Dear PADI,
I have been OW certified since 1978 (thanks for my superb training, back then). My training back then included required mastery of gear (doffing and donning at the surface, and underwater without a mask, diving to the bottom and assembling then donning the gear without a mask etc), navigation, exposure to decompression theory and tables for basic deco dives. Since then, I have accumulated about 1000 dives. Because of my training and the group I learned with mentored me, I have done deep diving, planned decompression diving to 225’ on air, wreck and reef diving around the world, night diving, wall diving, strong current drift diving, diving with doubles, and diving that includes a combination of several of the above factors and conditions. I have had to rescue an OOG buddy by breathing him up from 140 feet and through a mandatory deco stop, in the days before octopi and safe seconds. I always carry my log books of my most recent 100 dives.
However, I have now had two shops tell me that, without the “AOW” card, they will not dive me deeper than 60 feet, period, even if I have my log books with me and they can verify my experience by speaking to me. This is of course a small minority of shops. Most shops are glad to have me on the boat once they see my logs or dive with me even once.
Nonetheless, I have now been compelled to take “AOW” and get the card that any diver can get with the first nine dives of their life, none of which need be deeper than 90 feet. It is no exaggeration at all to say that I easily could have taught this course. The instructor was very capable and, at least, had as many dives as I (not the case with many instructors I meet). He gave a fine course; that is not the issue.
I was very displeased to pay $$$ for this course, which has no place at my level of experience (I am fully ready for tech training by now). This is made worse by the fact that “AOW” is the mandatory gateway to further training (Rescue, Tech, etc), just adding and adding to the cost.
Don’t get me wrong. For newly certified divers or those with just a few dives (the other participants had between 5 and 20 dives), the course was beneficial. By the end, there was a marked and noticeable improvement in those divers, mainly because the instructor required peak performance buoyancy as one of the dives and spent some quality time dialing in weights and training proper breath control.
However, for a diver like myself, the course did not offer much except some practice (and I practice my skills regularly during my own diving), and the usual enjoyable camaraderie of divers.
My question is, why are experienced divers forced to get the AOW, which is not cheap, by the way, in order to be taken on normal, garden variety dives or in order to obtain further training? Why is not training, capability and experience sufficient?
My strong suggestion is that PADI offer an “experienced diver” short-form AOW for divers with, say, more than 100 logged dives, so long as they can pass the knowledge review and demonstrate the dive skills on a single check-out dive. This could get the cost down to well under $100 even including the cost of the dive.
I also see from many conversations and posts on this Board that I am not alone.
Best Regards,
Experienced Divers Everywhere
P.S. My other, much stronger, suggestion is the PADI make Deep, Navigation, and Peak Performance Buoyancy a mandatory part of the Open Water course. (or at least make PPB a mandatory dive for AOW). The divers that I see coming out of OW are, many times, disgraceful in their buoyancy control and trim especially, doing lots of damage to the bottom. But, that is a topic for another thread . . .
I have been OW certified since 1978 (thanks for my superb training, back then). My training back then included required mastery of gear (doffing and donning at the surface, and underwater without a mask, diving to the bottom and assembling then donning the gear without a mask etc), navigation, exposure to decompression theory and tables for basic deco dives. Since then, I have accumulated about 1000 dives. Because of my training and the group I learned with mentored me, I have done deep diving, planned decompression diving to 225’ on air, wreck and reef diving around the world, night diving, wall diving, strong current drift diving, diving with doubles, and diving that includes a combination of several of the above factors and conditions. I have had to rescue an OOG buddy by breathing him up from 140 feet and through a mandatory deco stop, in the days before octopi and safe seconds. I always carry my log books of my most recent 100 dives.
However, I have now had two shops tell me that, without the “AOW” card, they will not dive me deeper than 60 feet, period, even if I have my log books with me and they can verify my experience by speaking to me. This is of course a small minority of shops. Most shops are glad to have me on the boat once they see my logs or dive with me even once.
Nonetheless, I have now been compelled to take “AOW” and get the card that any diver can get with the first nine dives of their life, none of which need be deeper than 90 feet. It is no exaggeration at all to say that I easily could have taught this course. The instructor was very capable and, at least, had as many dives as I (not the case with many instructors I meet). He gave a fine course; that is not the issue.
I was very displeased to pay $$$ for this course, which has no place at my level of experience (I am fully ready for tech training by now). This is made worse by the fact that “AOW” is the mandatory gateway to further training (Rescue, Tech, etc), just adding and adding to the cost.
Don’t get me wrong. For newly certified divers or those with just a few dives (the other participants had between 5 and 20 dives), the course was beneficial. By the end, there was a marked and noticeable improvement in those divers, mainly because the instructor required peak performance buoyancy as one of the dives and spent some quality time dialing in weights and training proper breath control.
However, for a diver like myself, the course did not offer much except some practice (and I practice my skills regularly during my own diving), and the usual enjoyable camaraderie of divers.
My question is, why are experienced divers forced to get the AOW, which is not cheap, by the way, in order to be taken on normal, garden variety dives or in order to obtain further training? Why is not training, capability and experience sufficient?
My strong suggestion is that PADI offer an “experienced diver” short-form AOW for divers with, say, more than 100 logged dives, so long as they can pass the knowledge review and demonstrate the dive skills on a single check-out dive. This could get the cost down to well under $100 even including the cost of the dive.
I also see from many conversations and posts on this Board that I am not alone.
Best Regards,
Experienced Divers Everywhere
P.S. My other, much stronger, suggestion is the PADI make Deep, Navigation, and Peak Performance Buoyancy a mandatory part of the Open Water course. (or at least make PPB a mandatory dive for AOW). The divers that I see coming out of OW are, many times, disgraceful in their buoyancy control and trim especially, doing lots of damage to the bottom. But, that is a topic for another thread . . .
