skills and become a better dive buddy, improve buoyancy and underwater navigation, dive deeper and extend bottom time, learn how to take underwater photos, explore wrecks and much more. Many PADI Specialty Courses require Advanced Open Water Diver Certification as a prerequisite. Explore all continuing education courses.

Professional: With a professional scuba certification you can travel the world and get paid to do what you love or share your dive knowledge locally. As a PADI Divemaster or PADI Instructor, you’ll learn how to lead dives and help others with their dive education. Explore PADI Pro courses.

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. I am not a physician 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).