The thing is, it's actually extremely easy to get an Advanced Open Water cert. I did it in a few days in Dahab, on the Sinai. We actually dove the Blue Hole as our last dive.
Yeah, that's crazy too. Maybe I have rose colored lenses because I did my advanced open water through my university and we did tons of dives to the same spot with I guess more academically focused exams and whatnot.
Still, that was circa 1997 so, um, I forgot pretty much all the detail :).
