Take Your Diving To The Next Level!
The Maldives is the perfect location to complete your PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course - and with the wonderful drifts and deeper dives around Fulidhoo, you should seriously consider becoming Advanced while you're here!
If you’re thinking to come to Fulidhoo as an Open Water Diver and you are planning to do five or more dives anyway, we highly recommend that you sign up for the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course. This is because we have some wonderful sites that are best dived to 30m, and a real variety of dive sites, which make it perfect for conducting the different adventure dives.
The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is made up of five adventure dives, five knowledge reviews but no exam. There are two obligatory adventure dives: Deep Diver and Underwater Navigator, and the other three you can choose from a number of options. Popular adventure dives to do here are: Drift Diver, Fish ID, Night Diver, Underwater Naturalist, and Peak Performance Buoyancy. Some choose Underwater Imagery too, especially those with their own underwater camera who are looking to take their photography to the next level.
As the Navigator dive is all about compass work, we usually conduct this dive in the lagoon but the other four dives are conducted on the normal scheduled boat dives.
The course is normally done over two to three days.
Also, it’s worth remembering that with some of the PADI Adventure Dives that you do, you may be able to earn credit towards the first dive of the corresponding PADI Specialty Diver course. If you feel like you might want to do a specialty course during your stay in Fulidhoo alongside the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course, then get in touch via email and we can put together a bespoke package for you.
Although quite a few people opt for the digital learning for the Open Water course, for Advanced, most students still go for the book. This is because the reading for the Advanced course is a little less intense, and can be easily completed during your stay. The digital learning at present does not include the Drift Diver chapter, which is our most popular adventure dive choice.
Good to Know
Medical Questionnaire
Minimum Age
Teaching Language
Theory & Exam
Student Ratio
Other Things To Consider
There are two schools of thought when it comes to the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course regarding when you should be thinking about completing the course.
Some believe that you should get 50 dives under your belt before signing up for Advanced, so that ‘Advanced’ certified divers are also ‘experienced’ divers.
We take a different stance. We believe that if you are going to get 50 dives under your belt, it makes sense to do with all the knowledge and training the Advanced course provides. As PADI states, the Advanced course is about ‘advancing’ your learning, and is not geared at experienced divers. A diver that has further training and knowledge is a safer diver. So if you feel comfortable and ready – there’s no time like the present to sign up!
For our younger divers, if you are 12 years old with the Junior Open Water Diver certification, then you are welcome to sign up. The only proviso is that you will have a depth restriction of 21 metres until you are 15 years old and you may only be able to sign up to certain adventure dives (email us to check).
