The advertising of the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) tells divers to go deeper with the Advanced Open Water diver certification – bad idea. This is not the certification to undertake any forms of deep diving despite what PADI or your local dive centre tells you.

The performance objectives do not correlate to deep diving requirements; there are no additional equipment requirements different to standard scuba, no advanced dive planning and gas requirements or gas panning procedures taught. There is no real training should the diver accidentally slip into decompression and no contingency management planning. PADI perceives any dive to a depth greater than 18 metres as a deep dive so you can be qualified as a deep diver with a 19 metre dive. I used to frequently see divers certified at the 21 metre depth after diving in warm and clear blue water with 20+ metres visibility – not good enough.