advanced open water

[emodiver]

for the padi advanced open water course what 3 elective dives should i do i cant decide beteen: night,drift,videogarghy ,photo or seach and recovery

 

[Trixxie]

for the padi advanced open water course what 3 elective dives should i do i cant decide beteen: night,drift,videogarghy ,photo or seach and recovery

I give a big recommendation for Serch and Rec - it helped me find an U/W camera I rented that I had droped.

 

[ajames54]

Search and recovery isn't search and rescue, even a little, fortunately it wasn’t too late when I figured that out.

Night is cool.. 'cuase it's done at night. (and it might be nice to know you are a closet Claustrophobe BEFORE it becomes a serious issue)

But the only one I really thought worth the effort was Peak Performance buoyancy..

 

[BarryNL]

for the padi advanced open water course what 3 elective dives should i do i cant decide beteen: night,drift,videogarghy ,photo or seach and recovery

Night is definitely a good one - I'd almost consider it compulsory.

Search and recovery is also good, if only so you learn the correct way to use a liftbag.

Drift diving is good if you ever dive in currents. Dry suit diving might be good if you are thinking about getting one. DPV would be really cool but not many places seem to offer it.

 

[Captain Kitty]

Well, the big question is: What do you like most of all? Do you get excited in the idea of dropping into the inky black of the ocean at night, not knowing wat may be down there watching you? Do you get a smile at the thought of floating down a current over a reef or wall checking out the scenery as it drifts by? Are you a real AV nnut that would just LOVE to get some film of a sharks feeding frenzy or of a deep wreck that few have ever seen? A picture junky that not only has an eye for good photos but loves to be able to show people their dives and not just tell people about them? Or do you get a charge out of stalking a fish/lobster and making a meal out of it?

I chose night dive only because it seemed like the most fun to me at the time. I still get all tingly looking for a reputed haunted shipwreck and diving it on Halloween night! Which one are you leaning towards? Maybe there's someone who's already done it and can tell you what to expect in more detail.

 

[minnesota01r6]

Night if you haven't been - it's a totally different world.

S&R was a lot of fun. Get to learn how to use a lift bag and tie knots! The search patterns are nice to know too.

My 3rd was nitrox - now that PADI offers the nitrox course without dives I'm not sure this is an option. It was pretty boring and not worth my money - same dive as on air, just learned 5 minutes of gas theory I could have learned on scubaboard in 2!

 

[TSandM]

It really depends on what you want to do and what you have available to you.

If you feel as though you'd like to do your first night dive with an instructor, or otherwise don't have an experienced buddy to do the first one with, it might be worth doing the night dive just to have trusted company.

If you are seriously interested in underwater photography (AND the instructor teaching it has some interest and experience in taking underwater pictures) the photography dive might be worth while. I know my husband did the photo specialty, and despite the fact that he is an accomplished photographer on land, felt he learned some good things.

I don't know anybody who has done the drift dive, but having done just pure recreational drift dives, I have a hard time seeing what added value an instructor could add to them.

I didn't do search and recovery, but it reads like an excellent experience, with some technique being taught and some task loading to manage.

I did a DPV dive. Aside from being a fun thing to do, it wasn't worth much. I did the buoyancy dive, which did help me get my weighting right, but unfortunately didn't give me a clue about weight distribution and trim.

Anyway, I'm quite sure the value involved in the dives is highly dependent on who is teaching them, but if you are going to pay for the class, it seems reasonable to pick the dives where there is some content or technique to be taught that you wouldn't get from simply doing that type of dive on your own.

 

[Wildcard]

A lot of the people teaching photo don't know much. K did it and it consisted of the instructor pointing at things for her to take pics of. PPB would be mandatory in my book, S&R is good, nav is good, night is great.

 

[www.scubamazing.com]

S&R is a interesting. I question how often most divers actually use the techniques though.

I think anyone ought to know how to Night Dive. It is such a wonderful time to dive.

 

[Willie]

I did my AOW last weekend in a local lake. Conditions were poor, 2-6' vis with lots of particulates in places. Made it quite a challenge to do the search and recovery. I definitely recommend that one. We also did the peak performance buoancy and the navigation. I recommend both of those as well. The conditions made the nav kind of tough, good for training.

I also did the night dive even though I had already done 4 night dives in two different places. I hadnt done one in this lake. It was quite dark with the poor vis and no moon. I enjoyed it but my buddy was definitely stressed as it was her first night dive.

Willie