Training guide
Advanced Open Water training guide
Five ocean dives, one focused weekend, and a big step up from Open Water. This guide explains the Advanced Open Water (5 Dives) program. Schedules, tuition, and enrollment are on the live Advanced course page.
Training guide
What is Advanced Open Water?
Advanced Open Water is the next step after your entry level certification. You are already a diver. This course stretches your comfort zone with new skills, new sites, and more independence underwater.
With Scuba Life, the Advanced Open Water (5 Dives) program is built around one weekend of training. You complete five ocean dives that focus on exploration, underwater navigation, and a specialty dive you and your instructor choose.
When you finish, you are set up for deeper recreational dives, bigger trips, and the path toward Rescue Diver and professional level training.
Training guide
What you gain from the course
Confidence is the big one. Open Water teaches you to survive. Advanced teaches you to enjoy more varied diving with better awareness and control.
You work on navigation so you are not lost when visibility drops or the reef all looks the same. You try a specialty such as peak performance buoyancy, search and recovery, or another option your instructor offers.
Certified Advanced divers are the ones ready for Catalina weekends, boat trips, and liveaboard style travel where conditions and depth ask more of you than a shallow checkout dive.
Training guide
What the course includes
Instructor coaching in advanced dive skills. You get personal feedback in the water so habits improve, not just boxes checked.
Self study course materials plus instructor review. Learn at your own pace, then show up ready so water days are about doing, not cramming.
Five ocean dives at Catalina's Casino Point Dive Park. That is where you put skills into action in a famous SoCal dive location.
Official PADI Advanced Open Water certification. Paperwork and your globally recognized card are handled through the shop when you complete requirements.
Training guide
The weekend format
Most students complete all five dives across one weekend on the island. Ferry, hotel, and travel may be separate from the course fee depending on what you book. Your course page lists what is included in tuition.
Casino Point is a shore diving park in Avalon. Easy entries, kelp, and plenty to see while you practice navigation lines, depth skills, and specialty tasks.
Days are full. Morning briefings, dives, surface intervals, and instructor debriefs. Come rested and organized so you can focus on learning.
Training guide
Who can enroll?
You need an Open Water certification or equivalent and a completed medical questionnaire like other PADI programs. Junior divers may qualify with age limits per agency standards.
You do not need to be an expert already. You do need to be comfortable enough that five ocean dives in a weekend is realistic. If you have not dove since certification, a refresher or a few local dives first helps.
Still working on Open Water? Finish that path first. This overview is for divers ready to level up.
Training guide
Navigation, exploration, and specialty
PADI Advanced structure includes required adventure dive themes. Navigation teaches compass and natural reference skills. Deep or equivalent training expands your depth comfort within recreational limits.
Your elective specialty might be buoyancy, photography oriented work, search patterns, or another module your instructor schedules. Ask when you enroll so you know what to expect.
Exploration dives mean you are moving through the site with purpose, not just following a guide line the whole time. That is a major shift from early Open Water tours.
Training guide
Where Advanced fits next
Rescue Diver is the common follow up. Advanced proves you can handle varied dives. Rescue proves you can help when something goes wrong.
Specialty courses, Divemaster, and trips like Socorro all assume you are not still thinking like a brand new Open Water student. Advanced is the bridge.
Many Scuba Life students knock out Advanced on Catalina, then book fun trips or start Rescue the same season.
Training guide
How to sign up
This page does not show prices or class calendars. Go to Advanced Open Water (5 Dives) on our Courses section for current dates, fees, and the enroll button.
Questions about gear, ferry, or pairing Advanced with a Catalina hotel package? Contact us before you pay. We will make sure you are booking the right product.
Advanced training
Why do five dives at Catalina
How the weekend format and Casino Point sites build real advanced skills.
Five ocean dives
Complete five training dives, often across one Catalina weekend.
Casino Point
Train at Avalon’s iconic shore dive park on Catalina Island.
Instructor coaching
Personal feedback on navigation, exploration, and specialty skills.
PADI certification
Advanced Open Water credential recognized worldwide.
Level up
Book Advanced or plan Rescue
Enroll when you meet Open Water requirements, then read the Rescue guide next.
Ready to start your diving journey?
Book a course, join a local trip, or speak with our team in Los Angeles and Ventura County.