AOW specialty recommendations

[Crass3000]

Personally I would stay away from the nitrox if there is such a dive for the reasons mentioned above. If you want to take the nitrox specialty later then you will actually be able to use it. If I remember correctly it's just a few hours of instruction and playing around with your dive computer on the same night and is therefor pretty inexpensive. It just seems like a waste of a dive. I would suggest:

Deep
Underwater Navigation
Night
Search and recovery
Peak Bouyancy

Depending on where you are taking your class and where you intend to dive, Drift might be another but I don't see one learning as much from the dive but drift dives are definitely fun. I think the dives above will give you the most valuable new experiences and show you more things to practice in the future to work on.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

It also depends on the instructor and who they issue certs through. There are a number of agenxcies that offer other choices. My own advanced level class can be either six dives or ten. Either requires a minimum of six hours classroom and is more often eight. The dives are Advanced Skills, Underwater Navigation, Night/Low Vis, Deep, Search and Recovery or Wreck, and Buddy Skills and Assists.

Buoyancy and trim are addressed on the Advanced Skills dive and refined throughout the class. But you also need to have decent skills in those areas before you can start the class. I offer a workshop for that. We use stage bottles, bag shoots, no mask and buddy breathing swims, simlulated deco stops, and deep stops.

All dives except S&R and Wreck are mandatory. You can sub a second Nav dive, low vis, deep, skills, or rescue dive for those two. The idea is not to give you a taste of those dives. But to actually take you out of your comfort zone, give you new skills and knowledge, and prepare you to do the dives or have the judgment to say no to them. It can be failed. Certification is not guaranteed. Training is. You earn the cert.

I also like to have people, if possible, do rescue before the Advanced classes. The Advanced level cert gives you access to dives with increased risks and possibly more severe consequences. As such you should know how to handle it when the SHTF. And to save yourself and another diver. The buddy skills and assists dive does this to a degree. But it is also based on the assumption that your OW course contained the rescue skills that are required by my agency and some others. Many do not have those skills. Hence my belief that rescue should always come before any advanced training.

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[DivemasterDennis]

Night dive is a good choice. SO is search and recovery, and for a 5th dive, if you have the location to do it, a deep dive can be good training as well. Those would be my recommendations. Nitrox isn'tr really and AOW "dive". It's a separaste C card and now does not require open water dives.
DivemasterDennis

 

[SteveBF]

I would give a +1 for Night and Search and Recovery. I'd also say PPB as getting your trim and bouyancy dialed in not only makes diving more fun but it also will help with gas consumption and just makes you a better all around better diver. I kind of wish PPB was part of the OW course.

Cheers!
Steve

 

[The Chairman]

I like
Propulsion, trim & neutral buoyancy (This is not a PPB class)
Search and recovery (Where's Moonie?)
Night/limited vis
Fish Count for REEF.org
Deep dive via wreck

The first should include shooting an SMB from depth. All of it should be fun, fun, fun and done in Key Largo!

 

[Hawkwood]

... All of it should be fun, fun, fun and done in Key Largo!

It should always be fun!

Can't always be in Key Largo though....

 

[The Chairman]

That's the difference between it just being fun and fun, fun, fun.

 

[Mikko Ilari Laakkonen]

I only do AOW classes with PPB where i teach basics of trim, ditch a bunch of lead, go through some buoyancy exercises, shoot smb and teach the frog kick. I usually want to add night to teach light communication and almost always the last one is wreck.

- Mikko Laakkonen -

I love diving and teaching others to dive.

 

[DevonDiver]

Besides the required deep and nav, what specialties do you recommend with AOW. Considering nitrox and night.

I'm posting links to some of my articles, because I've answered this question many times on the board already:

Are Some Scuba Courses are more Equal than Others?

The Value of Progressive Scuba Training | 'Putting Another Dollar In'

A breakdown of the Advanced Open Water Course