Is Advanced Open Water Worth It?

Advanced Open Water is the most second-guessed course in recreational diving. Sceptics call it card collecting: five dives, no final exam, a few hundred dollars, and a qualification you can start soon after Open Water. Fans call it the fastest confidence boost in the sport. Both camps have a point, so here is the honest cost-benefit version, Australian edition.

What AOW Actually Is (and Is Not)

PADI's Advanced Open Water course is five dives. Two are required: a deep dive and an underwater navigation dive. You choose the other three from a menu that includes wreck, night, drysuit, enriched air nitrox, fish identification, peak performance buoyancy, search and recovery, and underwater photography, and each one can count as credit towards the matching PADI specialty course. There is no final exam: you study the theory online, go over it with your instructor, then put it into practice in open water. SSI's Advanced Open Water Diver is built the same way, with five open water dives that include deep and navigation.

What it is not is a mastery test. It is structured experience under professional supervision, and that is the right lens for deciding whether it is worth your money.

What the Adventure Dives Are Actually Like

Each adventure dive follows the same rhythm: a short theory section, a briefing, then a dive with one or two set tasks woven into it. On the deep dive your instructor takes you past 18 metres and runs a few exercises there; Yongala Dive, which runs the PADI deep adventure dive as the first dive of its trips, guides divers to the wreck's maximum depth of 28 metres and completes three deep-diving exercises. The navigation dive has you swimming compass headings and patterns. A peak performance buoyancy dive is a supervised session of hovering, trim and fine-tuning your weights. Wreck and night adventure dives are guided introductions: enough to know whether you want the full specialty, not enough to claim the skill. None of it is hard, and all of it is deliberate practice you would struggle to set up on your own.

The 30 Metre Unlock

Open Water qualifies you to 18 metres. Advanced Open Water extends that to 30 metres (21 metres for PADI and SSI juniors aged 12 to 14). The agencies describe these as recommended limits, but in practice they work as firm ones: operators check your card, and often your logbook, before deeper sites, and Queensland's dive safety code tells operators to assess each certified diver's training, recent diving and logged experience before the dive.

That matters because several of Australia's best-known wreck dives sit in the 18 to 30 metre band. These were open to divers when we checked in October 2026:

- Ex-HMAS Hobart, Yankalilla Bay, SA. The former destroyer lies in 30 metres and rises to about 5 metres below the surface. South Australia's code of conduct for the site gives Open Water divers the outside of the wreck to 18 metres and Advanced divers the outside to 30 metres; going inside needs wreck or technical training. - SS Yongala, off Alva Beach, Qld. Yongala Dive calls it an advanced site reaching 28 metres, with strong currents at depth. It requires Advanced Open Water (or starting the course with a deep adventure dive on the trip), at least 10 dives on top of your course training dives, and a dive within the past 12 months. - HMAS Swan, Geographe Bay, WA. Sunk off Dunsborough in 1997 as a dive site, the former destroyer escort spans 9 to 32 metres and is rated an advanced dive. You need a permit from the Geographe Bay Artificial Reef Society, which owns and manages the wreck. - Fish Rock Cave, South West Rocks, NSW. Fish Rock Dive Centre takes divers in at the cave's deep end at 24 metres and up through the 120 metre cavern by torchlight. It rewards exactly the depth comfort and navigation skills the course builds.

Two famous ex-navy wrecks are off the list for now:

- Ex-HMAS Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Qld. Queensland Parks has closed it to the public from 30 June 2026 to 31 January 2027, after its public mooring was closed following Cyclone Alfred. - Ex-HMAS Adelaide, off Avoca Beach near Terrigal, NSW. NSW Crown Lands closed the dive site in July 2024 after storm damage. The aluminium superstructure has since collapsed off the hull, and Crown Lands says the public should not attempt to dive there.

Access changes, so check with the park manager or a local operator before you book any wreck. Then browse the dive sites index and count how many entries note depths past 18 metres. The value calculation changes quickly.

The Core That Earns Its Keep

Strip away the elective dives and the course still justifies itself on the two required ones. The deep dive is your first structured visit past 18 metres: shorter no-decompression limits, closer gas monitoring, and possibly your first taste of nitrogen narcosis with an instructor beside you, which is precisely where you want to meet it.

The navigation dive is the sleeper hit. Compass headings, distance estimation and natural navigation sound dry, but they are what turn you from a passenger trailing a guide into a diver who knows where the boat or the exit is.

When Should You Do It?

There are two honest schools of thought.

Straight after Open Water. Everything is fresh, you stay in the learning groove, and combined Open Water and Advanced packages are common in the tropics (see the costs below). You also get your early depth experience under supervision rather than improvising it later.

After 10 to 20 dives. You arrive with context. Once basic skills are automatic, the adventure dives teach far more, and you will have a much better idea of which three electives you actually want. Check the shop's recency rule too: Frog Dive in Sydney asks for at least one logged dive in the three months before the course.

Our take: if you have easy local diving available, log a relaxed handful of dives first (our guide to your first 10 dives after certification suggests how), build the habits in our safety tips for new divers, and book AOW when buoyancy no longer occupies your whole brain. If most of your diving will happen on holiday at deeper destinations, do the combined course and take the supervised depth progression up front.

The Case Against

Fair is fair, so here are the real counter-arguments:

- Five dives is experience, not expertise. Open Water includes four open water training dives, so you can hold an Advanced card with nine dives in your life. The title oversells what you are. - You may not need 30 metres. If your diving is jetties and sheltered shore sites, the unlock can sit unused for years. - The same money buys dives. The course fee would pay for a good run of ordinary guided dives, and unstructured time in the water is also how divers improve. - Adventure dives are introductions. One wreck adventure dive does not make you a wreck diver; the full specialty course is where those skills are actually taught.

The Case For

- The card is checked at the gateways. Yongala Dive will not take an Open Water diver unless they start the course on the trip, and the Hobart's code of conduct keeps Open Water divers to 18 metres. - The deep and navigation dives reduce genuine risk and genuinely improve your diving. - Extending your depth range with a professional next to you is worth paying for once. - There is no final exam; it is a fun weekend that makes you a more useful buddy.

Cost and Time in Australia

Expect to pay around $600 in a capital city. In October 2026 Frog Dive in Sydney charged $595, run over one evening and a weekend, including the eLearning, two boat dives and hire gear apart from your mask, snorkel and fins. Tropical operators often bundle Open Water and Advanced into one trip: Divers Den in Cairns sells a six-day Open Water and Advanced course with three nights on the reef, from $2,095, so your adventure dives happen on the outer reef rather than a training site.

Two buying tips. First, ask which electives the shop actually runs, because the menu depends on local sites and season: Frog Dive, for example, runs a set five (buoyancy, navigation, naturalist, deep and wreck), with the deep dive normally at The Colours off South Head and the wreck dive on the Royal Shepherd or the Centurion. Second, compare what is included: some quotes cover gear, boat fees and certification, others quietly do not, and the cheapest headline price is not always the cheapest course.

The Verdict

For most Australian divers, yes, AOW is worth it, eventually if not immediately. Several of this country's best-known wrecks sit below 18 metres, and the course is the key that opens them. Delay it without guilt if money is tight and your local diving is shallow; the card will mean more with some dives behind it. But if the wrecks and the deeper boat sites are calling, book the weekend, pick your three electives with intent, and go see what the fuss is about. The full list of sites will be waiting.

Sources

- PADI: Advanced Open Water Diver course - PADI Travel: PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course description (no exam) - PADI Blog: PADI Scuba Diving Restrictions - SSI: Advanced Open Water Diver - SSI Training Standards: Training Environments and Depth Limits - WorkSafe Queensland: Recreational Diving, Recreational Technical Diving and Snorkelling Code of Practice 2024 (PDF, worksafe.qld.gov.au; the site blocks automated checks) - Divers Den: Four Day PADI Open Water Course - Divers Den: Beginner Dive Courses (Open Water and Advanced course) - Frog Dive: PADI Advanced Open Water Diver - Yongala Dive: Who Can Dive the Yongala - South Australia Marine Parks: Diving the HMAS Hobart - National Parks and Wildlife Service SA: Ex-HMAS Hobart Dive Site Code of Conduct (PDF) - The Margaret River Region (Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association): HMAS Swan Dive Wreck, Dive Permits (margaretriver.com; the site blocks automated checks) - Fish Rock Dive Centre: Dive sites - Queensland Parks and Forests: Park alert, Ex-HMAS Brisbane public mooring closed - NSW Crown Lands: Ensuring diver safety, Ex-HMAS Adelaide dive site closure

Header photo: A diver at the wreck of the Cheynes III in King George Sound, Albany, Western Australia, by Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.