3 Day Liveaboard – PADI Advanced Open Water Course

The PADI Advanced Open Water Course is your next course after the Open Water Course and is designed to develop your confidence underwater by expanding and fine tuning your existing diving skills.

The Advanced Open Water Course is completed on a 3 Day Liveaboard trip.  The course is made up of five speciality dives.  You will complete three core dives being a deep dive (over 20 metres and up to 30 metres), underwater navigation, and night dive. Your remaining two elective dives can include nitrox, underwater naturalist, peak performance buoyancy, boat, or underwater photography. Other elective options may be available which we recommend you discuss with your instructor once onboard.

The five speciality dives are spread out over the three days allowing you to have fun dives in between your training dives.

Course Highlights

3 Day 2 Night Liveaboard Trip on the Outer Great Barrier Reef
Completing PADI Advanced Certifications
Being certified to dive to 30 metres as well as diving on Nitrox (giving you more bottom time)
11 Dives (5 training dives + 6 fun dives) includes 2 night dives over a variety of different reef locations

Availability – Courses start every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday

Duration – Three days

Course Outline –  All Dives and Course Theory is completed onboard the vessel Scubapro over 3 days

Course Prerequisite – Open Water Certification

Diving Details

You will have access to a selection of 19 outer reef dive sites on four magnificent reefs Flynn, Thetford, Milln and Pellowe Reef. Diving at different times throughout the day, you will be able to encounter an amazing diversity of marine life including giant clams, sea turtles, stingrays, reef sharks, an incredible variety of tropical fish, spectacular coral formations with consistent underwater visibility. Night diving will introduce a whole new dimension of nocturnal life.

Please note, the below itinerary is a guide only, and the order of sites and dives may change. The skipper will always adapt the plan to the prevailing weather, tides and currents.

Day 1: Great Barrier Reef
5:45 Complimentary hotel transferAvailable from Cairns City and Northern Beaches accommodation.

6:20 Check-in at Pro Dive Cairns retail shopCorner of Grafton and Shields streets, City

7:00 Depart CairnsA light breakfast is served onboard.

11:00 Dive 1
Your first dive is before lunch. A dive guide will be offered for those divers who have not dived in a while. This is an opportunity for you to acclimatise to the diving conditions, fine-tune your skills or even to refresh your skills if it has been some time since your last dive.

12:30 Lunch

14:30 Dive 2:
Peak Performance BuoyancyIf you choose peak performance buoyancy as one of your elective dives, we will use this dive to help you fine-tune your buoyancy, weight adjustments and equipment trim in preparation for the remaining dives. Otherwise, head off and discover more underwater delights. Once you have completed your dive, the vessel moves on to the next site.

16:30 Dive 3:
Navigation DiveDuring this dive you will complete exercises using both a compass and natural references to help improve your underwater navigation skills.18:00 Dinner

19:45 Dive 4:
Night Dive An introduction to night diving on The Great Barrier Reef. Your instructor will help you prepare and plan for future night dives that you may do without the supervision of an instructor. Your instructor will accompany you on this training dive for your comfort and safety. During the dive, you will complete a simple navigation exercise before a guided tour, where you could find sleeping turtles, parrotfish and a variety of other marine life only encountered at night.

Day 2: Great Barrier Reef
7:00 Dive 5: Deep Dive
During this dive, we will give you the experience to safely conduct dives beyond your 18 metre depth limit. Under the close supervision of your dive instructor, you will conduct a deep dive where you will be shown the effects of increased pressure and colour absorption at depth.

9:00 Breakfast

11:15 Dive 6: Underwater Naturalist
If you’re interested in learning more about The Great Barrier Reef and its ecosystem this dive is an absolute must! Learn how to identify the main families of fish from damselfish to triggerfish. You will also be taught how to identify the different corals. If this dive interests you make sure you don’t miss the Reef Teach marine biology presentation the night before your trip departs.

12:45 Lunch

15:15 Dive 7: Underwater Photography
If you want to take home some lasting memories this elective dive is ideal. On your Underwater Photography dive you will be taught pre and post underwater camera
care and how to get the best results from your underwater camera. After preparing your underwater camera your dive will simply involve trying to capture the beauty of The Great Barrier Reef. Digital underwater cameras are available to hire onboard or at our retail shop at an extra cost.

17:45 Dinner

19:30 Dive 8: Night dive
After a briefing from the dive supervisor it’s now time to put your training into practice

Day 3: Great Barrier Reef
6:30 Dive 9
Morning of pleasure diving and the opportunity to finish any additional training dives you may not have completed yet.

7:30 Breakfast

9:00 Dive 10 (Fun Dive)

11:00 Dive 11 (Fun Dive)

12:00 Lunch then depart reef for Cairns

16:00 Complimentary return transfer
Return transfer to your accommodation

19:30 Farewell dinner (optional, additional cost)
Join fellow passengers and crew at a local restaurant for a farewell dinner