Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[boulderjohn]

No, PADI was not the first, nor did they invent the name.. @boulderjohn has written several times about the history.

I got the information from the History of NAUI, written primarily by NAUI founder AL Tillman.

In the mid 1960s, the Los Angeles County program, from which Al Tillman had come, was concerned that so many divers would go through the certification program and then quit diving. They decided to try to change that by creating the Advanced Open Water program, which would improve some key skills and introduce divers to a variety of different diving experiences in the hope of piquing their interests in something that would keep them diving. NAUI was experiencing the same problem with diver dropout, so it followed suit.

The text does not specify when that happened, and it is, of course, not interested in when other agencies followed their lead. It would be about the time that PADI left NAUI, so it is possible that it was done before PADI existed. (PADI left NAUI because NAUI was perpetually on the edge of bankruptcy, and they (NAUI) decided they needed to concentrate on California. Accordingly, the canceled an instructor training program in Chicago, and the Chicago group created PADI.)

The key point is that the AOW program with sampler dives was created by Los Angeles County, followed soon after by NAUI. The goal was try to do something about the high diver dropout rate.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

No, PADI was not the first, nor did they invent the name.. @boulderjohn has written several times about the history.

What did the NAUI advanced course consist of? 5 sampler dives? Or something of actual substance?

 

[Fishdip]

I just got done with my advanced open waters this weekend I wanted to share my thoughts. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much going into it but I wanted to get a few more training dives in before a trip coming up. I didn't really do the class for the card, I was hoping to just work on my skills some.

It wasn't off to a great start when I go there for our 5pm start but we didn't actually get started until closer to 6. We got into the classroom and there was some paperworked laid out for us. As we filled it out, the instructor announced to the class that this was his first advanced open water class he's taught. This wouldn't have bothered me normally, I think there are plenty of people that could be great instructors on thier first class. The issue was the attitue was more that we shouldn't expect much because it was his first.

Then he made a comment about "hoping" that nobody checked yes to the medical issues because we'd need a doctor to sign off. I felt there were two issues with this. One - Why not send these forms ahead of time so they can be filled out without wasting class time. Second - I felt like he was issuing a warning or even advising people to check no even if maybe they should check yes.

Once we had started all the classroom work it became pretty obvious that I wasn't going to get much out of it. He didn't even have the current course materials in front of him. Several times throughout the discussion he made comments about how his book (from when he was advanced certified in the 90s I think he said) was out of date. He basically ran through the section titles in each chapter then had us take turns reading and sharing our answers for the knowlege review. That would have been fine but he didn't have the answers anywhere. He just let us give the answers and would try and correct them if a student said the wrong ones. That said, there were several questions that the agreed upon answers weren't correct. Many of my classmates would change the answers they wrote down to what I'm almost certain were incorrect answers.

Once we wrapped up with the classroom work we headed to the dive site to do our first 3 dives: peak performance, navigation, and night. Again, right away I realized this wasn't going to be super helpful. On the peak performance he decided that we wouldn't do a weight check since it was our first dive and all of our tanks were full. We decended to the platform and all hovered for 60 seconds. Then we spent about 10 minutes swimming through hoops. Honestly that would have been fine if we would have gotten any advice or guidance during it. Any kind of take away, but we didn't.

Then after a short "surface interval" of us floating at the surface and discussing our navigation requirments (which we did for about 3 mintues on land), we decended again to take care of those skills. My buddy and I got through ours fine, but another couple weren't able to. They struggled on land with the simple navigation so there was no way they were ready for anything below the water. Both dives were really rushed, presumibly since we started almost an hour late and they were trying to cram "3" dives into the first night.

Time for the night dive. We all had to rush because dark was falling fast and the mosquitoes were terrible. After a super fast dive breifing we all decended and had a nice, albeit short, night dive. It was so short because a couple of the divers didn't swap tanks between dives because they had only used half. Our bottom time was a minimum just to reach the requirement. I know that because the instructor referenced this multiple times during the weekened.

The next morning we headed back out to the dive site for the deep dive and the search and recovery dive. He informed us that the platform was at about 80 so we'd go down there and do our skills. We'd go down in two groups at seperate times. The first group (not mine) went down and they didn't make it very long. One diver got cold at about 60' (probably about 45 degrees or so at that point). Another experienced a free flow so they aborted the dive. Everyone was fine, no issues or panicing from what I understand. That group took a break and our instructor brought me and my buddy down. We made it to the platform which was supposed to be at 80ish but was really at 96. I for sure noticed some narcosis but I was fine. My buddy however, was not. He was very clearly in a panic but the instructor helped him work through it without issue. We didn't stay down very long at all because of the other diver (with good reason) but we did make a safe accent and an extra long safety stop too. One of the other divers in the other group (the one with the free flow) was able to complete his deep dive.

The final dive was the seach and recovery. That was a fun dive and I got to play with a lift bag and some search patterns. Nothing really remarkable happened but this was proably the dive that I "learned" the most during the weekend (sadly).

After all that we went back to the shop to fill out paperwork for our certifications (execpt the two that didn't complete the deep dive).

Over all it was a pretty dissapointing experience. I was really hoping to work on trim and boyancy which was hard to do when we were kneeling all the time, except the 60 seconds required for the PPB dive. I was also excited to experience a deeper dive but it wasn't very enjoyable. Although I was comfortable and ok, it was frustraiting to plan a dive at 80' then find out it was actually 96'. Now, I know what some might be thinking. If you planned for 80 why did you go to 96. There is more to that story and the plan was changed at the last minute. I was personally comfortable with it. I felt like I had a good handle on it and was ok with the change. I knew before I even got wet that we'd be going to 96'. It was just odd to me that the instructor didn't know the platform was that deep until the guy diving a line down came back up and told us.

I also understand that I maybe should have spoken up during the weekend and expressed some of my concerns. And maybe you're right. I thought about it, I talked about it with my wife after our dives friday. But honestly, I felt like no matter what I said, it wouldn't change anything so I just tried to figure out how to get as much out of it as I could. Starting a fight with my instructor wasn't going to help, so I just asked questions and worked on my skills as I could.

After this weekend do I feel like I'm ready for a 100' dive because I'm and "advanced open water diver". Nope. I'll keep working on my skills, doing my research, and find a better instructor to take more training with. I may even redo my advance open water course all together. I actually am close with another organization so maybe I'll do that instead. Who knows.

I just wanted to share my experence with others. This is just a good example of why finding a good instructor/shop matters.

As I divemaster for more and more shops and instructors, I am finding this is kind of normal. Unfortunately, most class are about getting the cert done. Not spending time doing basic skills, with that said some instructors and shops will take more time with you but don't expect that. If you really want to become a better diver find a instructor who will hold you to a higher level or find a dive buddy, you can spend hours and hours with under water.

 

[OMyMyOHellYes]

Not throwing shade on OW or AOW divers... Still an accomplishment of which to be proud.

The way I've grown to think of AOW:
The more I've thought about it, it crystalised for me as AOW is the second half of the OW class - (OW class demonstrating rudimentary skills on 4 dives+5 more exposure dives in the advanced portion of the program-completion of both hopefully yielding basic, entry-level OW diver). Or a better nomenclature might be OW1 and OW2.

Kind of like taking Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 in jr. high school does not make a mathematician - but a student that completed the jr. high algebra curriculum.

Out of my OW class a month before, I remember being entirely lost when first dumped off the back of a boat for the first time on "leisure dives" while another group on the boat finished their 4 OW referral dives. A couple days later, me and a few others joined them for the 5 "advanced" dives - which were not so much training as exposure. After a few dives applying skills from the first part of the training, it kinda started to gel and make sense and I wasn't just bouncing around, hoping to surface alive somewhere near the boat with the rest of the group.

To me AOW should not be confused with making advanced divers, but I feel that's how it ends up getting sold.

P.S. along those lines, I once asked a course director as to what point they would usually start considering new divers "competent" divers. Their answers was somewhere more than 30 substantive dives. Of course that was dependent on the individual diver. That was probably the point for me when I started getting comfortable and enjoying myself and figuring I had so much more to learn and trying to figure out how to go about learning more.

 

[Edward3c]

Cmas/Bsac OW courses organised by clubs in UK and EU include everything, it is like Padi OW+AOW+Nitrox+Rescue plus other 3 or 4 specialties. We even teach deco procedures...
And the cost of such course is usually less than 100 eur (but you must first become a club member, which can cost other 100 eur).
Instructors are unpaid volunteers.
This is an entirely different world than Padi or other US-based for-profit agencies, shops and paid instructors.
But, as said, I am not in the position of judging those for-profit methods.
As a parent, after training for 10 years our sons with the Cmas methods, we still did find useful to have them certified OW and AOW in Padi courses.
Although you cannot see the benefit, I ensure you that a Padi instructor can provide some useful knowledge, even during the "platter of specialities" of an AOW course.

To put some meat on @Angelo Farina’s comment For BSAC [costs not inclusive of BSAC membership £75.50 per year]:

• Discovery Diver = 10 to 12 year olds (parts of Ocean Diver).
• Ocean Diver = basic equipment assembly and usage, basic rescue of buddy (CBL & make safe at the surface), planning dives using rule of thirds. [£37.50]
• Advanced Ocean Diver = Nitrox to 36%, basic compass & navigation, SMB & DSMB deployment, progressive dives to 30m. [£37.00]
• Sports Diver = dives with mandatory deco stops, further rescue skills (CBL with rescue breaths and recovery to boat or shore, assistant dive manager. [£20.00]

During theses courses students get the opportunity to experience: night dive, low vis (=<2m), small boat (RHIB), large boat (hard boat - charter), boats with mechanical lifts, shore dive, dry suit, drift dive, Nitrox (up to 36%), wall dive, using a shot line, cold water (<10’C). At no additional charge.

These are all taught by volunteer instructors (non-commercial but certified). It’s normal for a student to have 3 or 4 different instructors. It gives us the opportunity to evaluate standards compliance, if one instructor’s students are constantly below par.

This is BSAC’s 70th anniversary year.

All members are covered by our Public Liability insurance (except N America).

 

[VikingDives]

Hi, we can forget about this weird story of indirect supervision in the case of AOW course. It comes from the very early time when Instructors were just a few and had to handle multiple groups at the same time. Never saw indirect supervision for an AOW course within 10 years. All the dive shops require their instructors to directly supervise all dives at a ratio max of 1:4 (which could be more as well). As stated before even in those conditions, most of the time the result is poor in terms of buoyancy/trim/propulsion because minimum requirements to pass are low. Actually the idea behind the AOW course is to get new experience (drift, night, ...) this is not a skill oriented course (though assessment of OW basic skills is supposed to be done) anyway in 2 days, how it could be ?

Not my experience at all.

 

[VikingDives]

That’s wild as hell. That’s basically solo diving. PADI’s course for that- self reliant diver- requires divers to be advanced open water level with a minimum of 100 dives. Yet divers in advanced open water training can run a solo dive? What the heck is PADI doing?

Generally, they'd be diving in buddy teams....

 

[Belzelbub]

Why does PADI always garner this hate for the way it markets AOW (and Master Scuba Diver), but SSI, for example, does not?

You are right that PADI AOW and SSI Advanced Adventurer are effectively the same thing. A sampler platter of specialties available.

I don't really know how common SSI AA actually is. I don't know of anyone that holds that certification, but do know several that hold PADI AOW.

One thing to note regarding dive operations. Often, the prerequisite for certain dives is listed as AOW, so not sure if SSI AA would qualify. It might, if the operator is familiar with both courses, but it might not as it's not technically AOW.

I'll admit I haven't scoured the SSI or PADI sites, but I'm not familiar with any SSI Specialty requiring Advanced Adventurer as a prerequisite. However, I've heard that there are some PADI specialties requiring AOW as a prerequisite.

SSI charges $0 for AOW. It is automatically granted when the required number of specialties is completed. Many shops offer a bundle for AOW with a few select specialties. So at the completion of the requirements for SSI AOW, the diver will actually get a total of 6 additional cards (ecards and/or plastic). One for each of the 4 specialties, 1 for Specialty diver, 1 for AOW. I was curious on the total costs, so I checked a couple of dive shops in my area. One is PADI, one is SSI.

PADI AOW Course: $499
SSI AOW Bundle: $675 (This bundle includes Night/Limited Vis, Deep, Navigation, and one other elective specialty)

Cost at the SSI shop is definitely a bit more, but if you to factor in what you actually get it's definitely more cost effective. If one were to do the same or equivalent specialties via PADI it would be in the $1000 range not including the $499 for AOW.

Master Diver is similar. SSI requires AOW (4 specialties actually) plus Stress & Rescue. Additional cost for Master Diver is $0. I'm not sure what the cost is for PADI MD as it's not listed at the shop I checked. I've heard it's not $0, though.

 

[kaylee_ann]

Generally, they'd be diving in buddy teams....

I’ve been told this several times and realized- my classes were private. So I keep imagining it being only one AOW student by themselves w/o an instructor

 

[Barry Inkpen]

The sad part about recreational dive training is the variability in the quality of delivery. The standards are pretty much the same but the instructor is the difference between an outstanding and fun experience, and one that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I've been a recreational diver for over 50 years and if I had to do it all over again I'd check out the instructor in great detail, and I'd pay to have one on one, or at the max one on two training.