Is AOW a required prerequisite to do a Divemaster?

[Hartattack]

Let’s hypothetically say I have a PADI OW cert from the late 90’s and for whatever reasons never took any further classes. However, through the course of all my diving I had many dives past 100’, dives at night, hunting dives, dives in cold water with a drysuit, navigation dives out of pure necessity. Let’s say I had some of the best mentors anybody could ever have, and all that diving and incrementally pushing further each time and learning gave me skills that most “class trained” divers with a lot less challenging dives simply don’t get. This isn’t me because I’ve had a considerable amount of class training (and tough dives), but I know people who fit this example.

If I paid to go diving on a boat and some DM told me that I was limited to 60’ because all I had was an OW cert, I would either demand a new DM or my money back or both. That would be the first and last time I use that operation.

Thanks for stopping by to give your hypothetical story. Nevertheless, I’d recommend that person to the three above without hesitation or do a quick dive to check out the individuals skill level. Either way, It’s no loss to me and I continue to have a safe and thoughtful reputation as an Instructor.

it’s why you read “It’s not about the agency, it’s about the instructor” a lot on here.

 

[wstorms]

Pfff quite an update overnight. I am with @Hartattack on this.
I do agree that agencies do not have legal powers to dictate terms of general diving, hence they do the next best thing: they recommend.

The recommendation is to stay within training limits AND experience. This means both apply. If you need to go to the store for milk and coffee, you missed the point if you only come back with coffee. In the current (Dutch) OWD manual it is even suggested that if during open water training you do not go deeper than say 12 meter, that would be your certification limit. Obviously this is not correct (after checking it turned out to be an awkward translation), but it is an indication to stay on the conservative side. I have never seen any recommendation to build your experience beyond your training standards, only within those standards. This is especially true when validated ways of extending your experience are available, in this case AOWD and deep specialty.

With regards to personal diving, there is no scuba police (in some areas there actually is) and you are responsible for your own diving. Want to go to 300 meter on a single 80 cuft with air? I would strongly advise against it but if you really insist, you have the right to kill yourself. If you want to avoid that, I strongly advise (bloke on the internet, so I cannot dictate / enforce) you stay within your training limits.

However, all this changes if you are a DM. With DM I mean dive professional working in any capacity with students / clients, not "guy who is qualified but is actually on a personal holiday dive in the same ocean now".
As a DM you do need to stick to the training standards, even when guiding. Even if it is legally arguable whether or not you need to stay within training standards, you still should do so being the role model that you are.
In addition, you are supposed to overview the diving activities in a safe, conservative manner. There is simply no way to suggest it is ok to take the clients beyond their limits, while at the same time making safe, conservative decisions.

Now obviously, in the real world, stuff does happen. I have guided OWD divers who dropped below 18 meters. Now the big factor is intent. Did you brief the dive to go to 25 meter or did you brief 18 and was there an unexpected downwards current? If there was an unexpected drop, I would consider it as an incident. In all honesty, I never did go as far as filing an incident report (maybe I should have) but I definitely made sure to address it in the debriefing.
If you planned to go deeper than the limits, you (as a professional) willingly decided to take your clients beyond their limits. Unfortunately we read about stuff like "the dive opp took me to 40 meter on a single 80 even though I am only OWD" all the time, often leading to operator / agency bashing.

The fact that professionals do take clients below their training limits it the very definition of "normalization of deviation".
If you are unfamiliar with the concept, read some of Gareth Lock's work: The Human Diver - Counter-errorism in Diving - Home Page and watch the "if only" video. "Normalization of deviation" means that when you cross a line, the same line starts to drift. What is unacceptable at first, becomes acceptable or even normal the more you do it. If a client gets taken to 25 meter by a dive professional, it must be ok right? So now it seems to be ok to dive to 25 meter with an OWD certification. 27 meter doesn't seem so much different. Dive after that, maybe 30 meters isn't so different...Suddenly the OWD diver finds himself narced out of his mind at 40 meter, way too deep in the incident pit and everybody shouts "well he should have stayed within his limits"...

Even if you are a DM / instructor / course director / more experienced diver who is simply diving with friends (but in no professional capacity) there is a certain authoritative gradient. I am not talking about legal aspects here, but human behavior. "If somebody who has more experience than me is doing something a certain way, it must be a good idea to do so. After all, they really know what they are talking about." Unfortunately, stuff like this is all to common.
Simple example: when diving with friends, I do not do a buddy check all the time (not even close to be honest). Even though I do know better, complacency steps in.
Now here is the excuse I tell myself: "I am an experienced self reliant diver and I am confident I can handle anything that would be caught by a buddy check. My friends are equally self reliant. And most of all, I have checked my own equipment well before we would even do a buddy check anyway."
Even though this might all be true, at the very least it is setting a bad example, and I am trying to alter my behavior because of it.

Another thing to remember is that a lot of dive professionals are making a lot of hours for very little money. The dive industry, especially on popular tourist destinations, is saturated with people who will work for peanuts. After all, diving is a cool thing to do. Now if you are supporting a hobby, that might be fine, but if you are depending on the income, it becomes really difficult to say no to clients, or to risk the tip.
So breaking the safety rules (sorry; standards) becomes tempting, after all, usually nothing serious happens and hey, the client will be going home next week anyway. Again this contributes to unsafe behavior from the dive professional, but assuming there is no significant visible incident, the client will never know and might consider it normal.

All in all, like @Hartattack said, I will do my best to always stay withing the most conservative applicable training standards. Stuff might happen, but that would be an incident, not normal behavior and should be addressed as such. If me looking out for your safety is offensive to you so be it.

 

[Scraps]

The recommendation is to stay within training limits AND experience. This means both apply.

How does an open water diver ever get to attempt more challenging dives?

Where I live, most new OW divers complete their four OW dives at either a lake or an inland spring or a gentle spring-fed river. If we strictly abide by the doctrine suggested above, none of them should ever come aboard the charter boats I work on because they've never dove from a boat, they've never been out of sight of land, they've never dove in choppy conditions, they've never done a back roll, and they've never had to swim into a current.

But they do come aboard. And when they get to the pier, I look at their shiny c-card with the recent date of issue, ask them about their dive experience, and feel my spidey senses start tingling. Then I give them the extra attention they need: supervision during gear setup, a seat that means they'll be among the last divers to enter the water, more eye contact and detail in the pre-dive brief, maybe remind them of the components of a buddy check, close observation of their behavior and demeanor, and an offer to let them follow me on the dive itself even if they didn't hire a personal guide. In short, I do the same things DMs do all over the world to make sure this dive that's a bit beyond what they've done before goes safely.

I think that's how most divers grow beyond the narrow experience of their first four open water dives--even some of the ones who progress right from OW to AOW and arrive at the boat with ten dives under their belts, still never having dove in salt water. And I don't think there's anything wrong with this type of learning by doing.

Do you really think that constitutes normalization of deviation and a breach of standards?

 

[wstorms]

How does an open water diver ever get to attempt more challenging dives?

Where I live, most new OW divers complete their four OW dives at either a lake or an inland spring or a gentle spring-fed river. If we strictly abide by the doctrine suggested above, none of them should ever come aboard the charter boats I work on because they've never dove from a boat, they've never been out of sight of land, they've never dove in choppy conditions, they've never done a back roll, and they've never had to swim into a current.

This is exactly how to get more experience; by slowly doing more challenging dives together with more experienced divers. There is nothing in training standards that prevents you from learning local boat procedures. Quite the opposite, this is all encouraged, as long as it is via slow, incremental steps.
Maybe the OWD diver just out of the course should skip the 4 hour boat ride in rough seas with ripping currents, and do a relaxed boat dive first.
However, there are (training) standards regarding depth, and duration (the dive envelop so to speak) that should be followed regardless. Even when you take the available specialties (like boat diving, drift diving) these standards remain the same.

But they do come aboard. And when they get to the pier, I look at their shiny c-card with the recent date of issue, ask them about their dive experience, and feel my spidey senses start tingling. Then I give them the extra attention they need: supervision during gear setup, a seat that means they'll be among the last divers to enter the water, more eye contact and detail in the pre-dive brief, maybe remind them of the components of a buddy check, close observation of their behavior and demeanor, and an offer to let them follow me on the dive itself even if they didn't hire a personal guide. In short, I do the same things DMs do all over the world to make sure this dive that's a bit beyond what they've done before goes safely.

It seems you are putting safety first, and actively look after the safety of the divers around you. Obviously this is awesome! I am going to assume you are doing this because you are a nice, safety minded person. I do applaud your attitude, but have some concerns about the very last bit: "dive that's a bit beyond what they've done before". If you mean teaching local boat procedure because they haven't been on a boat yet, all good. If you are suggesting going beyond the dive envelop (as mentioned in the standards) this is an issue. And if you (you in general, not intended as a personal comment) are a dive professional, it really is an issue.

I think that's how most divers grow beyond the narrow experience of their first four open water dives--even some of the ones who progress right from OW to AOW and arrive at the boat with ten dives under their belts, still never having dove in salt water. And I don't think there's anything wrong with this type of learning by doing.

Do you really think that constitutes normalization of deviation and a breach of standards?

No I do agree with the concept of learning by doing, as long as it is in slow increments within the standards. The example you gave does not violate the standards. You don't have to have a boat dive specialty to dive of a boat, but if you are looking for a way to gain more experience diving of a boat this is one of the options available to you. You DO have to have a deep dive specialty to dive to 40 meter.
Actually that is not quite accurate; you as an individual can do whatever you want, but you do need to have the appropriate card if you want a professional to accompany you to that particular depth.
And the other way around, any professional should stay within the most conservative applicable limits and should therefor make sure you have the right training for a particular dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

The recommendation is to stay within training limits AND experience. This means both apply.

Nope.

First, note that it is a recommendation. Next, it is a combination of training and experience, with the ratio determined by your best judgment. With enough experience, further training is not needed.

If you want a more detailed description of how this works, go to PADI's professional journal, the Undersea Journal, from 2 years ago (3rd quarter 2018, IIRC, but I could be wrong.) In it you will find a short article with the subtitle "Thinking Like a Diver." The article is based on something written by a PADI instructor on the topic, and it contains the wording that the instructor suggested and which PADI said will be used in future publications. That wording shows how a diver uses his or her judgment to determine the ability to extend the limits of experience and training. It focuses on wreck diving and entering a wreck (yes, you can use good judgment to enter overhead environments), but the wording applies to extending depth limits as well. It focuses on the meaning of the phrase "training and experience."

When you read it, note the name of the instructor being quoted. Yep, it's me.

It was the result of a long email exchange with PADI technical director Karl Shreeves. It started with my questioning some of what was written in the wreck diving course and then branched out to what is generally written about overhead environments and depth limitations. He invited me to write new wording, and I did. He shared it with PADI staff and then asked my permission to use the wording when the courses are rewritten sometime in the future. He then published it in the UJ.

In response to my statements about the vagueness and even inaccuracy of PADI's current wording, he argued that the wording must be clear enough, since ALL dive operations around the world that use DMs to lead dives routinely take OW divers deeper than 60 feet, and ALL dive operations around the world that take divers to sites that include wrecks and swim-throughs allow at least some degree of entry. (Notice I did not use the word "penetration;" in our discussion I learned that in PADI philosophy, a penetration is different from a swim-through, although no course defines either.)

So, you can continue to tell me I am wrong, but you will have to explain the fact that PADI says I am right.

 

[Hartattack]

Nope.

First, note that it is a recommendation. Next, it is a combination of training and experience, with the ratio determined by your best judgment. With enough experience, further training is not needed.

If you want a more detailed description of how this works, go to PADI's professional journal, the Undersea Journal, from 2 years ago (3rd quarter 2018, IIRC, but I could be wrong.) In it you will find a short article with the subtitle "Thinking Like a Diver." The article is based on something written by a PADI instructor on the topic, and it contains the wording that the instructor suggested and which PADI said will be used in future publications. That wording shows how a diver uses his or her judgment to determine the ability to extend the limits of experience and training. It focuses on wreck diving and entering a wreck (yes, you can use good judgment to enter overhead environments), but the wording applies to extending depth limits as well. It focuses on the meaning of the phrase "training and experience."

When you read it, note the name of the instructor being quoted. Yep, it's me.

It was the result of a long email exchange with PADI technical director Karl Shreeves. It started with my questioning some of what was written in the wreck diving course and then branched out to what is generally written about overhead environments and depth limitations. He invited me to write new wording, and I did. He shared it with PADI staff and then asked my permission to use the wording when the courses are rewritten sometime in the future. He then published it in the UJ.

In response to my statements about the vagueness and even inaccuracy of PADI's current wording, he argued that the wording must be clear enough, since ALL dive operations around the world that use DMs to lead dives routinely take OW divers deeper than 60 feet, and ALL dive operations around the world that take divers to sites that include wrecks and swim-throughs allow at least some degree of entry. (Notice I did not use the word "penetration;" in our discussion I learned that in PADI philosophy, a penetration is different from a swim-through, although no course defines either.)

So, you can continue to tell me I am wrong, but you will have to explain the fact that PADI says I am right.

John, we are not saying you are wrong. We are saying we don't agree with your philosophy and choose to stay within the limits stated on the divers' certification cards. Like @wstorms said above. I highly recommend you read Gareth Lock's work: The Human Diver - Counter-errorism in Diving - Home Page and Under Pressure Diving Deeper with Human Factors, considering a lot of research has been done on this very topic since the 2018 PADI Undersea Journal. We are simply mitigating risk by staying within the diver's limits. If that diver would like to extend those limits—I would be happy to do that in a class of instruction. Or like the hypothetical story, another member posted—I would be happy to do a quick skills check dive and then move forward on a more advanced recreational profile.

Nevertheless, this isn't a scuba tank measuring contest, we simply choose to be conservative and would hope a colleague would respect that choice

 

[boulderjohn]

I highly recommend you read Gareth Lock's work: The Human Diver - Counter-errorism in Diving - Home Page and Under Pressure Diving Deeper with Human Factors,

I have already read them, and I don't see anything in them that contradicts what I wrote.

 

[Hartattack]

I have already read them, and I don't see anything in them that contradicts what I wrote.

Fair enough. However—would you do a Guided 140ft Decompression Profile Dive on 21/35 and 50% O2 with a PADI AOW Diver w/a Nitrox Endorsement? I mean, standards aren't real, right?

 

[boulderjohn]

Fair enough. However—would you do a Guided 140ft Decompression Profile Dive on 21/35 and 50% O2 with a PADI AOW Diver w/a Nitrox Endorsement? I mean, standards aren't real, right?

No, and I would not take a brand new OW diver to 300 feet on trimix, either. There is a huge difference between taking an OW diver to 65 feet and taking a recreationally trained diver on a tech dive. The reason for this goes to the heart of the argument--the role of judgment.

I wrote before that a diver has to learn to make good judgments about when his or her training and experience are such that diving limits can be extended. A step such as you describe would be very poor judgment on the part of both the diver and the guide. Going to 65 feet with an OW certification is very reasonable and a good way for a diver to begin to gain more experience with deeper dives. It shows good judgment.

You are quite opposed to this. You want only hard and fast rules that require no judgment on anyone's part.

This is also part of what I described earlier about operator rules, such as the fact that some operators require AOW for some dives. All operators I know that run tech dives require tech training, and that is a wise decision on their part. Note, though, that in the absence of local laws which may apply in some areas, it is a decision by the dive operator. If I were the dive operator, it would be my decision as well.

I actually do make decisions along these lines. I do a lot of diving in a very deep (280 feet) sinkhole in New Mexico. To dive this site, you must be under the supervision of an approved instructor. When I was just a diver at the site, the approved instructor supervising the dives there did not allow solo diving. I am now the approved instructor supervising the dives, and I allow solo diving. I do not, however, allow tech diving by people who do not have tech diving certification.

 

[Hartattack]

No, and I would not take a brand new OW diver to 300 feet on trimix, either. There is a huge difference between taking an OW diver to 65 feet and taking a recreationally trained diver on a tech dive. The reason for this goes to the heart of the argument--the role of judgment.

I wrote before that a diver has to learn to make good judgments about when his or her training and experience are such that diving limits can be extended. A step such as you describe would be very poor judgment on the part of both the diver and the guide. Going to 65 feet with an OW certification is very reasonable and a good way for a diver to begin to gain more experience with deeper dives. It shows good judgment.

You are quite opposed to this. You want only hard and fast rules that require no judgment on anyone's part.

This is also part of what I described earlier about operator rules, such as the fact that some operators require AOW for some dives. All operators I know that run tech dives require tech training, and that is a wise decision on their part. Note, though, that in the absence of local laws which may apply in some areas, it is a decision by the dive operator. If I were the dive operator, it would be my decision as well.

I actually do make decisions along these lines. I do a lot of diving in a very deep (280 feet) sinkhole in New Mexico. To dive this site, you must be under the supervision of an approved instructor. When I was just a diver at the site, the approved instructor supervising the dives there did not allow solo diving. I am now the approved instructor supervising the dives, and I allow solo diving. I do not, however, allow tech diving by people who do not have tech diving certification.

So we agree. Where we differ is on the acceptable risk of depth. You think 65ft is okay, I disagree and will continue to keep my OW divers above the 60ft certification limit unless they are in a Deep Diver or AOW course of instruction. Just as you would not guide my example diver above on a Tech 1 level dive without them being in a certified course of instruction.

Oof, that’s the argument that has expanded over 4 pages.