After you become an Open Water Diver, you’ll be set to explore the underwater world with confidence. But, for many, a natural next step in your journey as a diver (after completing a bunch of fun dives, of course), is to get certified as an Advanced Open Water Diver. The certification lets you really perfect your skills, and is a great way to start exploring those Specialty Courses we’ve all been so curious about.
On a trip to the Canary Islands (Fuerteventura, to be precise), I decided to jump in and get my Advanced certification myself, and in this post I share what the experience was like!
The Theory
Like with the Open Water Diver course, there is a theoretical part for the Advanced certification too. This allows you to take your knowledge and understanding of diving to another level, and yes, there are tests where your instructor takes you through each answer and the logic behind them. My instructor was great, and we actually did our walkthrough of everything right by the dive site, in the Fuerteventura sun. This ensured that I was completely up to speed about everything, and that the knowledge was fresh in my mind for each dive.
Specialties & Dive Sites
You’ll do a total of five specialty dives for your Advanced certification. Two of these are mandatory; Underwater Navigator and Deep Diver, whilst the other three are yours to choose! First, I chose the Peak Performance Buoyancy adventure dive, because buoyancy is something I always think I can improve on. For this dive, my instructor brought a large square frame, tied to an anchor, for us to practice with! I had so much fun navigating through it from different angles without touching the edges for this dive.
For the Deep Diver specialty, my instructor had some fun challenges for me at the bottom of the dive site, to really illustrate how your body and brain is affected by the pressure.
I also chose the Night Diver adventure dive and the Digital Underwater Photographer adventure dive for my Advanced certification. I have written more about the night dive and whether you should put it on your bucket list (or not) in this article. As a blogger, the underwater photography dive was incredibly helpful, and not only did I learn a lot, but my instructor also took some great photos of me diving!
We stuck to two dive sites for the certification. Both were shore dives, which is always convenient, and my instructor naturally knew them like his own back pocket.
After the Certification
I was so thrilled with completing my Advanced certification and am happy I chose to do it in the Canary Islands. Afterwards, more advanced dive sites were available to me, such as “The Elevator” in Gran Canaria, which I have written about in this article.
About the Author:
Lisa Stentvedt is a travel blogger and writer from Norway. Follow her adventures on her blog Fjords and Beaches and on Instagram.
