Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[Outbound]

And again, the concept as you state is clearly flawed in execution and needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history so many are interested in. And quit playing word games. Now we are going to play Bill Clintons defining of is game? Many divers through these programs are not advanced beyond OW as they were never safe beyond a swimming pool, is that a new cert level, pool diver? Because many are not safe beyond a pool with an advanced cert that is now only to mean that they are advanced beyond OW which is what exactly? If advanced is not advanced, then what is basic and OW?

I think this has become obtuse for argument of the meaning of advanced. I question the entire concept and could care less about the history of it.

How many threads are there like this?

You could care less about the history of it because you insisted it was one thing, were disproven, and now feel some sort of way about that.

In high school we had algebra and then advanced algebra. No one who passed the latter thought for a minute they were some super duper elite mathematician. Likewise with calculus and advanced calculus. Not sure why you can't understand that same concept when applied to diving certification curricula. Except that SB, in general, is full of people who think that all diving must adhere to certain strictures, and thus all dive training must produce divers who adhere to those strictures from day 1. If you aren't in horizontal trim, for example, then you must be an unsafe diver just waiting for an accident to occur. I'd like to see the data that supports this.

 

[boulderjohn]

Ok, if AOW was the most advanced class you could get then what was taught instead of five sample platter dives as it is today?

Sample dives were part of it from the start. They wanted to provide experiences with different kinds of dives. The purpose was simply to keep people diving.

I provided the History of NAUI. It's all in there.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Sample dives were part of it from the start. They wanted to provide experiences with different kinds of dives. The purpose was simply to keep people diving.

I provided the History of NAUI. It's all in there.

You’re not answering the question, sample dives of what? You said there were no specialties available, advanced diver was it. So what were they sampling?

 

[Edward3c]

I find all this talk about advanced divers quite funny. I'm a BSAC Advanced Diver, that means I can:

• Manage a diving expedition,
• Manage a diving incedent,
• Be the Diving Officer of a club,
• Cox a boat on diving operations,
• Operate a compressor,
• Manage and coordinate underwater searches,
• If an Open Water Instructor (OWI) train to become an Advanced Instructor (AI) and Instructor Trainer (IT),
• Organise diver training (If an OWI or AI)
• Dive ot 50m on air,
• Train to become a 1st Class Diver.

I've been asked on more than one occasion if I wanted to take a rescue course. The more knowledgeable staff roll round laughing at the poor receptionist who asked.

 

[Angelo Farina]

What’s wrong with paddling with your hands? Where did the BS that you shouldn’t paddle with your hands come from? I use every means available to me to negotiate my way through a wreck or through a gap as smoothly as I can and if that means paddling with my hands then that’s the way it should be. Maybe some are so fixed in their ways they think everything else is wrong.

Paddling is not efficient and you can easily hit objects, making the water muddy. The correct hand propulsion is by sculling, the alternate movement perfected by synchro swimmers.
When I followed mi first course (6 months long) a lot of effort was devoted to hands propulsion with various sculling techniques. And we had to get perfect buoyancy and trim (VERTICAL, not only horizontal, and also head down) using the ARO (CC rebreather).
Hands propulsion has been demonised, but instead, if done properly, is a great skill which can become very useful in certain environments.
In this vintage video these old-style skills are shown, being practised at the Italian Federal Diving Center in Genoa (Nervi), where new instructors were trained in years 1952-1985.

 

[boulderjohn]

You’re not answering the question, sample dives of what? You said there were no specialties available, advanced diver was it. So what were they sampling?

I didn't say specialties--I said sample dives. What were those sample dives? Beats me. I only know what I read in the History of NAUI, which I provided above. Read it yourself and you will know as much as I do. I would guess the samples would include the two that are typically require today (deep and navigation), and probably one that used to be required (night).

Let's also put "deep" into perspective. When the class was created, deep diving pioneer Sheck Exley was an uncertified teenager. Years later he would set depth records that are routinely surpassed around the world every day today. Diving past 130 feet then was an achievement for most divers.

When Sheck started exploring caves years later, he used a single LP 72, and he used the then common technique of swimming for a while and then settling to the bottom to take a rest. That should give you an idea of what things were like then.

 

[Celt]

Paddling is not efficient and you can easily hit objects, making the water muddy. The correct hand propulsion is by sculling, the alternate movement perfected by synchro swimmers.
When I followed mi first course (6 months long) a lot of effort was devoted to hands propulsion with various sculling techniques. And we had to get perfect buoyancy and trim (VERTICAL, not only horizontal, and also head down) using the ARO (CC rebreather).
Hands propulsion has been demonised, but instead, if done properly, is a great skill which can become very useful in certain environments.
In this vintage video these old-style skills are shown, being practised at the Italian Federal Diving Center in Genoa (Nervi), where new instructors were trained in years 1952-1985.

Thanks, very interesting video, are you taking about the sculling swimmer at 11 minutes in the video, I’ve copied the link and will watch it on a larger screen as I only have my phone with me at the moment. I like to swim in open water but as I’m 70 soon a technique I’ve adapted is the Ocean Walker by Adam Walker. You may like to check it out. He has some videos on YouTube.

 

[Forbin's Descent]

I've learned a lot about what Advanced Open Water Diver is and isn't from this thread. Every dive I do "advances" my skill set.

The frustration lies when we get sold a Ferrari but when we show up to pick up the car it's a Chevy.

Do these boat operators know what it actually is and if so why do they require it?

 

[tursiops]

Every dive I do "advances" my skill set.

Maybe. Some dives may just improve your knowledge. Fish ID is always given as an example of a useless dive, because it does not improve your diving skill. However, if your interest in diving is the ocean, rather than your personal ego while being perfectly motionless while being exactly horizontal, Fish ID might be really interesting and teach you a lot. I hope you get to dive someday with some really experienced fish people; they are amazing.

 

[boulderjohn]

Fish ID was one of the best dives of my AOW. No, it did not advance my dive skills, but it was not meant to. Its purpose was to make diving more enjoyable for me, and it did. Most divers go into tropical waters and see a blur of fish. I see individual types, and knowing what I do about their behaviors, and can see beyond that blur. I see the damselfish angrily protecting its algae farm. I see the sergeant major guarding its eggs. I see symbiosis of shrimp and gobi. I see the trunk fish follow the midnight parrot, enter the haze of the parrot's monstrous bite, blow away the fine débris, and pick out a morsel of coral. The enjoyment I get is what LA County had in mind when it created the AOW program.