Advanced Open Water Cert. Requirements

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sharksrcool

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Hi all,

I got my junior open water certification when I was younger, and since then have not been able to go as much as I would like. I am now 24 and looking to get back into diving. Will I be able to get my advanced open water certification with only having my junior open water?
 
I can't say for sure but a few alarm bells go off on the other side of the equation. How long has it been since you were diving? If its been a while I would do a refesher if its been a few years I would get in the water a bit and get your buoyancy back under control. You may have had good control when you were diving before but if its been a while even 3-4 months it can result and a very noticeable degradation of the skill. Which becomes important with some of the skills in AOw with nav and deep. With nav diving you need to be able to stay horizontal while doing your patterns or else it will throw you off. Also in the deep dive you'll be going down another atmosphere of depth which means you'll be adding more air to your BCD/drysuit(if your using the latter) which means as your making adjustments down there possibly over adding air mean you'll run through your air pretty fast. Also when your coming up you'll have a lot more air to contend with and knowing when to vent is important to avoid an uncontrolled ascent. Which coming from 100ft can have pretty nasty repercussions. But this is just my 2 cents as a rescue diver.
 
I assume what he meant was that he wished to get the training for the Advanced Open Water certification, and wanted to know if he was eligible to do it if he only had junior open water. Of course he should get new training because of all those intervening years. As for his question, the only requirement for changing certification from junior open water to regular open water is no longer being a junior. Once you were of age, you could have gotten the certification changed. I can't imagine anyone giving you any kind of hassle about entering an AOW class without going through that formality.
 
I recently was in the same position, I had NAUI junior scuba diver and after a while(5-6 years inactive), I decided to get back into it. My instructor put me in a pool with a normal open water class and we did a refresher before starting the AOW. For me it worked but geting time in the water is important.
 
Thanks for all the advice! Yes I will be doing a refresher course, I just wanted to make sure there would be no problems when looking to get my AOW.
 
There's no need to do a refresher. Your instructor is meant to assess your readiness for further training anyway. Your refresher will be built right into your AOW. Just go ahead and sign up, without doing the refresher first, but make sure to let your instructor know that you're "rusty".
 
As Quero said - your instructor should assess you at the start of the course. The same applies for any PADI course in theory. In practice however, some instructors skimp on that stage and rarely, if ever, conduct meaningful remedial work with students. Do some research and pick your instructor carefully. Communicate with them in advance, ask questions, let them know your situation. That'll indicate whether you'll get what you need...or not.

It's a direct move from any Jnr qualification to the next adult qualification. No worries about upgrading. You might want to review the theory aspects for yourself. There's a myriad of resources online... or you could get hold of the Open Water manual (if you don't already have it). Second-hand OW manuals are often available cheap via Craig's List or Ebay etc..
 
As a PADI Instructor I would, at a minimum dependent on skill level, have you conduct a Scuba Review and take you out for 1-2 dives. After that we would talk about AOW. If I felt you were ready, I would go ahead and conduct the dives with you, but would influence you to choose Peak Performance buoyancy as one of the dives to dither home your skills.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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