PADI Advanced Open Water Course Northumberland
PADI Advanced Open Water Course Northumberland

Dive deeper.

Become a citizen scientist.

Protect our grey seals.

Complete your PADI Advanced Open Water while learning about, diving with, and protecting the grey seals that live at The Farne Islands.

During an awesome, training packed weekend, you will:

  • Extend your diving depth limit to 30m
  • Improve your navigation skills
  • Fine-tune your buoyancy and trim, adopting an environmentally responsible way of diving
  • Become a citizen scientist removing litter from the ocean and submitting data through surveys
  • Learn more about grey seals and get the chance to dive with them at the Farne Islands

Adventures that protect the ocean.

As part of your PADI Advanced adventure, you'll take the Dive Against Debris specialty course. You will learn the skills required to remove marine debris from the ocean. You'll become a citizen scientist for the PADI AWARE Foundation, collecting critical survey data from every dive that can be used by marine researchers and policymakers for conservation efforts.

You'll develop your eco-diving skills by learning how to interact with the underwater world responsibly. You'll nail your buoyancy and trim so you don't damage the reef. You'll also gain an understanding of the importance of passive interaction. This includes no touching of marine life... but that doesn't mean the seals won't touch you!

You pick the adventure

We’ll use the PADI Advanced Open Water Course as a basic framework for your adventure coupled with the PADI Dive Against Debris course. This means you'll finish the weekend with two PADI qualifications. You'll be certified to dive to 30m and be able to carry out debris surveys on every dive. 

Before you head off, you’ll improve your core skills in navigation, propulsion and buoyancy during some training tank and big pool sessions.

Want to customise your PADI Advanced Course?

Our ocean protection themed PADI Advanced Course is our most popular training, but if you've got your own passion you'd like to follow, we're here to make it happen! We can create all sorts of different themes, just let us know your dream and we'll take care of the rest! 

Prices for bespoke packages start at £995.00

PADI Advanced Course

What's involved?

Your PADI Advanced course costs £695.00 and includes:

  • In-depth independent study. Learn more about deep diving, navigation, and ocean protection with PADI's elearning and our very own video-led learning.
  • Confined water sessions. Jump in our training tank and big pool with your instructor to practice navigation, buoyancy and propulsion techniques before your weekend starts.
  • Open water dives.  During your training weekend you'll complete 3 shore dives and 2 boat dives.
  • All the gear. We have everything you need for this adventure!
  • A limited edition cert card design and donation to PADI AWARE on your behalf.

FAQs

The PADI Advanced Course is the next step for divers who already hold a beginner's qualification like the PADI Open Water Course.

Before you begin your adventure, you must meet these requirements:

  • You must be at least 15 years of age
  • You must have at least 10 logged dives
  • You must be in good physical health and complete this Medical Statement (Please take a look at this form. It's a self-declaration of your fitness to dive by answering a series of yes/no questions. Depending on your answers, you may need to take the form to your GP to get signed off as fit to dive before you can hit the water.)

The PADI Advanced Course is the next step on your diving journey. Learn from the best, most experienced, and passionate instructors in the region and continue your journey the right way. We are committed to developing divers with outstanding skills and who share our environmentally conscious attitude towards scuba diving.

Our credentials.

We are a PADI 5* Instructor Development Centre which means our team train everyone from beginner divers all the way up to instructor level.

Nic and Jim (the co-founders of The Fifth Point) have been teaching people to dive for over a decade. They have created a very special team of instructors and divemasters who will make sure that you feel welcome and like you're part of the team.

Our commitment to protecting the ocean.

The ocean is a very special place. It's our playground, our office, our happy place. It's also the world's life support system. Without it, there would be no life on Earth.

As a scuba diver, you will witness first-hand the pressures that the ocean face. From the devastating impact of climate change on underwater habitats to the issues caused by marine debris.

As a scuba diver, you also have the skills to do something about it!

Your actions on land and underwater can directly protect the ocean. You'll improve your buoyancy skills and learn how to conduct Dive Against Debris surveys so you can get involved in underwater clean-ups to remove the trash that can kill marine life.

Diving with The Fifth Point is joining an army of like-minded eco-divers who do everything they can to protect what they love.

 

Your PADI Advanced Open Water adventure weekends consist of 3 main phases:

  • Knowledge Development
  • Confined Water Dives
  • Open Water Dives

Knowledge Development

You'll work through your Knowledge Development in your own time using awesome PADI elearning and video-led learning that we've developed ourselves. We'll help you get this all set up when we see you. Don't worry - there's not as much homework compared to the knowledge development you compted for your open water course!

Confined Water Sessions

Before your adventure weekend kicks off, you'll complete some confined water sessions to get prepared for what's to come.

You'll jump in our training tank at the dive centre for a buoyancy workshop. You'll also jump in on a big pool session at Astley High School for a Navigation and Propulsion workshop. We can arrange this to suit your schedule.

Open Water Sessions

You'll complete at 5 dives in Open Water - 3 from the shore and 2 from the boat. Each dive will have specific focus:

This will include a Navigation Dive, Deep Dive, Dive Against Debris Dive and more depending on your chosen theme.

  • Peak Performance Buoyancy
  • Navigation
  • Dive Against Debris
  • Deep
  • Underwater Naturalist

Our PADI Advanced Open Water adventure weekend costs £695.00. This includes your core training (the PADI Advanced Open Water Course), the Dive Against Debris course, certification and all your equipment rental.

If you've been looking into the PADI Advanced Course, you may have noticed that our prices are slightly higher than other centres both at home and abroad.

There's a few reasons for this and we've summarised them below. If you'd like to read about it in more detail, check out this article we wrote that explains things a bit more.

  • We only teach the PADI Advanced Course in small teams of 4. If weekend training is no good for you, we've got fully flexible options where you can choose the schedule.
  • We pay our instructors for their work.
  • We are committed to protecting the ocean and as these skills take time to master, your training includes more sessions compared to most other dive centres allowing you to qualify at a higher standard.
  • Our team is amazing and you'll use top of the range scuba equipment
  • Our facilities are second to none.

We always suggest that you get in touch with all of the other dive centres too. You need to find the centre that has the right feel for you. You also need to find the instructors who you click with the most, you're going to be spending a lot of time with them after all! The only way you can do this is by sending emails, phoning up, or best of all calling in for a visit to meet the team.

We wrote a little blog post that will help you choose the perfect dive centre. You can read more here.

You will use top of the range, modern diving gear during your adventure. In fact, you'll be wearing exactly the same equipment as your Instructor! We'll make sure that you've got gear that fits you properly, is comfortable to wear and straight forward to use.

We supply everything you need including:

  • xDeep Zeos backplate, harness and wing buoyancy device
  • Apeks XL4 long hose regulator
  • xDeep integrated weight system and weights
  • Fourth Element Hydros 7mm semidry wetsuit or Aqualung Fusion/Avatar dry suit with Fourth Element Artic undersuit
  • Fourth Element 3mm or 5mm hoods and gloves
  • Fourth Element 5mm Pelagic boots
  • Apeks RK3 fins
  • Aqualung i300c diving computer
  • A scuba diving air cylinder to best suit your size (choose from 7L, 10L and 12L tanks)
  • A wide selection of masks to choose from

Rental of all your dive equipment is included in your adventure. You are more than welcome to bring any of your own personal dive gear, but if anything is missing from your kit bag we can plug the gaps.

If you'd like to invest in any new gear we can give you all the advice you need. Our divers also get great discounts from our store at The Honest Diver Supply Co!

You'll notice that we need younguns to be 15 years old to start their PADI Advanced Course with us.

In our experience, kids younger than 15 can find the training challenging. They're also subject to depth restrictions until they turn 15 which, depending on where they'll be diving, might give them no real advantage above their current level of qualification.

In our honest opinion, the PADI Open Water Certification is perfect for under 15's diving in Northumberland. However, if your youngun is chomping at the bit for their next level, let's have a chat about it. We like to sit down with parents and guardians to work out the perfect adventure based on their child's interests, learning styles, maturity, strength etc. The absolute minimum age for the PADI Advanced Open Water Course is 12 years (this is set by PADI).

For 12 to 15 year olds

  • PADI places a depth restriction on youngsters under 15. After their adventure, they will be certified to dive anywhere in the world to a maximum depth of 21m when accompanied by an adult certified diver.
  • We recommend that kids join adventures in the warmer months (May to September) when the conditions are more favourable for young people.

For 15 to 18 year olds

  • There's no depth restictions for this age range

If you'd like to discuss this more, just give us a shout!

There is so much more fun to have, here's just a few suggestions!

Join The Submerge Scuba Subscription

Our Diver Subscription is the perfect way to keep diving after your PADI Advanced Course adventure. It's aimed at divers who want to get out in the water regularly without it costing the earth.

There's different membership levels that include...

  • FREE guided dives each month
  • FREE equipment rental each month
  • FREE training tank sessions every month
  • FREE Astley High pool sessions every month
  • 10% discount on retail at The Honest Diver Supply Co
  • 10% discount on courses
  • Priority booking on all dives, trips and environmental activities
  • and much more...

Find out more...

Continue your education and adventures with the PADI Rescue Diver Course

The next step on the ladder is the PADI Rescue Diver Course. You'll become the buddy that everyone wants to dive with as you learn to handle any situation diving might throw at you.

Find out more...

Start the path to Master Scuba Diver

The Master Scuba Diver rating places you in an elite group of respected divers who have earned this rating through both significant experience and scuba training. Every diver should aim for Master Scuba Diver.

To qualify you need to:

  • Be a PADI Open Water Diver
  • Be a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver
  • Be a PADI Rescue Diver
  • Hold 5 PADI Specialty Diver certifications
  • Log 50 dives