AOW questions

[mcohen1021]

Is this speculation or fact?

Speculation since she did not have any specialty cards, but they did not ask for a deep specialty as an alternative. They wanted to sell classes, and that was the way, even though she had the experience and I could vouch for it. They were insistent that she have AoW.

Most of the dive ops I have been with would happily accept Deep as opposed to AOW. What they are looking for is a bit of card which they can look at and make a decision on the level of tuition that person has had. Deep cert trumps AOW for depth so any diving op worth actually diving with should accept it in lieu of AOW.

Again, no idea, but they never offered a deep specialty as an alternative for AoW.

 

[boulderjohn]

Speculation since she did not have any specialty cards, but they did not ask for a deep specialty as an alternative. They wanted to sell classes, and that was the way, even though she had the experience and I could vouch for it. They were insistent that she have AoW.



Again, no idea, but they never offered a deep specialty as an alternative for AoW.

With PADI, AOW or Adventure Diver is required for the deep specialty. Adventure Diver is an extremely rare certification to begin with, and I would be truly surprised to find someone who had that certification and then took the deep specialty without doing AOW first. Thus, there would be no point in offering to accept the deep specialty in the case of someone who did not have AOW, since it would be close to impossible for a diver without AOW to have the deep specialty.

 

[GlassGuy808]

What a great conversation!
I am PADI Open Water certified with various other specialties classes.. O2, First Aid, Equipment Specialist, blah blah blah all somewhat meaningless now because it’s been so many years.
When I was at Club Med in the Turks and Caicos I did the NAUI advanced course. I would have preferred PADI but that was not an option.
I was rather surprised that I actually liked some things I didn’t expect to...One of my favorites was the Underwater Naturalist, (Not sure what it’s officially called) it taught me to slow down and smell the roses so to speak.
It made me much more aware of what is around instead of powering through to the next big object.
So I guess what I’m saying is if I had a choice in what five dives we did (we may have had a choice but I just don’t remember) I may have skipped this one because it sounded boring.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts!
Aloha, Alan

 

[MichaelMc]

Aloha, This does not answer what is the most common alternative to AOW, but gives some past discussion on the best components of it (under PADI). Which PADI AOW specialties
One recommendation is PPB -> Nav -> Night -> Deep -> DSMB with strict performance standards in at each phase. But it depends on your instructor.

 

[Aloha Joe]

Thanks. Honestly I'm liking AOW more and more, now that I know I can do it for under $200. But I'm planning on taking PPB first. Plus it seems like my list of preferred specialties keeps changing! Drift might be a little more important when I get to Oahu. PPB is another inexpensive one that can be done from shore, yet to me seems to be fundamental to just about everything else. I think PPB and AOW will give me enough to be a little more comfortable exploring, and I can figure out what to do after.

 

[tursiops]

Thanks. Honestly I'm liking AOW more and more, now that I know I can do it for under $200. But I'm planning on taking PPB first. Plus it seems like my list of preferred specialties keeps changing! Drift might be a little more important when I get to Oahu. PPB is another inexpensive one that can be done from shore, yet to me seems to be fundamental to just about everything else. I think PPB and AOW will give me enough to be a little more comfortable exploring, and I can figure out what to do after.

I've got 200-some dives in Hawaii, and don't think I've ever needed Drift skills.
PPB is two dives for the specialty; the second of those two is more about nuances and repetition. Suggestion: just do the first PPB dive as part of the AOW, but tell your instructor you want to keep practicing PPB on the other 4 AOW dives, and want suggestions and feedback.

 

[boulderjohn]

Suggestion: just do the first PPB dive as part of the AOW, but tell your instructor you want to keep practicing PPB on the other 4 AOW dives,

A good instructor can continue to develop skills throughout the course. Tursiops gives one good example here. Another is navigation--do it early in the sequence and you can keep practicing your compass work on the rest of the dives. Some of the dives have very few in-water required skills, so the instructor can load them up with practice from other dives.

Here in colorado, some choices that are really good in some places are not at all good. Fish identification is an example, unless you think identifying crawdads over and over and over again is worthwhile. In the sites with near zero visibility, video does not work out so well. For that reason, I like to include altitude, which has no requirements whatsoever during the dive. That allows me to work on whatever I think the students needs most.

 

[Bob DBF]

With PADI, AOW or Adventure Diver is required for the deep specialty. Adventure Diver is an extremely rare certification to begin with, and I would be truly surprised to find someone who had that certification and then took the deep specialty without doing AOW first.

Not only that, but from what I've seen of specialty prices, it would cost more to go that route rather than get AOW.

On the other hand SSI and SDI only have OW as a prerequisite to Deep so one could try that route instead. There probably others but those came to mind to check. NAUI requires AOW.


Bob

 

[tursiops]

Not only that, but from what I've seen of specialty prices, it would cost more to go that route rather than get AOW.

On the other hand SSI and SDI only have OW as a prerequisite to Deep so one could try that route instead. There probably others but those came to mind to check. NAUI requires AOW.


Bob

SDI Deep is two dives only....pretty limited content compared to PADI Deep (4 dives).

 

[Bob DBF]

SDI Deep is two dives only....pretty limited content compared to PADI Deep (4 dives).

A card is a card, the quality of training is another, more important issue in my mind, however the question was using a deep card to circumvent AOW.


Bob