Already certified and ready for more? The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course at Octopus Dive School is your next step toward becoming a more capable, confident, and adventurous diver. Designed to expand your skills and comfort zone, it takes you deeper—literally and figuratively—while introducing new dive types on Roatán’s vibrant reefs.
Across five Adventure Dives, two are required: Deep (to 30 m/100 ft) and Underwater Navigation. You’ll choose the other three with your instructor to match your interests and conditions—popular options include Night, Drift, Wreck, Fish ID, Underwater Naturalist, Search & Recovery, or Peak Performance Buoyancy. Along the way you’ll sharpen buoyancy, refine dive planning, and feel at home exploring new underwater environments.
+15% tax
Start learning from home! We’ll send you access to PADI Advanced Open Water eLearning, so you can review theory and dive planning basics before your trip — saving you time in paradise.
🕒 Time commitment: 6–8 hours
Over 2 days, you’ll complete five guided adventure dives with your instructor. These count toward PADI Specialty Certifications and give you practical experience in new environments.
🕒 Total time: 2 days
👥 Max 4 students per instructor
The Advanced Open Water course is, first and foremost, an awesome way to build your skills and boost your confidence underwater. And taking it in Roatan offers many more unique benefits!
Take Peak Performance Buoyancy, for example — this dive will help you fine-tune your control so you can get up close to tiny creatures like blennies and jawfish without scaring them off. It gives you time to actually enjoy watching them instead of just catching a quick glimpse! You’ll also learn how to move away from the reef using a smooth back kick, without waving your arms or stirring up sand — a total game-changer, especially for underwater photographers who want clean shots of Roatan’s beautiful reef life.
With the Deep Dive, you’ll be able to explore parts of some of Roatan’s most iconic dive sites, like Hole in the Wall, Mary’s Place, or one of the island’s wrecks — places you can’t fully experience without that deeper certification.
Then there’s the Fish ID and Underwater Naturalist dives — these will seriously level up your marine life knowledge. Once you understand how different creatures behave, it becomes so much easier (and more fun) to spot them!
And of course, one of the highlights: the Night Dive. This gives you the chance to witness the magical String of Pearls — a bioluminescent phenomenon that’s super rare and only seen in a few places around the world. Roatan is one of them! If you’ve heard of bioluminescence, this is like the next level — it’s honestly something you have to see to believe.
“In Roatan’s Advanced Open Water course, every Adventure Dive is both a lesson and a true adventure. Think deep dives teeming with life, easy drifts, wreck exploration, and magical night dives with the island’s famous strings of pearls—each one unforgettable.”
“The best part of earning your Advanced certification is access to sites you couldn’t fully enjoy before—like wrecks around 100 ft/30 m, and deeper walls where the reef’s shape and color really open up. I also recommend Fish Identification—it’s a fun way to learn families and features so the sea life starts to ‘click’ every dive.”
As a PADI 5-Star Dive Center, we’ve helped hundreds of divers level up their underwater abilities in a fun, safe, and highly personalized setting. With over 30 years of combined experience diving Roatan’s spectacular reefs, wrecks, and walls, our expert instructors will guide you through real-world adventure dives in small groups — just 4 divers per instructor.
Whether you’re dreaming of wreck diving, exploring deeper reefs, or preparing for your Rescue Diver course — the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification is your key to more freedom and more adventure beneath the surface.
Octopus Dive School has been operating on Roatan since 2005. We take pride in offering an exceptional personalized service and diver safety is our top priority.
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