You have completed your Open Water Diver course. You have started logging dives, you are getting more comfortable underwater, and naturally you start thinking about what comes next.
For many divers, the obvious answer seems to be an advanced diving certification.
But do you actually need one?
Further training is absolutely worthwhile. Courses can introduce you to new environments, teach you new skills and extend the type of diving you can safely enjoy. However, earning a certification with the word “Advanced” on it does not suddenly make you an advanced diver.
There is another part of becoming a better diver that is just as important, and arguably more important over the long term.
Experience.
The best way to get better at diving is to go diving.
What Actually Makes Someone an Advanced Diver?
There is a difference between holding an advanced diving certification and being an experienced, capable diver.
A certification tells us that you have completed a particular training programme and demonstrated the required skills at that time. It does not tell us everything about your overall diving ability.
Think about two hypothetical divers.
One has completed Open Water Diver followed almost immediately by Advanced Open Water Diver and has 15 logged dives.
Another has an Open Water Diver certification and 60 logged dives across different reefs, boats, conditions and dive sites.
Which one is the more advanced diver?
The certification card alone cannot answer that question.
A genuinely capable diver develops good buoyancy, gas awareness, situational awareness, judgement and comfort underwater. They become better at planning dives, communicating with buddies and recognising when something does not feel right.
Those abilities develop through a combination of good training and experience.
What Is the SSI Advanced Open Water Diver Course?
The SSI Advanced Open Water Diver programme is designed to introduce certified divers to different areas of recreational diving.
Rather than simply repeating Open Water skills, you experience different types of diving and begin developing additional knowledge and abilities under the supervision of an SSI Professional.
The programme consists of five different Adventure Dives, including a deep adventure dive up to 30m deep and a navigation dive.
That makes it an excellent way to explore different areas of diving and discover which ones interest you.
There is an important distinction, though.
An Adventure Dive introduces you to an area of diving. It is not the same as completing the full SSI Specialty programme in that subject.
That matters when deciding what training will actually benefit you.
Do You Need Advanced Open Water Before Taking Specialties?
Not necessarily.
This is one of the areas where divers sometimes misunderstand the SSI training system, particularly if they are familiar with the progression used by other training agencies.
SSI allows divers to build their education through Specialty programmes without requiring them to complete Advanced Open Water Diver first in the way divers sometimes expect.
Suppose your main objective is to become properly trained for deeper recreational diving.
Rather than taking an Advanced Open Water programme simply because “Advanced” appears to be the next certification level, you could choose to complete the full SSI Deep Diving Specialty as an advanced diving certification path
That gives you focused training for the diving you actually want to do.
The same principle applies to other specialties.
Ask yourself a simple question:
What skills do I want to develop next?
The answer may be more useful than asking which certification card you should collect next.
Deep Diving Can Be More Useful Than Chasing the Word “Advanced”
Depth is one of the first things many newly certified divers want to explore.
There is nothing wrong with that curiosity. Deeper dive sites can open access to different reefs, wrecks and underwater environments.
But deeper diving also introduces additional considerations.
Gas consumption increases. No-decompression limits become shorter. Nitrogen narcosis becomes more relevant. Buoyancy and gas management become increasingly important, and mistakes can have greater consequences.
This is why proper Deep Diving training is valuable.
If your objective is to extend your diving range, completing the full SSI Deep Diving Specialty can be a logical next step.
But once again, completing the course is only the beginning.
You then need to use those skills.
The Ocean Tribe Advanced Alternative
At Ocean Tribe, we also offer what we call our Advanced Alternative as our next advanced diving certification option.
Rather than focusing on obtaining an Advanced Open Water title, the package combines three complete SSI specialties:
Deep Diving, Navigation and Enriched Air Nitrox.
We chose those three because they provide practical skills and qualifications that can genuinely expand what a recreational diver can do.
Deep Diving develops the knowledge and skills required to safely extend your recreational diving range.
Navigation helps you develop greater underwater awareness and independence. You learn to use both natural navigation techniques and a compass rather than simply assuming the dive guide knows where they are going.
Enriched Air Nitrox teaches you how to safely plan and conduct dives using enriched air. For divers making repetitive dives, particularly during diving holidays, Nitrox can be an extremely useful tool.
Together, these specialties provide a strong foundation for becoming a more capable diver.
But they still don’t make you an expert.
For that, you need experience.
Advanced Diving Is Not Just About Going Deeper
There is also a tendency to measure diving progression by depth.
Open Water Diver.
Then Advanced.
Then deeper.
Then deeper again.
But depth is only one part of diving ability.
Some of the most important development happens when you begin paying less attention to yourself and become more aware of everything happening around you.
That is why programmes such as SSI Diver Stress & Rescue are so valuable.
A newer diver naturally spends a lot of mental capacity thinking about themselves.
Where is my buddy?
What is my pressure?
Am I too deep?
Why am I floating upwards?
Where is the dive guide?
As experience develops, many of those basic tasks require less conscious effort.
You start noticing other things.
Your buddy is breathing faster than usual.
Another diver keeps adjusting their mask.
Someone who was relaxed on the surface suddenly looks uncomfortable.
A diver is struggling with buoyancy.
Something isn’t quite right.
Recognising those signs before they develop into a genuine problem is an important part of becoming a more advanced diver.
Learning to recognise stress in yourself is equally important.
That progression has very little to do with how impressive the certification card in your wallet sounds.
The Most Important Course Is Going Diving
There comes a point where another course isn’t necessarily what you need most.
You need dives.
Lots of them.
If you have just finished your Open Water course, one of the best things you can do for your diving is simply get back in the water.
Log 20 dives.
Then 30.
Then 50.
Then keep going.
But don’t chase the number purely for the sake of filling a logbook.
Try to build varied experience.
Dive from different boats. Make shore entries. Experience some current. Dive when the visibility isn’t perfect. Explore reefs and wrecks. Dive with different buddies. Visit different dive centres. Try different equipment configurations.
You may discover that a BCD feels completely different from the one you trained in.
You might use aluminium cylinders on one trip and steel cylinders somewhere else.
You will encounter different boats, entry techniques, currents, visibility, temperatures and procedures.
All of those experiences add something to your diving.
You Learn Something From Almost Every Dive
Not every lesson in diving comes from an instructor.
Sometimes you surface and realise you were overweighted.
Sometimes you use your gas faster than expected and work out why.
You may watch an experienced diver deal effortlessly with a current and realise how much energy you were wasting.
You might make a navigation mistake and understand exactly where your plan went wrong.
You may dive with someone whose buoyancy control is exceptional and start paying attention to what they are doing differently.
You might encounter a small equipment problem for the first time and discover that it is much less stressful than you imagined during your initial training.
None of these experiences necessarily earns you another certification.
But they make you a better diver.
Over time, things that once required considerable concentration become almost automatic.
You stop constantly thinking about your buoyancy because you can feel what is happening.
You become better at predicting your gas consumption.
You notice changes in conditions earlier.
You become more comfortable solving small problems before they become big ones.
Most importantly, you have more mental capacity available to pay attention to the dive and the people around you.
That is experience.
Dive Numbers Aren’t Everything Either
There is one important qualification to all of this.
Simply accumulating a huge number of dives doesn’t automatically make somebody an excellent diver either.
Someone could theoretically make the same easy 10-metre reef dive hundreds of times without significantly broadening their experience.
Another diver might have fewer logged dives but have experienced boats, shore diving, currents, wrecks, deeper dives, poor visibility and different equipment.
So don’t become obsessed with the number in your logbook.
Look at the experience behind the number.
Twenty varied dives can teach you considerably more than twenty almost identical dives.
The objective should be to gradually expand your comfort zone while remaining within the limits of your training and experience.
Training and Experience Should Work Together
This is not an argument against advanced diving courses.
Quite the opposite.
Good training can accelerate your development enormously.
An instructor can teach you techniques in a few dives that might take you dozens of dives to discover independently. They can identify bad habits before those habits become ingrained and introduce you to new environments in a controlled way.
Specialty training can also give you the qualifications necessary for particular types of diving.
But the course should not be the end goal.
Use what you learn.
If you complete Navigation, navigate on subsequent dives.
If you become Nitrox certified, analyse your cylinder and understand the gas you are using.
If you complete Deep Diving, continue developing your gas management and dive-planning skills.
If you complete Diver Stress & Rescue, keep watching the divers around you.
Training gives you tools.
Experience teaches you how to use them.
So, Do You Really Need an Advanced Diving Certification?
It depends on what you want from your diving.
If the SSI Advanced Open Water Diver course introduces you to five areas of diving that interest you, it can be an excellent next step.
If you already know exactly where you want your diving to progress, completing full specialties such as Deep Diving, Navigation or Enriched Air Nitrox may make more sense.
If you want to become more aware, confident and capable of helping yourself and other divers, Diver Stress & Rescue can add an entirely different dimension to your diving.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that collecting certifications is the same thing as collecting experience.
The goal shouldn’t be to become an Advanced Open Water Diver as quickly as possible.
The goal should be to become a good diver.
Take courses that give you useful skills. Learn from good instructors. Gradually expand the environments and conditions in which you are comfortable diving.
Then use what you have learned.
Go diving.
Dive somewhere new.
Dive with different people.
Experience different conditions.
Keep learning.
Keep logging dives.
Because ultimately, one of the best ways to become an advanced diver is remarkably simple.
Go diving. A lot.
