Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[Forbin's Descent]

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.

Knowing how to identify fish isn't a skill?

 

[Thunder Struck]

The AOW is NOT intended to make you proficient in any specialty. It is intended to let you sample 5 specialties and see if something appeals to you enough to invest the time, money, and effort into doing the full specialty.

Exactly. I believe it is a great way to sample other specialty classes before sinking money into them à la carte. Certain skills, such as navigation, night diving, and search and recovery, could easily be pegged by a diver without the need for formal training. But it's a helluva time to find out what exactly you don't know and aren't prepared for when you are 50' under water with zero experience and supervision in the new task or environment. But having the instructor to mentor the diver and prepare them for expected problems while helping them work through the unexpected problems that stem from lack of experience, can make the difference between going on to enjoy the type of diving or not, or even getting hurt.

But what it is primarily used for. If dive charters didn't require it, there'd be a lot fewer certs.

Charters want to ensure their clients are able to do what they went out there to do. If they are planning on hitting dive sites that are all at depths greater than what OW divers can do, and that's all there is to do, then they will require it. Often, but not always, dive sites will have stuff to do at shallower depths and things to do at deeper depths. But if all there is at the site is deep diving, they ensure that the divers on the boat will at least have been certified to those depths.

Yes liability is involved. Insurance policy rules and regulations dictate a lot of what a commercial operator will offer. As an example you have Joe the Divemaster. Joe is leading a couple of tourist divers on a dive who rented some tanks and weghts from a local shop. At the dive site one of the divers has a problem with a piece of his personal equipment, say a fin strap. Joe can step in an provide a spare strap, or even a spare set of fins. But if Joe doesn't also have an equipment rider on his professional liability insurance, Joe wouldn't be covered if that diver gets hurt as a result of the fin strap failing that he provided. So if Joe doesn't have said rider on his insurance, he may not provide the fin strap. Currently that's a $433/year add-on to his $575/year DAN liability insurance (and a fair bit more to a $1331/year Vicencia and Buckley policy, another large professional scuba liability insurer).

IMO, AOW is a hoax to squeeze out more $$$ from divers. The 60 ft depth limit is completely artificial. There is no special knowledge needed to dive to 100 ft or to 120 ft as compared to 55 ft; you need the same skills and follow the same rules. Air management at depth? Google it, 5 min. The risks of nitrogen narcosis? Google it, 5 min. Deep dive planning? Look at the dive tables and try to figure out how planning a 70 ft dive is different from planning a 50 ft dive.

Naturally, those of you who teach AOW will disagree, so anyone who says otherwise shall disclose any conflicts of interest.

It comes down to having someone there to guide you through the process. Sure OW Sal can drop down to 90' and look at the pretty fishes. You Googled all you need to know. But what happens when at 90' narcosis kicks in and Sal goes completely dumbfounded while his buddy swims off and Sal's air gauge dwindles? Or Sal completely panics at 80' and bolts for the surface because he wants to orally inflate his BCD at depth to save air and doesn't put his regulator in his mouth, despite having it there in his hand? At least having been in a supervised training enviornement an instructor can recognize and address the problems Sal may have before they manifest and spiral out of control into a panic situation that can get Sal hurt or killed. Or worse, someone else hurt or killed.

I was going to report it to PADI and was discussing with some other diving mentors and they said don't bother, PADI won't do anything about it so I didn't. After learning more about the organization realized they were likely correct. I still think about reporting it from time to time though.

If there was a standards violation, by all means report it. Sure nobody likes to get called out for something they did wrong. But if they continue with such a pattern of behavior it creates a normalization of deviance to which problems ultimately arise that never would have presented should proper procedure have been followed.

PADI, NAUI, et al, have and will investigate or otherwise take action on such claims of standards violations. Their findings may not become public knowledge, but they may (and have) take more subtle actions such as putting an instructor on a probationary status if not flat out suspending them.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

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

The boat operators know exactly what it is. It’s the insurance companies that don’t know what it is.
Would it make more sense to require “boat diver” and maybe a deep cert to dive off a boat, and maybe other specialties that are pertinent to the dive at hand, instead of a jack of five specialties and a master of none?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Knowing how to identify fish isn't a skill?

Yeah, but shooting one is.

 

[Forbin's Descent]

The boat operators know exactly what it is. It’s the insurance companies that don’t know what it is.
Would it make more sense to require “boat diver” and maybe a deep cert to dive off a boat, and maybe other specialties that are pertinent to the dive at hand, instead of a jack of five specialties and a master of none?

The only dive certification my DAN policy mentions is for Commercial divers. Ie underwater welders and such. I can do any kind of dive without any certifications and I am covered. I would be interested to read a dive companies policy to see if they actually do say anything about certifications.

 

[Forbin's Descent]

Exactly. I believe it is a great way to sample other specialty classes before sinking money into them à la carte. Certain skills, such as navigation, night diving, and search and recovery, could easily be pegged by a diver without the need for formal training. But it's a helluva time to find out what exactly you don't know and aren't prepared for when you are 50' under water with zero experience and supervision in the new task or environment. But having the instructor to mentor the diver and prepare them for expected problems while helping them work through the unexpected problems that stem from lack of experience, can make the difference between going on to enjoy the type of diving or not, or even getting hurt.




Charters want to ensure their clients are able to do what they went out there to do. If they are planning on hitting dive sites that are all at depths greater than what OW divers can do, and that's all there is to do, then they will require it. Often, but not always, dive sites will have stuff to do at shallower depths and things to do at deeper depths. But if all there is at the site is deep diving, they ensure that the divers on the boat will at least have been certified to those depths.

Yes liability is involved. Insurance policy rules and regulations dictate a lot of what a commercial operator will offer. As an example you have Joe the Divemaster. Joe is leading a couple of tourist divers on a dive who rented some tanks and weghts from a local shop. At the dive site one of the divers has a problem with a piece of his personal equipment, say a fin strap. Joe can step in an provide a spare strap, or even a spare set of fins. But if Joe doesn't also have an equipment rider on his professional liability insurance, Joe wouldn't be covered if that diver gets hurt as a result of the fin strap failing that he provided. So if Joe doesn't have said rider on his insurance, he may not provide the fin strap. Currently that's a $433/year add-on to his $575/year DAN liability insurance (and a fair bit more to a $1331/year Vicencia and Buckley policy, another large professional scuba liability insurer).




It comes down to having someone there to guide you through the process. Sure OW Sal can drop down to 90' and look at the pretty fishes. You Googled all you need to know. But what happens when at 90' narcosis kicks in and Sal goes completely dumbfounded while his buddy swims off and Sal's air gauge dwindles? Or Sal completely panics at 80' and bolts for the surface because he wants to orally inflate his BCD at depth to save air and doesn't put his regulator in his mouth, despite having it there in his hand? At least having been in a supervised training enviornement an instructor can recognize and address the problems Sal may have before they manifest and spiral out of control into a panic situation that can get Sal hurt or killed. Or worse, someone else hurt or killed.




If there was a standards violation, by all means report it. Sure nobody likes to get called out for something they did wrong. But if they continue with such a pattern of behavior it creates a normalization of deviance to which problems ultimately arise that never would have presented should proper procedure have been followed.

PADI, NAUI, et al, have and will investigate or otherwise take action on such claims of standards violations. Their findings may not become public knowledge, but they may (and have) take more subtle actions such as

Do you happen to have copies of these policies? I have an insurance adjusters license and would like to read through them

 

[Forbin's Descent]

Do you happen to have copies of these policies? I have an insurance adjusters license and would like to read through them

Actually found the DAN master policies. Should help put me to sleep hahaha

 

[CT-Rich]

When I was certified in 1980, my class was 12 week of classroom and pool work. It cost $125 then or about $463 in today's dollars. You could never make money today selling classes that run 12 weeks for that much money. We did have about a dozen students in the class, so the economy of scale would kick in, I honestly don't remember to many particulars at this point.

Splitting classes into two terms and makes plenty of sense on a number of fronts. Getting potential divers to commit to a 12 weeks is insane today. There are many more opportunities competing for time and money than there was 40 years ago. splitting the curriculum in two splits the $1,000 financial commitment in half and takes a lot of pressure off instructors to cram everything in.

It may seem like a money grab, and it probably is. Calculate in the cost of dedicated instructional gear for the pool, materials of online learning an the instructors TIME. Oraninizing and supervising the open water dives. Splitting the coarse into two or more chunks makes sense it you are trying to lower the cost of entry into the sport. Starting Scuba is way more expensive than skiing or a lot of other outdoor sports. The semantics of what it is called is arguing after the fact. Rebranding AOW to something else is unlikely at this point. Lowering the barriers for entry in the sport while training people enough to be safe is going to a tricky balance. Too much money and too many "you're gonna die!" hysterics are going to grow the sport.

Is the 60' limit an arbitrary number? Yep, totally. You should understand the NDL to for deeper dives, but if you gave out OW and said you could dive to the 130, no one would seek out part II. You would have incompetent newbies on charter boats doing dives they are really not prepared for. The AOW cert gives a minimum level of competency ( they have completed part A and B of their training)

 

[boulderjohn]

Knowing how to identify fish isn't a skill?

It does not improve the physical diving skills.

but you knew what I meant. You were just trying to score some meaningless points.

 

[Angelo Farina]

It does not improve the physical diving skills.

but you knew what I meant. You were just trying to score some meaningless points.

Actually having to watch for fish and identifying them adds a mental task, which could distract the diver from checking air pressure, depth or approaching the NDL.
It is called "task loading", and it is very useful for improving a novice diver.
Similar effect can be obtained with other tasks, such as UW photo or video making, etc.
So I do not agree that fish recognition does not provide physical skills. It provides some form of automatic actions, which should be performed while your attention is devoted to another task.