AOW Class Max Depth 65 ft. ?????

[RonFrank]

I have never had a student show any noticeable signs of narcosis on an AOW dive to 100 feet. As String said, that is why they did away with the exercise that was supposed to be showing the students they were narced.

Since we had already done dives to shallower depths for the other skills, we knew he was an air hog, but it really came out loud and clear when we went to 100.

Why take an Air Hog to 100' on an AL80? Seem like an unnecessary risk as you know he will be sucking gas, and if he freaks you have a problem on your hands.

In CO one of the places to do the AOW deep dive is Turquoise in the summer. You can get to 80' or so but its cold!

Every one in our class (AOW) performed a bit worst at depth (80') but not by much. Showing folks the loss of red light is interesting.

 

[boulderjohn]

Why take an Air Hog to 100' on an AL80? Seem like an unnecessary risk as you know he will be sucking gas, and if he freaks you have a problem on your hands.

I thought I made that clear, but I will give a further explanation. "Air hog" is a relative term. We knew he went through air more quickly than most, and we made a gas plan accordingly. We actually did take a rough idea of what he thought he would use and create a plan we thought would work. In the actual dive, he went through gas more quickly than expected. Because we were monitoring gas supplies carefully, the only consequence was a shorter dive than anticipated. The benefit as that he learned a valuable lesson--as did his buddy, who did not go through air quickly but learned what it was like to buddy with someone who did.

 

[freewillie]

@RU4SKUBA: Did the PADI AOW curriculum change in the past 5 or 6 years? The only gas management taught in my PADI AOW class was: (a) your gas will be consumed more quickly at greater depth and (b) we'll initiate our ascent from 100 fsw with about 1500 psi in our AL80 tanks so that we can surface with no less than 500 psi. We did not learn how to calculate surface air consumption rates and use such rates to develop a gas plan for a certain dive. We never broached the topic of decompression theory either.

I would be very happy to find out that PADI has finally changed its AOW class standards to incorporate the teaching of gas management skills.

There is now a side bar in the AOW text on how to calculate sac to help plan deep dive and have better idea of how long you can stay at depth.

 

[String]

I am pleased to report that with a little begging/charm, I got the instructor to change the site of the deep dive to one that took us to 90'. I still didn't feel narc'ed and even completed the math problems faster than I did on land (got one wrong, but still!).

Im wondering why the instructor is still doing the maths puzzle - that got removed from the standards for the dive several years ago (due to it being ineffective). Is the instructor that sloppy that he hasnt read a training bulletin or manual in 3 years?

 

[RU4SKUBA]

@Bubbletrubble: The AOW curriculum did not change, but the quality of instructors varies greatly. If you wish to teach gas management, then teach it. If your LDS won't let you teach it, then quit. Not to sound trite, but its up to you to exceed the minimum standards of the agencies.

 

[Colliam7]

This thread has brought up several interesting points.

Her specialty dives will be navigation, deep, buoyancy, wreck and naturalist. Ann wanted Search & Recovery as a specialty dive but it was not offered as an option. . . . Ann asked about S&R as a specialty dive but owner said they choose the dives that make the most sense and are the most convenient for them and for the student. Yes, owner said, "for them" first.

It wasn't clear from the post if this was a scheduled, group AOW class, or something that the diver set up as individual instruction. If it was a group class, I am a little more understanding of the owner's response, in the sense that a shop may pick 5 dives that are logisitically straightforward. Our shop teaches AOW group classes using a similar mix, although we include a Night dive instead of Underwater Naturalist (as beautiful and diverse as the marine life in our local quarries may be, I would be a wee bit challenged to conduct a U N dive there and keep a straight face when speaking with the student afterward). We pick that mix of 5 because it 1) meets PADI standards (the two required dives are included), 2) provides exposure to a diversity of diving environments (in particular, night diving), 3) includes PPB which emphasizes what we see as the critical element in diving - management of buoyancy and trim - and 4) fits into a flow that works - PPB, then U/W Navigation, then Night on the first day, followed by Deep, then Wreck on the second day, leaving time for PPB #2 on the afternoon of the second day for those students wishing to pursue the specialty (which we encourage). That works for US, for group classes. BUT, If a student comes in and says they want X, Y and Z, we do our best to accomodate their prefersneces, in a private AOW. If the diver in question in the OP was doing a private / individual AOW, then I am unsympathetic to the owner's response to her - she is paying the freight, it should be her choice. Some might even say that a well-taught S&R dive could offer just a bit more utility than a quarry U N dive, but who knows.

When Ann asked why the deep dive was only to 65 ft, the instructor said it's too far a swim to get to the really deep spots. . . . Ann called the LDS and spoke to the shop owner who said they go to 65 ft because it doesn't make a difference really for what they are doing.

I struggle a bit with this one. Yes, going deeper than 60 feet meets PADI standards. And, maybe there is not enough difference, in terms of color recognition - not performance on a timed task - in diving to 65 feet vs 95 feet to justify the swim (the red will already appear brown at 65 feet). For our AOW Deep dive, we have two deep choices - a) a boat at 62 feet which is a 7 minute swim from shore, and b) the deepest part of the quarry (75 feet) which is a 20 min surface swim. A number of our instructors prefer to use the closer boat for convenience, while several of us go to the deep hole. I am not sure if the extra ~15 feet adds anything or not, but psychologically I want to give them exposure to the greatest depth available, 'just because' it is a Deep dive (and I already wonder about using a dive to only 75 feet dive as 'Deep'). But, in a somewhat murky quarry, we possibly get the same effect of deep, dark and COLD at 62 feet as we do at 75 feet so maybe I am wasting everyone's time on the longer swim.

Im wondering why the instructor is still doing the maths puzzle - that got removed from the standards for the dive several years ago (due to it being ineffective). Is the instructor that sloppy that he hasnt read a training bulletin or manual in 3 years?

Good point, about the sequence. I wasn't aware that it wasn't 'effective', I thought the sequence of experiences was simply changed. The timed task is still in there, it is just now in Dive #3 of the specialty rather than Dive #1. That point notwithstanding, I wonder why an instructor is still using a cognitive / timed task for the Dive #1 skill (unless color recognitiion was also part of the dive, and the math problem was simply a bonus). As for 'effective', I had a student do a multiplication problem on a Deep Diver specialty dive in a warm Caribbean location recently - multiply two, 2-digit numbers at 130 feet, and perfom a similar exercise (different numbers) at the surface. She took the same time to complete the math under both conditions, but got the answer wrong at depth, and right on the surface. Possibly a random outcome, but interesting.

The issue of teaching gas management as part of the Deep dive is a critical one. For me, the whole idea of going as deep as possible is to gve students a chance to see how fast their gas goes as they go deep, and to relate that to the pre-dive discussion about dive planning and gas consumption. No, the PADI standards for the Deep adventure dive don't require that quantititative techniques of gas management be taught - it is more qualitative than anything. But it can still be included and many instructors do so, to help the student.

 

[String]

At 30m the narcosis tests were simply ineffective - its not deep enough for proper impairment and the simply fact that the human brain adapts quickly to a task masked the effect. They do something on the surface, then underwater. So underwater is the 2nd time they've done a similar task in a short space of town so the increase in speed due to that adaptation often covered potential narcosis effects.
Its still in the deep spec but it can be done deeper where there IS a much more pronounced narcotic effect.
Either way its been removed from the adventure dive so should not be taught on that dive.

Gas planning training is essential though - its mentioned in the AOW manual, its mandatory for the deep spec theory. Practical measurement, planning and actually diving with that information are mandatory standards for the self-reliant diver course.

 

[boulderjohn]

At 30m the narcosis tests were simply ineffective - its not deep enough for proper impairment and the simply fact that the human brain adapts quickly to a task masked the effect. They do something on the surface, then underwater. So underwater is the 2nd time they've done a similar task in a short space of town so the increase in speed due to that adaptation often covered potential narcosis effects.

That was my experience as well. Consequently, it was counterproductive. Students who did better at depth came out with the illusion that narcosis was no big deal for them--nothing to be concerned about.

 

[Splitlip]

What rip offs! I did my first AOW in '79 or '80. My deep dive was 147'. It was supposed to be ~120 but we missed our drop. Pre-GPS. I was pretty high. As part of that class we also rode a chamber to 165 ft and worked on problem solving. Also did the night dive of course as well as a "blow and go" from 65 feet.

I took a second advanced class in 1999 as a refresher because I was out of it for a number of years. First dive in years was my deep dive. 95 ft. What made it really interesting is that when I back rolled off the boat I dislodged my mask strap. I did not realize it until I got the bottom and the mask flooded and floated away. So my first dive in I can't recall how many years I was dealing with a task I learned 27 years earlier, LOL. Replace mask and clear.

Incidentally, after that incident I trashed the slap strap. I WANT a mask strap that sticks to my hair.

 

[scubadobadoo]

@ScubaSam:
In my PADI AOW class, we went down to 100 fsw. We unlocked a combo lock at depth and compared it to our performance on the task at the surface. I didn't learn much from the exercise, since my times were identical. Honestly, there are much better ways to demonstrate the effects of narcosis.

I understand that there are better ways to test but perhaps you learned that you aren't as effected by narcosis as another diver might be?

I am VERY effected by narcosis even at 80 feet so I find the tests to be very helpful even though I never really fully grasped the consequences of the narcosis until many dives later.