Advanced Open Water

The Advanced Open Water extends your certified depth to 30 metres and introduces you to five specialties over five dives. Two are mandatory — deep diving and underwater navigation — and you choose the remaining three from a list that includes night diving, multi-level, drysuit, buoyancy, search and recovery, navigation, photography, fish identification, and video.

With wrecks at 20 metres, Chumphon Pinnacle dropping to 40, and Sail Rock as the playground, the Advanced dives here are done in genuinely interesting water. The deep dive specialty isn't a descent into blue nothingness — it's likely done at a real site with something to see at depth. The navigation dive gets done in conditions that teach you something rather than in a pool.

The prerequisite is an Open Water certification and a confirmed natural water dive history. If you completed your Open Water here, the transition is direct. If you come from another centre, the team will check your log and card before enrolling you.

Five dives spread across roughly two days, with the same equipment package and French-speaking instruction as the rest of the programme. The certification you finish with opens the door to dive sites and liveaboards that require an Advanced card, and the specialties completed count toward further ratings.