The PADI Advanced Open Water Course is your chance to develop your dive skills and experiment with new types of diving. It’s exciting, fun, and there are a lot of awesome dives to choose from when you are diving in Bali.

Imagine diving to 30 meters, swimming with manta rays, or even mastering the art of underwater photography. It’s all possible when you are diving Nusa Lembongan and our surrounding area of Nusa Penida. During your Advanced Course, you’ll make 5 incredible dives in Nusa Lembongan, which include some of the most famous dive sites in the Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area.

Diving Nusa Penida — Diving in Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area from Big Boat

There are two required dives – a deep dive and an underwater navigation dive – and another three dives which you can choose from the following options –Drift diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night diving, Underwater Naturalist, Fish ID, Boat Diving, Search and Recovery, Underwater Photography and Multilevel & Computer diving.

Start your Advanced Open Water online now with PADI eLearning from home! Click HERE to sign up with PADI.

In this Blog we will take a more in-depth look at the two mandatory dives and some of the options which we offer when you are diving Lembongan with us!

Deep dive advanced — Your PADI Advanced certification will certify you to dive to 30 metres

Deep Dive: (Mandatory)

Once you are certified as an Advanced Open Water Diver, you’ll be able to dive to a maximum depth of 30 meters, so it’s essential that you practise deep diving procedures during your course. In the theory section, you’ll look at depth and decompression issues as well as nitrogen narcosis. You’ll also learn how to plan dives before making one for yourself and discovering the amazing depths of scuba diving in Nusa Penida!

Underwater Navigation: (Mandatory)

Remember the compass skills from your open water course dives? The Underwater Navigation Adventure Dive refines your compass navigation skills, helps you better navigate using kick-cycles, visual landmarks and time. You’ll also discover some of the pitfalls of navigating underwater due to conditions and currents.

Peak Performance Buoyancy Diving: (Optional)

Are you still going up and down more than you’d like to? Do you use your air faster than your buddies? Do you have trouble staying still underwater? In the peak performance buoyancy dive, you’ll perfect your buoyancy skills. You’ll learn how to gauge the weights you need for diving, how to use breath control to fine tune your positioning, how to kick efficiently, and ultimately how to be more streamlined, comfortable and efficient underwater.

Drift Diving: (Optional)

There is no better place to learn drift diving than along Nusa Penida’s north coast. Drift diving is easy when you know how and it opens up a range of new dive sites. You’ll learn how to plan a drift dive and how to (literally) go with the flow. After making a drift diving entry and descent you’ll explore one of our favourite Nusa Penida dive sites and learn how to ‘read’ the currents along the way. At the end of the dive you’ll make a controlled ascent before being picked up by the boat.

advanced open water — From manta rays and turtles to Nemo, Nusa Lembongan has it all!

Fish Identification: (Optional)

Finding ‘that silver fish’ in marine life books is never easy so during the fish identification dive you’ll learn how to identify various families of fish by sight. You’ll learn how to record sightings including which features are most important to take note of in order to be able to identify the species later. You’ll find that the fish books which used to seem overwhelming suddenly make sense! With over 75% of the world’s tropical fish found at our dive sites, you’ll have plenty to learn!

Night Diving: (Optional)

Why limit yourself to seeing only the marine life that’s active during the day? As the sun goes down so many of Bali’s most cryptic critters come to life! You’ll learn how to plan a night dive, communicate with your buddy during a night dive, as well as mastering navigation at night. Be aware though… night diving can become strangely addictive! (Availability of night dives is subject to sea conditions and tides.)

Advanced Open Water Lembongan — Clownfish live in symbiosis with anemones. In the naturalist dive you’ll learn more about marine ecosystems

Underwater Naturalist: (Optional)

Many divers know the names of fish and various species found when scuba diving in Bali, but few divers know about the entire marine ecosystem, what it includes and how it all co-exists. During the underwater naturalist program you’ll extend your knowledge beyond fish to plants, corals, and the symbiotic relationships which hold the pieces of the puzzle together. This is a great dive for anyone interested in nature and eco-systems.

Underwater Photography: (Optional)

It’s hard to think of a better Instagram moment than when you are diving with manta rays or encounter a mola mola – which is definitely possible when you are diving in Nusa Penida. Say goodbye to blurry and blue images and say hello to crisper focus and colour! In this optional dive you’ll put into practice the SEA method (shoot, evaluate, adjust) and you’ll learn camera and housing preparation for dives, how to use underwater lights, camera settings, how to read histograms and invaluable underwater shooting techniques for capturing even the flightiest of fish!

Search and Recovery Diving: (Optional)

In this adventure dive you’ll learn a variety of underwater search patterns and when to use each one and you’ll learn techniques for using a lift bag for lifting negatively buoyant objects off the bottom. During your dive you’ll put these techniques into practice – which is a rewarding challenge and a lot of fun! This is a great choice for anyone who plans to make underwater cleanup dives, or enter the diving industry on a professional or commercial level.

Boat Diving: (Optional)

Do you know your stern from your starboard? Learn to identify the parts of dive boats, boat diving entries and exits, signaling for boats on the surface – and the best bit of this option? Dives from our luxurious, traditional Big Boat or one of our speedy speedboats!

world diving lembongan — Learn more about diving from either big boat or one of our speed boats in the boat diving option

Multilevel and Computer Diving: (Optional)

When diving Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida we are most often diving on sloping reefs which are ideal for practising multilevel diving. A multilevel dive allows you to explore more of a dive site and have longer and safer dives than staying at depth. You’ll plan your multilevel dive then you’ll lead your instructor from level to level according to your plan! You’ll also learn how to read your dive computer (we will provide one if you do not have your own), how to use it for dive planning, and how to retrieve dive information for your logbook after diving.

Advanced Open Water Schedule with World Diving

Remember the reading and theory from the open water course? The good news is that the Advanced has far less and we usually complete the course in 2 days.

If you opt for eLearning there is a quick review (quiz) on your first day and you may need to read additional sections in the manual according to your dive choices.

For divers taking the complete Advanced Open Water in Lembongan, there are 5 chapters to read (one for each dive) and some theory questions to review with your instructor. There is no exam for the Advanced Open Water course and reading can be done in afternoons or evenings when you are not diving.

Our *2 day schedule includes a morning boat trip each day and one afternoon dive. During your 2 dive morning trips you’ll head over to Nusa Penida and dive Bali’s most vibrant and healthy coral reefs – if conditions are good you might even explore the most famous sites of Manta Point and Crystal Bay!

You’ll dive from either our spacious traditional Big Boat or one of our smaller, speedier speedboats. A light lunch is provided during the surface interval on all boats in between dives.

(*Scheduling is flexible to account for sea conditions, whether you opt for eLearning or theory in Lembongan, your arrival time on the first day, and your chosen dive options. To be safe, you should allow 2.5 days to complete your program)

SPECIAL OFFER!

Start your Advanced Open Water online now with PADI eLearning: Click HERE to sign up with PADI now.

Book your course with us before the end of July (and pay your deposit) and we’ll give you a 30% discount in Lembongan PLUS free accommodation during your course!

(If you can’t travel due to COVID19 we will also change your dates at no extra cost).

Are you ready to take the plunge and become a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver? For more information or to make a reservation click here or send us an email to info@world-diving.com and we’ll get right back to you.

We look forward to scuba diving in Lembongan with you soon!

A Word on Masks.

There you are, a newly fledged PADI Open Water Diver, and you start looking at all the wonderful stuff you can now buy to go with that shiny new C-card. So what is and is not worth buying? The first thing I would consider are masks. There is nothing more frustrating than having a mask that leaks and there is nothing more repellent than a mask full of mould that with fraying straps and raggedy seals.

Modern diving equipment — For masks, comfort and a good fit is important!

Comfort and Fit!

As I said in the article about wetsuits, the most important thing about any equipment is a good fit. Your mask has to be comfortable as you are going to have this thing on your face for at least an hour. Masks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes so the first thing to do is find masks that are the right width for your face. This may even mean trying on masks for children if you have a particularly narrow face.

Then you need to do the fit test. Without using the strap, put the mask against you face and sniff! You should find that the mask sticks to your face like a demented limpet and holds itself in place. Guys with beards may find this will not happen. Unfortunately air can get back into the mask via your 6 o’clock shadow!

Where is the rub?

Now that you have seen that the mask fits, just push it against you face a little more firmly and see if there are any parts of the mask that feels uncomfortable. Remember, water pressure can make the mask fit tighter. I find that certain makes have a hard plastic frame that pushes against the bridge of my nose. After wearing one of these masks for a day I actually had a bruise where the mask had been pressing on my face. On another occasion, one guest had the firm imprint of a screw head at the end of her nose. This was where the drain valve of her mask was making contact!

Little Black Number!

Next is the style of mask. There are so many options out there, but you are ideally looking for a low volume mask. That is a mask that does not have too much air space on the inside. These are generally easier to clear. If you need corrective lenses, you will need to look for a twin lensed mask like the Technisub LOOK. You can buy the corrective lenses for this mask and have the dive shop fit them for you.

New PADI Students — The mask sniff test in action!

After all this you can now go about selecting the colour so that it synchronises with your beach wear! As most wetsuits are black, I decided that this would be my colour of choice, but I am an old traditionalist. One thing about skirts….. the one on the mask! If you are a keen photographer, a black silicone material is better as this reduces glare inside the mask and makes it easier to see the screen of your camera.

So there you have it, fit and comfort, no funny screws and a dark skirt. What could be clearer?

PADI Advanced Open Water in Nusa Lembongan, Bali