If you already have your Open Water certification and are thinking about taking the next step, doing the Advanced Open Water in San Cristóbal, Galápagos, can be one of the best decisions you make to genuinely improve as a diver.
And I am not just talking about getting a new certification.
The difference is felt underwater.
After the Open Water, you already know how to breathe, control your equipment, descend, ascend, and manage yourself in a recreational dive. But when you start facing depth, navigation, buoyancy, and currents, situations arise where you need something more than knowing the basic procedures.
That is where the Advanced Open Water comes in.
And doing it in a place like San Cristóbal has an added ingredient: you can use those new skills in an environment that truly forces you to improve.
What really changes between Open Water and Advanced Open Water? 🌊
The Open Water is your gateway to the diving world.
In fact, a PADI Open Water program in San Cristóbal can include confined water training and four open water dives, preparing the student to dive up to 18 meters once certified.
But the Advanced Open Water does not simply mean “going deeper.”
That is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when understanding the course.
Among the skills that can be part of this training are deep diving, underwater navigation, buoyancy, drift diving, fish identification, and night diving.
And precisely there is where the true transformation begins.
Buoyancy stops being a detail and becomes your best tool 🤿
One of the first things you notice when you start improving as a diver is that good buoyancy changes absolutely everything.
At first, you might be keeping track of too many things:
Am I too far up? Am I going down? Am I using too much air? Am I kicking correctly? Am I too close to the rock?
When you improve your buoyancy, many of those concerns disappear.
In my case, one of the biggest differences was precisely that. In each of the adventure dives, the instructors teach you the exact tricks you need: you learn to master your buoyancy like a pro, not to waste air recklessly due to tension, and to navigate the channel using the current in your favor instead of fighting against it.
Why is Kicker Rock such an interesting setting for an Advanced? 🦈
Kicker Rock, also known as León Dormido, is one of the most famous dive sites in San Cristóbal.
The area forms a massive volcanic landscape sticking out of the ocean and creates a channel where water conditions can transform the dive into a much more dynamic experience than a calm dive in protected waters.
“I have my Advanced, so I can handle any current now.”
No.
The certification does not eliminate ocean conditions. What changes is your ability to respond to them, and that difference is extremely noticeable when you have a rock wall in front of you, current all around, and marine life passing through the area.
The current does not have to be your enemy 🌊
This is probably one of the most important lessons you can take away from an Advanced Open Water in Galápagos.
Learning to dive with current does not mean learning to fight against it.
It means understanding it.
At first, the current commands a lot of respect and nerves kick in when seeing the rock wall, but that is right where the course makes the difference.
The Advanced training can include Drift Diving, precisely an adventure specialty related to water movement. At Aquaventures, we even recommend drift diving and buoyancy work as particularly useful skills for Galápagos conditions.
And it makes sense.
When you start to understand how to position yourself, when to fin, and when to simply let the water do part of the work, the dive completely changes.
The moment you descend to 30 meters changes your perspective 🤿
Deep diving is another pillar of the Advanced Open Water.
In the Aquaventures program, for example, Deep Diving allows working down to a maximum of 30 meters / 100 feet accompanied by the instructor.
And here is where you really notice how much you have progressed.
Because it is one thing to know that you are allowed to go deeper.
It is a completely different thing to feel comfortable doing it.
By the time it is your turn for the deep descent to 30 meters, the transformation is total.
You are no longer worried about your fins or buoyancy, but enjoying the show from the front row.
That mental shift is one of the greatest benefits of the course.
And yes, down there the true show can begin 🦈
Galápagos has a worldwide reputation precisely for the amount and diversity of marine life that can be found during its dives.
Among the dives, we highlight encounters with hammerhead sharks, whale sharks, giant mantas, and other species as part of the archipelago’s diving experience.
But there is something important to understand:
No dive can guarantee a specific species.
You can have a spectacular dive and encounter hammerhead sharks, rays, sea lions, or massive schools of fish; you can also spend more time focused on the topography and conditions.
And precisely because of that, it is so important to arrive prepared, because when an incredible animal appears in front of you, the last thing you want to be thinking is:
“Am I floating correctly?” “Where is my depth?” “Am I consuming too much air?”
When skills start coming naturally, you can truly dedicate yourself to observing.
What do you learn in an Advanced Open Water? 📚
In ours at Aquaventures, you will master skills such as:
- Deep diving.
- Underwater navigation.
- Advanced buoyancy control.
- Drift diving.
- Fish identification.
- Night diving.
- Handling common situations and problems.
- Greater air consumption control.
- Greater awareness of depth and surroundings.
The key is not in accumulating names of specialties, but in which skills you actually manage to transfer into the water.
How long does the Advanced Open Water take in Galápagos? 📅
At Aquaventures, we structure the Advanced Open Water over a minimum of three days, with prior theory and days dedicated to adventure dives, in addition to an extra recreational dive within your itinerary.
This also means that you shouldn’t think of the Advanced as an activity you simply fit between two tours.
It is training.
You need time to receive briefings, practice, rest, review what was learned, and get back into the water.
In Galápagos, this becomes even more important because conditions can demand quite a bit of concentration.
Do you need experience before taking the Advanced Open Water? 🤔
The basic requirement is having an Open Water Diver certification, but there is an important difference between:
“I can do the course” and “I am ready to make the absolute most of it.”
If you just obtained your Open Water and are still struggling with your buoyancy, you shouldn’t be obsessed with proving that you are an expert diver.
The Advanced course exists precisely to help you develop those capabilities.
However, doing it with a learning attitude, listening to the instructor, and respecting the conditions of the day makes all the difference.
Kicker Rock can teach you more than many hours of theory 🌋
There are courses you can do anywhere, but there are experiences that force you to apply what you have learned. Kicker Rock is interesting precisely because of that—you don’t need to turn it into a test of bravery.
The idea is to arrive prepared, listen to the briefing, respect the conditions, and use the skills you just developed. The current can command respect, the rock wall can be impressive, and the depth can make you feel small.
But when you have good buoyancy, know how to navigate, and understand how to move in the water, you start seeing the place differently. You are no longer just surviving the dive.
You are diving.
What you will take with you after finishing the Advanced 🎯
Upon completing the course, you won’t just have more knowledge.
You will have more experience.
You will have completed different types of dives, worked on specific skills, and learned to face situations that you likely didn’t encounter during your first dives.
Among the benefits of the Advanced are precisely gaining experience, practicing navigation, and executing different types of dives.
And in a destination like Galápagos, those skills have immense utility.
Because here you don’t just come to look at fish.
You come to handle yourself in a dynamic underwater ecosystem.
So, is it worth taking the Advanced Open Water in San Cristóbal? 🌊
After having experienced it, for me the answer is clear.
Yes.
Making the leap directly from Open Water to Advanced in Galápagos and at Kicker Rock is one of those decisions that change the way you dive forever.
Not because you magically become a professional, but because you start to understand things that before you simply did automatically or with a degree of insecurity.
You learn to master your buoyancy, you learn to navigate, you learn to better control your breathing, you learn to move with the current, you learn to go deeper accompanied by an instructor, and you learn to understand how the dive changes.
And, above all, you start to trust. By the time the experience ends, you are no longer thinking solely about getting a certification.
You are thinking about where you want to do your next dive. And that confidence is probably the best certification you can take to any other sea in the world.
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