Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[Belzelbub]

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 agree. Fish ID is a useful skill. Doesn’t necessarily need to come with a cert, but if that’s the path chosen, no issues. The importance is that most every fish ID guide published uses pictures of fish out of the water. They look a lot different at depth.

My struggle is not with identifying fish. I’m pretty good at that. I don’t have a Fish ID cert. I’m largely self taught with help from YouTube University. My struggle is with knowing the regulations for a fish I’m not expecting. I’ve left many dinners swimming because I wasn’t certain of the season status or length requirements.

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?

Yep. Requiring AOW is just silly considering that there are multiple definitions for AOW. Deep is generally consistent, so requiring that would make more sense on some dives. Requiring AOW makes no sense.

 

[tursiops]

most every fish ID guide published uses pictures of fish out of the water

The Fish ID series by Humann and Deloach is all u/w pictures of live fish; so also are most of the other guides I've seen. the problem is that all the pix make the fish look the same size....which is a bit misleading!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The Fish ID series by Humann and Deloach is all u/w pictures of live fish; so also are most of the other guides I've seen. the problem is that all the pix make the fish look the same size....which is a bit misleading!

Quick question.
Is it OK if I do the identifying at the fish cleaning station?

 

[CT-Rich]

AOW tells a boat that you have been exposed to all the basic knowledge to dive within recreational limits. It does not imply competency. The boat A) would rather not have you die in their presence and B ) not be held libel for allowing someone to die in their presence that clearly should not have been allowed on their boat because they were not trained or had not been adequately certified. Their insurance company has similar wants.

Divers seek certification because they want the certification. They want to have it for the pleasure of learning, to improve skills, or access to certain types of dives. Since they are paying the bill and not you. It is pretty exclusively their choice. The role of the instructor or agency is to fulfill that want. If the OP was only interested in accessing charters that exceed 60’, they got it. If they wanted to enrich their diving experience with additional skills, they did not.

If I was offered a fish identification coarse with Cathy Church or Sylvia Earle and it included a couple of opportunities to putter along a reef with them, yeah, I would definitely spend the money. Would I spend the money to do it with a zero to hero instructor? No.

AOW makes sense from a business sense, but the paying diver gets to choose what they WANT to spend it on. They can decide to spend it on another sport entirel.

 

[VikingDives]

You can do both.

I was reaching an open water course this weekend and I had a student observe that the advanced open water divers looked less prepared for diving than he did. I don't teach fish id, but when I teach photography, it is really just a buoyancy and trim course. If you're dialed in on those skills, photos are just a matter of tuning the device you're using.

 

[tursiops]

Quick question.
Is it OK if I do the identifying at the fish cleaning station?

Maybe. Depends on the fish and the site.
is it OK if I think your post is not funny?

 

[tursiops]

photos are just a matter of tuning the device you're using.

LOL. Buoyancy and trim are helpful, but I can only assume you are not much of an U/W photographer!

 

[VikingDives]

LOL. Buoyancy and trim are helpful, but I can only assume you are not much of an U/W photographer!

And I can only assume that you're here to inflate your ego. Please add something to a discussion beyond quoting a PADI standard.

 

[Thunder Struck]

Quick question.
Is it OK if I do the identifying at the fish cleaning station?

It's a filet 'o fish!

 

[Forbin's Descent]

It does not improve the physical diving skills.

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

I should clarify my post: "all dives "advance" my skills." I was speaking to using the word "advanced" as the course name and was saying yes while technically the course"advances" one's skill even if it's small barely noticeable increments it does not make one an "advanced" diver as in an expert or proficient as is typically implied when being sold. My comment was in the same vein of "no man steps into the same river twice." We advance just by living or in this case diving.

As far as all the point/counterpoint posts about non physical skills: I worked on team awareness and leading teams over the weekend to prepare for my cave course. Quite important non-physical skills.

And lastly: what are these points you speak of? Do they count towards my next PADI card? SB Troll card maybe??