SSI Advanced Open Water
You have your Open Water card. You may not know yet if you're a wreck diver, an underwater photographer, or someone who just wants to hover weightless over a reef.
Nobody knows that after a handful of checkout dives. AOWD is five real, supervised adventure dives, including Deep and Navigation plus three of your choice, that let you sample actual directions before you spend time and money committing to one.
Availability: Contact us for booking information
Five Dives Tell You More About What Kind of Diver You Want to Be Than Any Course Description Can
Wreck diver. Photographer. Someone who just wants to feel weightless and watch. You will not know which one fits until you have actually tried it, and that is exactly the gap AOWD is built to fill.
Deep and Navigation adventure dives are required. You choose three more: Boat Diving, Night & Limited Visibility, Search & Recovery, Wreck Diving, Perfect Buoyancy, and others. Private course, $800 per diver, scheduled around you. Call (512) 451-3425 to schedule. Prerequisites: Open Water Diver, minimum age 10.
You Do Not Have to Know What Kind of Diver You Want to Be Yet.
Most newly certified divers have not had enough dives to know whether they will love wrecks, night diving, navigation, or something else entirely. That is not a gap in your training. It is just too early to know. AOWD exists specifically for this moment.
This is exactly what continuing education is for. Not to prove you are advanced. To help you discover what you actually want to become through real, supervised dives, instead of guessing from a list of course names.
AOWD Is for the Diver Who Wants to Sample Before They Commit
This is usually the right next step if any of these sound familiar.
You don’t know which specialty to take first
AOWD lets you try five directions in supervised dives before committing time and money to a single specialty.
You want more logged dives with an instructor present
Five additional supervised dives build real experience and confidence beyond your Open Water checkout dives.
You have an upcoming trip and want a taste of advanced diving
A Deep adventure dive and others give you real experience before a trip that might include similar conditions.
You want one certification that opens several doors
AOWD itself is a recognized SSI certification and a prerequisite for several pathway courses ahead.
Choose Your Next Step
You want to sample several specialties before committing to one
Five adventure dives across different disciplines let you find out what you actually enjoy before investing further time and money in a single specialty.
You already know exactly what you want to focus on
Enrolling directly in Perfect Buoyancy, Navigation, or another specialty gets you a full certification in that specific skill, not just an introduction.
You have not yet completed your Open Water certification
Advanced Open Water requires SSI Open Water Diver certification and a minimum age of 10.
What Advanced Open Water Actually Covers
"Advanced Open Water makes me an advanced diver."
AOWD is an introduction to five different disciplines, not mastery of any one of them. Real advanced skill comes from logged experience plus further specialty certification.
"I need special gear I do not already own."
Standard recreational gear covers nearly all of the adventure dives. Any dive-specific equipment, such as a compass for Navigation, is provided by Tom’s.
"The dives are basically the same as my Open Water checkout dives."
Each adventure dive is a real, discipline-specific experience with your instructor, not a repeat of certification basics. Deep and Navigation are required and build directly toward further training.
"I have to take AOWD before any specialty course."
AOWD is not a prerequisite for individual specialty courses. You can enroll directly in Perfect Buoyancy, Navigation, or any other specialty without ever taking Advanced Open Water.
Five Adventure Dives: Two Required, Three of Your Choice
Deep Adventure Dive
A taste of diving beyond standard depth limits, with your instructor managing the added considerations.
Navigation Adventure Dive
A first introduction to compass and natural navigation technique.
Boat, Night, Search & Recovery, Wreck, and more
Pick three additional adventure dives from the available list based on what interests you most.
What You’ll Train
AOWD is scheduled as a private course, built around the five adventure dives you and your instructor choose together.
Talk with your instructor about what interests you, and select three adventure dives beyond the two required (Deep and Navigation).
A supervised introduction to diving beyond standard depth limits, with your instructor managing the added planning considerations.
A first real introduction to compass and natural navigation technique underwater.
Your chosen dives, each a genuine sample of that specialty, supervised by your instructor throughout.
Your SSI Advanced Open Water Diver certification is a lifetime credential, and you now have direct experience to inform which full specialty to pursue next.
Course at a Glance
| Price | $800 per diver (private course) |
| Format | Five adventure dives: Deep and Navigation required, plus three of your choice |
| Location | Lake Travis or Spring Lake, depending on dives selected |
| Prerequisites | Open Water Diver (any agency) · minimum age 10 |
| Certification awarded | SSI Advanced Open Water Diver · lifetime certification, recognized worldwide |
Ready to find your direction?
SSI Advanced Open Water Diver · Austin, TX
Private course, $800 per diver. Scheduled around you. Call (512) 451-3425 to schedule.
Signup now!!AOWD Sits at the Top of the Control / Comfort Pathway
AOWD is positioned as a sampler at the top of the Control / Comfort lane: not a single skill, but a guided introduction to several lanes at once, helping you choose where to go deeper next.
Control / Comfort (Sampler)
AOWD samples Deep, Navigation, and three electives, introducing you to multiple pathway lanes at once.
Explore & Enrichment
Marine ecology, fish and coral identification, and other ways to understand what you are seeing underwater.
Access
Wreck diving, deep diving, decompression diving, and other ways to reach new environments and depth.
We Build Divers We Would Trust With Our Own Families.
The best divers don’t chase certifications. They build capabilities. AOWD is designed around exactly that idea: real dives, real experience, in the directions that actually interest you, not a single prescribed path.
Tom’s has been Austin’s only SSI Dive Center since 1982. We were teaching scuba in Austin before any of the other Austin dive shops opened. Over 18,000 certified divers and over 400 five-star Google reviews.
You Choose the Three Electives
Unlike a fixed curriculum, your three elective adventure dives are chosen based on what genuinely interests you.
Open Longer Than Any Other Austin Dive Shop Still in Business
Four decades of helping Austin divers figure out what kind of diver they want to become.
A Prerequisite for What Comes Next
AOWD is required or recommended for several pathway courses ahead, so it pays forward beyond the certification itself.
One of Austin’s Largest Instructor Teams
Flexible private scheduling built entirely around your availability.
We follow DAN dive safety protocols.
Tom’s follows Divers Alert Network (DAN) safety standards and recommends DAN dive accident insurance for every certified diver. Safety is not a checkbox on our website. It is the foundation of how Tom’s has operated since 1982.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. AOWD adventure dives are a single, supervised introduction to each specialty, not the full certification. If a dive interests you, the full specialty course (like Navigation or Wreck Diving) goes much deeper and earns its own standalone certification.
Deep and Navigation are required. The remaining three are typically chosen from Boat Diving, Night & Limited Visibility, Search & Recovery, Wreck Diving, Perfect Buoyancy, or others depending on availability. Talk to your instructor about what interests you.
No. You can go straight to any individual specialty course without taking AOWD first. AOWD exists for divers who want a guided sampler before committing to a specific direction.
The Advanced Open Water Diver course is $800 per diver at Tom’s and is offered as a private course. Call (512) 451-3425 to discuss which adventure dives are available and to schedule.
Yes. All students complete an SSI Medical Statement before any in-water activity.