The journey to becoming a scuba diver is filled with excitement, adventure, and, at first, a touch of trepidation. In just one day, you go from taking your first breath underwater to eagerly anticipating the next. But earning your Open Water Diver certification is just the beginning — the next step is to expand your skill set, gain confidence, and become an advanced diver.
But what does it mean to be an advanced scuba diver? Why should you want to be one? And what steps are necessary to get there? In this article, we’ll look at exactly what makes one diver more advanced than another, including how you can elevate your skills and unlock new opportunities — even from the comfort of your own home.
Keep reading to discover why and how you can become an advanced scuba diver.
What Is an Advanced Scuba Diver?
The term “advanced scuba diver” is most commonly associated with divers who have completed the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course. This course builds on the foundational skills learned in the PADI Open Water Diver course and serves as the ideal stepping stone for divers wanting to become more experienced.
However, being an advanced diver isn’t just about your level of certification; it also encompasses other factors, including your scuba skills, experience, and confidence in the water. Ultimately, an advanced diver can be someone who has honed essential scuba techniques, tackled more challenging dive conditions, and explored a variety of underwater environments.
And while not yet an expert, an advanced diver has moved beyond basic skills, refining abilities like buoyancy control, underwater navigation, and diving in currents — all of which contribute to a higher level of proficiency, even if they aren’t accompanied by formal certification.
Why Become an Advanced Diver?
Advancing your scuba training, whether through certification or experience, comes with plenty of benefits. From refining your skills to unlocking new dive sites, here are some of the best reasons to become an advanced diver.
Access More Dive Sites
The most common reason for divers to seek advancement is the access it offers to more challenging (and potentially rewarding) diving. Some of the world’s best dive sites require an Advanced Open Water Diver certification and a minimum number of logged dives. For example, a lot of dive sites featuring shipwrecks, caverns, caves and deeper diving have experience requirements. Similarly, most of the best liveaboards require a minimum number of logged dives and certain certification levels.
Dive Deeper
In addition to dive site access, experience diving deeper opens access to different sections of dive sites or new dive sites altogether. Advancing your deep diving with the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course or PADI Deep Diver Specialty course increases your recreational dive depth limits, maxing out at 40 meters (130 feet).
Improve Skills and Grow Confidence
By pursuing more challenging diving, your scuba diving skills improve and become more refined. Alongside this, your confidence in the underwater world grows, too. These elements make you a more competent, independent, and safer diver and allow you to enjoy your dives more.
An example of this could be mastering buoyancy and refining your finning technique, which results in improved air consumption. To learn more, check out the Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty course if this interests you.
Extend Bottom Times
One of the most worthwhile advanced scuba diver skills is diving using enriched air. This handy ability can extend your bottom time (which might mean longer dive times), shorten surface intervals and allow for more repetitive dives.
To dive with enriched air, check out the PADI Enriched Air (Nitrox) Diver Specialty course.
Progress Towards Becoming a Professional Diver
Whether you already know it or not, your future may include becoming a professional diver. That goal might include becoming a Divemaster, a PADI Instructor or a technical or commercial diver. Every step you take toward advancing your diving brings you closer to that goal.
Furthermore, even if you’re not sure about professional diving, gaining experience keeps the door open for opportunities in the future.
Ways To Become an Advanced Diver
Becoming an advanced diver means building on your knowledge, skills, and experience. Fortunately, there are many ways to achieve this, allowing you to progress as much or as little as you want. Here are some ways to advance your diving.
Dive More
The more you dive, the more comfortable and skilled you become underwater. Regular practice does make you a better diver. Whether this time allows you to refine techniques or to witness how dive site conditions can change from day to day (or even hour to hour), more diving results in more experience.
Dive in Different Conditions
When learning to dive for the first time, most divers start in calm, shallow waters. However, sticking to the same conditions can limit your skill expansion.
Challenging yourself by diving in different environments — such as in low visibility, in strong currents, in cold water, or using shore entries — provides invaluable experience that theory or diving in pristine conditions alone cannot teach. These skills make you a more capable and well-rounded diver.
Grow Your Knowledge
With more experience comes more knowledge. Whether it’s refining scuba diving techniques, identifying (and correctly observing) marine life or handling emergency situations, the more you know as a diver, the more advanced you become.
One easy way to enhance your expertise is by taking a PADI Specialty Diver course. These courses are a fun and easy way to increase your knowledge — both in and out of the water. Popular courses include:
- Boat Diver
- Deep Diver
- Digital Underwater Photographer
- Diver Propulsion Vehicle (DPV)
- Drift Diver
- Dry Suit Diver
- Enriched Air (Nitrox) Diver
- Night Diver
- Peak Performance Buoyancy
- Search and Recovery
- Underwater Navigator
- Wreck Diver
Additionally, some of these courses, such as Equipment Specialist, do not include an in-water element. This makes them a great way to build your knowledge at times when it’s not possible to get in the water.
Complete the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course
As mentioned above, the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is a great place to start if you’re looking to become a more advanced diver — especially if you’re already a certified PADI Open Water Diver.
This course consists of five “Adventure Dives.” Two of these dives are chosen for you: Deep (takes you to a max depth of 100 feet/30 meters) and Navigation (refines your underwater navigation skills).
You get to choose the remaining three Adventure Dives from the various PADI Specialty Diver courses. Each Adventure Dive can be used as a credit for the first dive of the corresponding Specialty Diver course. Widely available dive options include:
- Fish Identification
- Night
- Peak Performance Buoyancy
- Digital Underwater Photography
- Search & Recovery
- Underwater Naturalist
Each dive in the course expands your skills and confidence, making you a more capable diver.
Ready To Become an Advanced Diver?
Are you ready to take the next step in your scuba diving journey? Whether you choose to take your PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course or complete one of the numerous PADI Specialty Diver courses available, no time spent learning or practicing is ever wasted. Find your local PADI Dive Shop here or click below to get started online right now.
