Griffo
Contributor
I'm not entirely sure what my view is on this topic. On one hand, when I lived in Melbourne, I needed certain certs to even get on the boat. But they required full certs, the "adventure dives" as part of PADI AOW didn't qualify, but a full deep / wreck / night etc cert did. So if you were local to here, i'd tell you to get the full certs and work up to AOW that way.
On the other hand, we are also travelling divers, and have often run into the "you need to have AOW to do this dive" up-front requirement from the LDS. While I have it, the wife only has OW and Fundies. Yet we've also never failed to get them to waive the requirement on the wife after they've seen her in-water. But i can see the attraction of the short-cut AOW cert to let you do certain dives without question.
On the other hand, we are also travelling divers, and have often run into the "you need to have AOW to do this dive" up-front requirement from the LDS. While I have it, the wife only has OW and Fundies. Yet we've also never failed to get them to waive the requirement on the wife after they've seen her in-water. But i can see the attraction of the short-cut AOW cert to let you do certain dives without question.