Advanced Open Water

Description
This course is not only a lot of fun it is highly educational. This advanced course expands your range of diving by exposing you to a greater variety of diving activities and conditions then you experienced in you basic course, and will be taught entirely in an open water setting.

Goals
Upon successful completion, graduates are considered competent to engage in open water activities without supervision provided the areas dove and conditions approximate those used in training. (see dives below)

Prerequisites
Must have a NAUI Scuba Diver certification or equivalent.
Age 12-14 for junior certification and 15+ for Advance Open Water

Gear required
Student must supply their own gear - mask, fins, booties, snorkel, wet suit if desired, BCD Regulator and gauges, dive timer, tanks and depth gauge or dive computer. Lights will be required on the night dive and other specialty items may be required.

Academics
Approximately 6 hours. The lectures will be given as a series of dive briefings to support each of the activities.

Pool work
Divers may be tested to verify basic skills if they were initially trained elsewhere but other than that there is no require pool work for this course.

Dives
1. Low Visibility dive. Low visibility is considered 10 foot or less and the public beach in Venice Florida fits the bill. The object on this dive is swim on the surface to a buoy, then submerge and navigate to an area offshore of the swimming area, search for prehistoric sharks teeth and then see how close you can navigate back to the buoy before surfacing. Pre dive covers team work in low visibility and use of a buddy line.

2. Search and Recovery - On this dive you and your buddy will be expected to navigate a complex pattern using compass and natural aids to a starting point. Then the team will be required to compass navigate while measuring distance traveled to where George the sea turtle was last seen. At that point the team will start a search pattern in an attempt to locate George and his three friends. (George and his friends suffer no harm during this drill, It helps that George and friends are rubber). Afterwards the team will recover a small boat anchor using a lift bag. Predive covers choosing appropriate search pattern too match conditions and goals, measuring distance under water and safety issues related to proper use of lift bags.

3. Deep Dive - Divers will explore Juno Ledge which in my opinion is probably the best of our local deep reefs. With the dive starting at the top of the reef in 70 feet of water, divers will descend to the bottom of the ledge in 90 feet of water where they will be required to take a short timed test using coordination and some mental capacity. The same test taken on the surface demonstrates how of nitrogen narcosis affects your mental ability. Predive covers safety issues related to deep dives.

4. Wreck Dive (external survey) - The opportunity to explore one or more of The Palm Beach's many ships intentional sunk as part of Florida's artificial reef program. This dive is also great chance to practice natural navigation. Our two primary wreck dives both consist of multiple wrecks requiring at least some basic navigation skills to see as many of the wrecks as possible. Pre dive covers safety issues related to wreck diving and the necessity of advanced training before getting involved in wreck penetration or diving in overhead environments.

5. Night Dive - Learn the unique aspects to diving in the dark. We discuss the differences between diving a site at night versus daytime. Dive light selection, care and maintenance and etiquette and is also taught. Submerging into ocean at night is an experience you do not want to miss.

6. Beach entry - Entering the water from the public beach in Wabasso gives you an opportunity to catch lobster. This dive is more of a rock pile than a reef but still harbors a variety of marine life and who knows you might even find a piece of old spanish gold. While in the area you should checkout the Mel Fisher museum just a few miles north of the beach. Predive covers buddy techniques required to safely enter the water through surf conditions.

7 & 8 These dives are electives. Students can choose from collecting tropicals or shells, underwater hunting (spear fishing or lobster), diving for photos or videos, fresh water diving, exploration and underwater mapping or observation and data collection.

Included in the course
Book, dvd, audio cd, certification fee (and a lot of fun).