Vandit Kalia, 23 January 2025
One of the most widely debated topics in online forums is “when one should do the Advanced course”.
In principle, the Advanced course (which is 5 dives) can be done immediately after the Open Water course, and lets you dive to 30m, instead of the 18m of the Open Water course.
Many people feel that one should wait to do it because 9 dives (4 for Open Water and 5 for the Advanced) doesn’t make you an actually advanced diver – which is true. Another reason that people feel you shouldn’t do the Advanced course immediately after the Open Water course is because you are going to 30m (or 100ft, which sounds more impressive – add background “ooohs”), which is deeper and riskier – also technically true.
For the most part, I am generally able to see the merits of opposing arguments even if I disagree with them. However, in this case, I want to make it clear that anyone who says you should do the Advanced course later as a general guideline is completely, unequivocally wrong. Period.
To start with, let’s talk about the Advanced course itself – forget the name “Advanced”. You aren’t going to learn advanced dive skills in the course or a lot of advanced dive theory either. You do delve into some theory in more detail either. The main goal of the Advanced course is for you to gain experience in different types of dive and diving conditions. Sure, there are some additional things that you learn in the Advanced course that aren’t covered (or are covered very briefly) in the Open Water course, and there are some lessons that become more relevant when you start going deeper than 18-20m, but for the most part, it is an experience course.
Think of it as a way to accelerate your learning curve by having an instructor go over things that you probably would have figured out on your own through experience. And the best time to do that is early on in your diving journey – if you do the Advanced course once you have had 20-30 dives, a lot of the stuff you learn in the course will be stuff you probably have figured out already. On the other hand, doing it early is precisely when you get the most out of the course in terms of accelerating your learning curve, as mentioned earlier.
Furthermore, a good instructor will also use this time to refine your buoyancy and general diving skills. While they may have gotten the basics of buoyancy in the open water course, most new divers also pick up several bad habits at this point. Doing the Advanced course early is a great way to fix those bad habits before they become entrenched in muscle memory (as they would after 10-15 dives more).
But… but… what about the depth? What about going to…. one HUNDRED FEET?? Well, what about it? Other than narcosis – which, while theoretically present from 24m onwards, is mostly notional in terms of significant impact, there’s nothing new that a diver faces. We aren’t talking HPNS or reverse osmosis or stuff like that.
The same risks that apply at 30m also apply at 18m (although both the likelihood of a problem happening and the risk if it does are, of course, higher) – and if a diver is not ready to dive to 30m because their buoyancy isn’t perfect, or because they aren’t capable of watching their air or NDL, then I submit to you that they are not ready to dive to 18m either and the solution at that point is remedial training.
Also, keep in mind that diver skills aren’t static – the 5 dives of the Advanced course allow the student to continue working on their buoyancy, general awareness and other skills. And in my experience, while 4 open dives go a long way towards building comfort in the water, there is an inflection point that comes around the 8-10 dive mark, when things like buoyancy and general comfort/ease in the water become a part of the diver’s muscle memory.
Of course, there certainly are a small percent of divers who may need more water time at shallower depths after the Open Water course, but they are the exception to the rule – for most divers, doing the Advanced course immediately after the Open Water course is significantly accretive, in terms of mastery of the fundamental dive skills and comfort in the water.
As an added bonus – deeper is also where you tend to see Big Stuff. And let’s face it, we all like to see big stuff (TWSS?).
So the TL;DR version – do sign up for an Advanced course earlier rather than later. It will make you a better diver faster. This is the reason we used to offer the Advanced course as a heavily discounted bundle with the Open Water course at DIVEIndia when I ran it: an overwhelming majority of divers who did the Open Water course then went on to do the Advanced, and every single one of them emerged as significantly better divers after the course.