Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
The Agency of which you speak (PADI) most certainly does recognize AOW as being indicative of expertise. Otherwise it wouldn't appear as a prerequisite on either the leadership or tecrec paths.
Going with that idea...I took a wreck course last November and dive one for my course, was the dive for the AOW Adventures in diving elective...and it was (as you said) looking at a wreck. The guy that was on the AOW course that day did wreck and boat as his electives. Sorry that's a bit weenie for "advanced" Sure it was an "adventure" it was "experience" but did both of those make him a "better, more advanced" diver? nope.
"Adventures in Diving" is a cool concept, but as a vehicle for advanced certification I think it's not optimum. I think it should exist as it is, and BE a catalyst for different experiences.
It was interesting to read the post above by Bouyant1 about the first dive on the Wreck Diver Speciality course as being the same dive as the "Adventure" Wreck Dive on the PADI AOW course - ie. going down and looking at a wreck.
There is a lot of talk about how the AOW is just a bit too soft for the label "advanced".
I am going through various speciality courses over the course of this summer to get my PADI Master Scuba Diver rating (qualification junkie), and I have to say, the majority of those have struck me so far as pretty danged soft themselves. I appreciate it is all recreational diving and not technical diving or anything terribly hard core, but if MSD is supposed to be the pinnacle of non-professional recreational diving education, you would have thought that there would be a bit more to it.
- Deep Speciality Dive #3, examing the effect of depth on colour changes, and do a 7 minute simulated emergency decompression stop.
- Night Speciality Dive #2, demonstrate hand signals, navigate your way back to the exit point with at least 500 psi remaining.
It's all just a little bit soft given the press that PADI give it (Join the best of the best in recreational scuba diving. ... Do it by becoming a PADI Master Scuba Diver a rating that puts you in a class of distinction).
I am sure Ice Diver and Cavern Diver courses must be pretty hard core, but the rest of them, well, I don't think they make you a master of much other than your own cheque book.
As for AOW being a prerequisite for leadership or tecrec paths... such a claim is really scrapping the barrel of gross distortion.
You make it sound as if I'm intentionally distorting the information. I'm not. I have no affiliation with PADI; I'm a consumer, and I read its descriptions with neither inside information nor bias......
Again, I'll point out that this entire 18 page thread hinges almost entirely around semantics. Unfortunate word choice. That's it.
It all depends on the conditions you're diving in.Nope...there are no 'team skills' on any PADI recreational course. That only starts on page 51 of the DSAT Tec Deep manual....
I'll quote the first chapter from that page....
The Team Concept
One of the first things you learned as a recreational diver is that you dive with a buddy. And as you recall, you can do this for reasons that include safety advantages, practicality and to have more fun.
Tec diving takes the buddy system to the next emphasis level with the team diving concept. What team diving means is that you embrace and apply the philosophy that tec divers work as a team, integrating each team members needs and efforts into pre-dive checks, meeting equipment requirements, planning and executing the dive, and other details, while pursuing a common goal. As a team, you must treat the dive as a mission with specific purpose the team pursues together with a common goal, rather than just as an "underwater visit".
So, again, there is nothing new for an AOW or MSD to learn about buddy skills...they have learnt (and maybe forgotten) everything they needed to know about them on their OW training. Of course, a good instructor would make sure that such practices are reinforced on every subsequent training dive.
As for team diving... a recreational diver is unlikely to have need of this concept - unless they wanted to pursue specific 'missions' on their dives and had to co-ordinate equipments, gases and other aspects prior to and on the dive.
Oh...and please lets not turn this into a DIR debate
As for AOW being a prerequisite for leadership or tecrec paths... such a claim is really scrapping the barrel of gross distortion. AOW is a prerequisite for rescue. Rescue is THEN a prerequisite for leadership level.