AOW for Experienced Divers: An Open Letter to PADI

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The shops which said they would not take you past 60ft without the AOW are full of s$%#. Likely just trying to force you into an AOW course. I always gauge the level of diver on experience and cert level. Obviously a regularly diving OW diver with 100 dives is going to be a far better diver than an AOW with 9 dives, or a rescue diver with 13 dives.

That 60ft/18m thing is misunderstood by a lot of dm's and instructors. That is not a limit which the diver cannot descend below such as it is with, for example, PADI's "Scuba Diver" which cannot go below 40ft/12m even with a pro in tow. 60ft/18m is a guideline which the diver should follow when diving with another diver of equal experience and certification level. Put with a professional and the 60ft/18m guideline does not apply. Mind you that doesn't mean I as an instructor am going to take an OW diver to 130ft/40m straight away. Use your common sense.

If it weren't for your experience and occupation I may disagree about why a shop/charter would require AOW for beyond 60'. Being a native of U.S., I would think it has more to do with law suits...? Do you think that dive shops get much business from people now doing AOW with them because they just want to do that deeper dive with them? Maybe so?

Yeah, the 60' OW cert. limit is a PADI recommended limit, not hard & fast rule. I have interpreted it also that aside from going deeper with a professional, one can gradually extend one's own limit with experience (without AOW) and this doesn't really go against what PADI says. Would you agree?
 
One affordable option to get an AOW card is to take the AOW course at a dive shop in a resort area. There are many shops that will provide the course free if you book five dives with them and buy the book from them.
 
One affordable option to get an AOW card is to take the AOW course at a dive shop in a resort area. There are many shops that will provide the course free if you book five dives with them and buy the book from them.

But what are the costs of the dives, and you have to do 5 Adventure dives anyway. Or do you pay for 5 regular dives then get the 5 course dives with instruction free?
So you get 10 dives and instruction for the cost of 5 & the book?
 
But what are the costs of the dives, and you have to do 5 Adventure dives anyway. Or do you pay for 5 regular dives then get the 5 course dives with instruction free?
So you get 10 dives and instruction for the cost of 5 & the book?

What I believe he is saying is that you have to do 5 dives for AOW. If you book the dives at the regular price (which would normally be included in the course price) and pay for the book, they don't charge for the AOW course. That seems generous to me--you are getting the personal attention of an instructor for those dives.

On the other hand, when you do consider the price for the AOW course and it does include boat fees (etc.), don't forget that you would have to pay those boat fees if you just went diving. Frequently it is a very good deal when you realize what you are getting.
 
Their dive operation, their rules. Certification requirements are probably insurance company related. The only course of action that I can see is get certed per their rules, or obtain your own boat.
 
But what are the costs of the dives, and you have to do 5 Adventure dives anyway. Or do you pay for 5 regular dives then get the 5 course dives with instruction free?
So you get 10 dives and instruction for the cost of 5 & the book?

You pay for five dives, the book and the PIC and you get five dives and the AOW card.

Advanced Diver Course For Free!

Were you already thinking of doing a minimum of 5 dives anyway?
DRESSEL DIVERS OFFERS YOU THE PADI ADVANCED COURSE FOR FREE!
It’s as easy as using the necessary 5 dives from any of our dive packages.
DRESSEL DIVERS offers you FREE ADVANCED training by one of our instructors.
You only have to buy the book & slate and the PADI PIC card for the PADI rights.Improve your experience as a diver with the PADI program for advanced divers, which allows you to improve your diving abilities and explore everything that diving can offer you. +The duration of the course: 5 dives ; “Deep Dive”, “Navigation Dive” and another 3 you select); There is no pool training involved, just reading the 5 chapters corresponding to each Adventure dive, approximately 2.5 / 3 hours of self-study, which you can do on the beach as if you where reading a book. Before every dive, your DRESSEL Instructor will give you a briefing about the dive you are about to experience. If you are at least 12 years, and have a PADI Open Water Diver certification or equivalent from a different dive organization, you are ready for the “PADI Advanced Open Water Program” (from 12 to 14 years “Junior Advanced Open Water”).

You need to complete 5 of the following so-called Adventure dives ;
  • Deep Diving (obligatory)
  • Navigation Dive (obligatory)
  • Night Diving
  • Drift Diving
  • Fish Identification-Project AWARE.
  • Multilevel Diving
  • Boat Diving
  • Underwater Naturalist DivePeek Performance Buoyancy
You choose on site after a chat with your instructor.Ask which ones are available in each center.
 
If it weren't for your experience and occupation I may disagree about why a shop/charter would require AOW for beyond 60'. Being a native of U.S., I would think it has more to do with law suits...? Do you think that dive shops get much business from people now doing AOW with them because they just want to do that deeper dive with them? Maybe so?

Yeah, the 60' OW cert. limit is a PADI recommended limit, not hard & fast rule. I have interpreted it also that aside from going deeper with a professional, one can gradually extend one's own limit with experience (without AOW) and this doesn't really go against what PADI says. Would you agree?

Yeah, OK, I suppose it's also possible they are worried about lawsuits. If I were in the states where the state of civil liability is what it is, I would probably ask for and copy the divers log book if they were going to book dives that really required more than the level of experience a typical OW diver will have. In fact I think I recall Here in the tropics that is not an issue.

Yes, agree 100% with your second paragraph. It' spelled out pretty clearly in the standards that the DM or Instructor must gauge each diver and conditions when determining dive site suitability as it would be determined by a "reasonable" instructor or DM. That word "reasonable" is used a lot in civil cases.

It's also in the Standard Safe Diving Practices Statement of Understanding that the diver will "Engage only in diving activities consistent with [their] diving training and experience."
 
The problem today is that the training agencies have d evaluated the training regimen of the 70's and 60's. Kind of like investing a buck and inflation ate away from the returns so you now have 60 cents. When I got my training in the 70's, you had to do everything that all the parceled up courses require you to do today. A good number of people quit because they could not handle the regimen. Whups, there goes sales. Everything was getting more and more dumb'ed down. You could pretty well cont on the fact if they got OW, they knew their stuff. CPR training was required as well as emergency response. By the time I had 60 dives in 78, I knew all I needed to know to plan my dive and dive my plan with folks that were trained like me.

Our checkout dives required 130'. The only place deep enough without going to the coast was Greers Ferry Lake. Limited visibility, dark at 60', darker at 130'. Cold 45F.-50F. past the second thermocline. We made free ascents from that depth. Buddy breathe to the surface (on short hoses). There were vehicles we swam through at Northfork Lake. No pressure gauges, just timers and depth gauges, you would roll until you hit the NDL or the reg became hard to breath. Pull the reserve and start for the surface, whups... no safety stop. The largest tank you could get was an 80 @3000psi, So when I was spear fishing, I would side-mount a 55, yes side-mount on a horse collar, because I was blowing through so much air.

We would go to the Gulf and dive from little boats that pitched so bad, you would have to jump in the water to help with the seasickness. Coming up, we would sling our gear from weighted ropes on the side of the boat so we would not have to board with it. Sometimes we had to sling it and don it in the water. Currents that go one way at the surface and other at the bottom.... You better know where you came from and how to get back.

So today, the OW is nothing more than a fair weather sightseeing ticket, so you can get some air, get on a boat and then go flounder around at about 60'. Poor visibility.... you need confined quarters training, Current.... you need drift diving training, Dive from a boat... you need boat diving training. Getting lost... You need navigation training. Fish at 90'... you need deep diver training. Perk up your brew... you need NITOX training. Dude comes up with blood in his mask and a little swollen around the neck... You need Oxygen provider training. And on and on.... If you could sling a Zip Line underwater, there would be a training course for that too.
 
I think PADI has "stacked the deck" with the course description, and the available courses....this has made it easy for law suit potentials to use the existing course structure and language, and this has created the "need" of people like Guy to be immorally forced into the AOW class.

I think PADI secretly enjoys that the lawyers will "drive" people to the mandated AOW class, and they can feign surprise and dismay.
If they cared what was right, they would create an "Equivalency" cert for people with skills far beyond 70% of their teaching instructors but that only had an OW card--divers like Guy.

It's not about the liability...it's about the profits ( a scheme like this that drives AOW certs for PADI Shops and Instructors, is profit for PADI --when each Instructor received their Instructor credentials, there was the implicit understanding that PADI would do "things" that would make them money)....Here you go!!!!
 
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