Advance Open Water Certification

[Sylvain]

I think that it is all money, if you want my personal opinion get rid of Advance Open water and Rescue and combine it into 1 course. So far from what I was reading mostly everybody is saying the same rescue is req and Advance is only there to get more practice under supervision so in my own opinion PUT THEM BOTH TOGETHER and voila instead of $$$$$$$$ you spend$$$ and get the same result you can always practice your rescue portion during some portion of the course and also get your specialty as you are practicing your rescue but at the end you will save some money

 

[1RUSTYRIG]

It's about the fact that a lot of OW courses have been whittled down to the bare minimum to survive underwater, due mainly to consumer demand.
IMHO all divers should do OW, Peak Performance Buoyancy, AOW, Navigation and Rescue before I recognise them as a recreational buddy I can depend on.
Thats what I see the OW course should entail...
Enjoy the adventure...

Yeah...I just love diving with people who have done OW, PPB, AOW, Nav, and Rescue...and that accounts for 98% of their dives. Badge chasers scare the hell outta me.

 

[Web Monkey]

Well, I don't know about anybody else, but when I finished my OW cert, I felt like I had been given a license to kill myself

You're probably not far from wrong.

There isn't a person in the world who can be handed a complete set of new (to them) equipment used for surviving in a hostile, liquid environment, given a 100 page book and somewhere between 3 and 7 classes, and be competent enough to handle normal and emergency conditions.

I beleive that the reason new divers don't wash up dead on the shore every day is that they tend to run off to Someplace Warm and go on boats and shore dives with DMs and experienced divers who keep an eye on them (even if they're not aware of it).

Terry

 

[Damselfish]

It's useful to have the card so you don't get blocked from some dives, so you can go onto Rescue, and practice never hurts.

Personally, I don't think you learn that much on the AOW course - although it depends on which dives you choose. It would be a far better course in my opinion if it had compulsory deep, navigation, bouyancy, night and another bouyancy dives instead of the arbitrary choices.

Still, as others have said it is on the path to Rescue, which should be considered essential for anyone intending to dive regularly or without instructor supervision.

I agree about the dive choices. When I did Padi AOW there were no choices and I think it was better that way - you covered all core type skills and AOW had a well defined meaning. We did Deep, Night/Limited Vis, Search&Recovery, Compass nav, Natural nav, and discussed many other topics (equipment, boats, etc.) You were doing bouyancy all the time really. I think just deep & nav are required now. Some flexibility may be good but there's too much - I think things like UW Naturalist or Photography are nice specialties for those interested but I don't think they should be AOW options.

 

[jbichsel]

I personally believe that OW, AOW and Rescue should be combined to be the OW cert. The classes would take longer, be more expensive, require more time, so the market and societies need for immediate gratification has ruled out common sense.

OW only certifies you to dive to 60', officially. Hardly anyone I know follows that once they get a few dives in. AOW clears you to 130', the recreational limit. Unfortunately, I have to agree that the AOW is too short and does not have enough requirements to create a true "Advanced Open Water Diver".

As said by others, there are some operators that check, some don't before taking people on deeper or more advanced dives. I wish more would check.

We don't train people just as a "cash cow". Truth be told, OW cert fees barely cover the shops costs. While we're at it though, we do strive to teach more than just the minimum. I have real issues with the "lowest common denominator" view.

Us dive pros should start putting more pressure on the agencies to include more of the AOW and Rescue items in the OW cert.

 

[1RUSTYRIG]

I personally believe that OW, AOW and Rescue should be combined to be the OW cert. The classes would take longer, be more expensive, require more time, so the market and societies need for immediate gratification has ruled out common sense.

I agree with that 100%

OW only certifies you to dive to 60', officially. Hardly anyone I know follows that once they get a few dives in. AOW clears you to 130', the recreational limit.

OW does not limit you to 60'. That is the "recommendation" of the service, PADI. Unless that has changed since I got certed in '90...

 

[gfisher4792]

I think that it is all money, if you want my personal opinion get rid of Advance Open water and Rescue and combine it into 1 course. So far from what I was reading mostly everybody is saying the same rescue is req and Advance is only there to get more practice under supervision so in my own opinion PUT THEM BOTH TOGETHER and voila instead of $$$$$$$$ you spend$$$ and get the same result you can always practice your rescue portion during some portion of the course and also get your specialty as you are practicing your rescue but at the end you will save some money

I agree with you, and coincidentally, one of my LDS's does just this (all the time, I'm not sure; but I was offered it in the spring). I think it's an addition $50 above AOW class alone, but sounds like a good deal.

 

[StSomewhere]

OW only certifies you to dive to 60', officially. Hardly anyone I know follows that once they get a few dives in. AOW clears you to 130', the recreational limit.

IIRC, AOW divers are trained to dive up to a limit of 100 fsw, the deep specialty trains to a limit of 130 fsw. Of course, structured courses aren't the only way to learn to go on to deeper limits -- but hopefully in that case those limits are at least extended gradually.

Edit: Rusty the *current* OW limit for PADI *is* 60 fsw. FYI.

 

[sdstahl]

I think that it is all money, if you want my personal opinion get rid of Advance Open water and Rescue and combine it into 1 course. So far from what I was reading mostly everybody is saying the same rescue is req and Advance is only there to get more practice under supervision so in my own opinion PUT THEM BOTH TOGETHER and voila instead of $$$$$$$$ you spend$$$ and get the same result you can always practice your rescue portion during some portion of the course and also get your specialty as you are practicing your rescue but at the end you will save some money

Back in the early '70s this was all they had. In depth instruction in al of the advanced areas. The cert. class took 14 weeks. It's frustrating that an operation would ask me for AOW when I have 30 years experience. It really seems to be a money machine to me. One should learn how to dive safely in their first course not be given a taste of what they could do if they spent more money. Of course i am NOT refering to DIR, Cave or other tech stuff. Just to the extent of AOW or rescue.

 

[mark99]

I personally believe that OW, AOW and Rescue should be combined to be the OW cert. The classes would take longer, be more expensive, require more time, so the market and societies need for immediate gratification has ruled out common sense.

OW only certifies you to dive to 60', officially. Hardly anyone I know follows that once they get a few dives in. AOW clears you to 130', the recreational limit. Unfortunately, I have to agree that the AOW is too short and does not have enough requirements to create a true "Advanced Open Water Diver".

I disagree with the idea of combining all 3 into a single certification. I see an advantage to having an interval between each course in order to get some diving experience. This makes the next course in the sequence more meaningful, since you have more of a foundation to build on. One of the most important things taught in all the courses is to stay well within your limits. I also disagree that "hardly anyone I know follows that (60' limit) once they get a few dives in." Maybe that depends on where you dive, here in California at Catalina Island as an example most of the sites and things to see are above 60' anyway.

How about a requirement to have a certain number of dives after OW in order to take the AOW course? And then a certain number of dives after the course in order to actually get the AOW card?