AOW class shows that Scubaboard standards exceed those in the real world

[2airishuman]

Are you a better diver because of the class? That's what is really important. OK, that and having fun. If you had fun and feel you've learned from the experience, then it's all good. Don't let the experts ruin it for you.

Let's face it, it's incredibly easy to second guess a class from afar. But why? I'm far more interested in what the student got out of it. What did they get out of it.

Am I a better diver? A little. I like to believe that most of my dives make me a better diver, whether it's part of a class or not. I don't think my trim is perfect, and I think my nav skills could probably be better, but the class didn't help with either of those things. I don't think I got anything out of the deep dive, because I've been to similar depths under similar conditions, just not in the context of a class.

I hadn't been on a night dive before, so I got something out of that, and it was fun. I also found the search and recovery dive worthwhile. But in both of these cases the dives could have been better. The night dive was too short, and I would have liked to practice with the lift bag on a wider variety of objects and in a variety of depths.

So, bottom line, while I'm a better diver and had fun, the class didn't meet my expectations because I wanted to get more skills out of than I did, and have more fun than I did. There also wasn't much social sustenance, but I didn't really expect to get that.

Just curious how long your class review session was before you went into the water.

I didn't record start and stop times but I do believe that the review sessions were long enough to be thorough. The other students were smart and well prepared academically in the sense that they'd read the book and taken notes.

We spent a lot of time on knots. None of the other students had tied a bowline or a sheet bend before the class, and they were all struggling. Our instructor was patient with them and demonstrated a bunch of times, but didn't seem to have very many pedagogic tricks up his sleeve. I did some demonstrations with two different colors of rope which seemed to help them, and encouraged them to think about the hand motions rather than the shape of the knot.

I also demonstrated another way of tying a bowline that allows the size of the loop to be adjusted more easily with the knot then locked by pulling on the ends. No one in the group, including the instructor, had seen it before, and he had me do it twice and then carefully untied it to see if the result at the end really was a bowline. Something was said about being able to tie knots one handed with eyes closed, which I couldn't do, so that will be my project while bored at work over the next couple of weeks.

Contrary to the confirmation bias you find on SB, the majority of the world does not dive HOG regulators or BPW's. HOG is really a small re-seller and I can understand how a mom and pop shop that doesn't spend time on forums never heard of them.

True that. I was just surprised that they approached it the way they did.

I was told by @boulderjohn the AOW requirement for charters is a myth. Perhaps he can elaborate more as I've never charted a boat.

Well, I just got an email this morning from a dive op in Key West regarding an upcoming trip. One of the things they said is that they require you to hire a DM if you are not AOW certified. I've run into that before. On this particular trip I may end up hiring a DM anyway.

 

[Doby45]

I was told by @boulderjohn the AOW requirement for charters is a myth. Perhaps he can elaborate more as I've never charted a boat.

I was also told it was required for the charters going out of Pompano Dive Center to dive the Lady Luck. Not so much of a myth.

 

[ScubaJill]

2airishuman, it sounds like your AOW training was even better than mine! But anyway, I wanted to ask why you chose to put "solo diver" under your avatar. I saw that you have about 50 dives (please correct me if I'm wrong) and was curious if you've gone through self-reliant/solo diver training already or if you dive solo because your location makes it possible?

 

[Dan]

I dove for 8 years with only OW & Nitrox logging up to 400+ dives in diving resorts & LOBs in Texas, Florida, Caribbean, East Africa & Indonesia. The most requirement I was asked to have was (especially for sites known for fast currents like in Nusa Penida, Alor, Komodo & Raja Ampat) if I had 50 dives minimum. No AOW was required. I finally got my AOW 3 years ago, just for my own interest to improve my diving skill.

 

[gopbroek]

2airishuman, it sounds like your AOW training was even better than mine! But anyway, I wanted to ask why you chose to put "solo diver" under your avatar. I saw that you have about 50 dives (please correct me if I'm wrong) and was curious if you've gone through self-reliant/solo diver training already or if you dive solo because your location makes it possible?

Most likely the same reason mine does. I am not a certified solo diver but I subscribed to the SB forum page for Solo divers. When the SB site was revised early this year it started tagging users with the highest permission they had within the site. Tried many times to change it after it happened, to no avail, and finally gave up. It's kind of like the 'but I stayed at a Holiday Inn express last night' commercials.

 

[ScubaJill]

Most likely the same reason mine does. I am not a certified solo diver but I subscribed to the SB forum page for Solo divers. When the SB site was revised early this year it started tagging users with the highest permission they had within the site. Tried many times to change it after it happened, to no avail, and finally gave up. It's kind of like the 'but I stayed at a Holiday Inn express last night' commercials.

That's interesting. I was wondering why so many posters were solo divers. I figured folks had access to bodies of water that made solo diving more of a possibility, like quarries, rivers, etc.

 

[CptTightPants21]

Most likely the same reason mine does. I am not a certified solo diver but I subscribed to the SB forum page for Solo divers. When the SB site was revised early this year it started tagging users with the highest permission they had within the site. Tried many times to change it after it happened, to no avail, and finally gave up. It's kind of like the 'but I stayed at a Holiday Inn express last night' commercials.

Only be in 1 group (the group you don't want) . Join a different group (the group you want), save it so that you are now in two groups. go to the home page. Go back and remove the group you don't want, save it. You should now show the only group you are apart of. After that you can join other groups without the name changing.....This is what I ended up doing to remove "Dive Master Candidate" from my name.

 

[luscioman]

I dove for 8 years with only OW & Nitrox logging up to 400+ dives in diving resorts & LOBs in Texas, Florida, Caribbean, East Africa & Indonesia. The most requirement I was asked to have was (especially for sites known for fast currents like in Nusa Penida, Alor, Komodo & Raja Ampat) if I had 50 dives minimum. No AOW was required. I finally got my AOW 3 years ago, just for my own interest to improve my diving skill.

Almost every dive operation I have been on below 100 feet require AOW. The Lady Luck deck is around 108. What depths were your dives?

 

[The Chairman]

I wanted to ask why you chose to put "solo diver" under your avatar.

How To Change User Titles

 

[ScubaJill]

Almost every dive operation I have been on below 100 feet require AOW. The Lady Luck deck is around 108. What depths were your dives?

The only reason I did the AOW was to be able to go deeper than 60 feet. I saw it less as advanced training and more allowing me the option to go on more dives. I'm guessing some operators aren't as strict with having that certification or their dive sites don't typically go deeper than 60 feet, give or take a few feet?