AOW to do the Grove..What's up with that!

[pennypue]

I ran into this when I was down in Key Largo at the end of May. We dove through Quiessence and I do not have an AOW card. (Granted one of the others on the trip had one and made their FIRST ocean dive on the Grove......) I was actually allowed to do the dive because an instructor was on the trip and was willing to sign off for me to go.

I think it just comes down to the insurance company wanting to have someone else's 'behind' on the line besides their own. Spread the risk, give the lawyers two entities to sue instead of one!!!!

 

[Divin-D]

Two years ago we went dove with Kelly's during our first trip to the Keys. We had a group of 6 divers, 4 of whom only had OW certs. We asked about doing the Grove when we booked the trip and we were told that we could dive there as long as we stayed above 60 ft.

After we arrived we were told that it was either AOW or 2 deep dives (> 60 ft) in the past 6 months to dive the Grove. Two of the OW divers had one dive to 90 ft in the two months prior and wanted to do another deep dive to qualify for the trip. Kelly's would not take us to any place with a depth of > 45 feet. They told us that the only place that they went to with a depth of > 60 ft was the Grove or the Duane and we couldn't do those without AOW or the aforementioned 2 deep dives. Their AOW class was full (and very expensive), so we found our own instructor and did the AOW class with him (for much cheaper) from Aquanuts boat. He just had to show his credentials and provide his insurance information to Kelly's in order to teach the class on their boat.

 

[dlndavid]

AOW certification doesn't give experience to qualify you as advanced. It does introduce you to more than basic OW and can put you on a course to become more "advanced". I like to compare an AOW cert (which I have and am by no means advanced) to thinking like; just because you turn on your turn signal while driving you can change lanes, whether it is safe or not.

 

[Lil' Irish Temper]

AOW certification doesn't give experience to qualify you as advanced.

Yeah, but most dive shops will take you to their "Advanced Dives" if you have the card, but you could still be the worst diver in the world though.

Which of course is a pile of

 

[RonFrank]

I personally don't think that some of the dive shops in Key Largo want to let anyone dive the Grove.

They want them all to dive "easy" no current dives becuase it's easier on them.
We had our last trip boat operator (who was the shop owner) try that on us.

We wanted to dive the Duane, but he gave us the sob story about it so we said
fine, take us to the Speigel. We got out there and there were other boats on
the wreck, but he talked about how bad the current was and wanted us
to go over and dive the Benwood (which is a good wreck) and molasses reef.

Of course they had no problem charging us the $10 bucks for the stupid little
"dive medallion" they want you to purchase to dive the Grove.

The dive medallion has nothing to do with the the Dive OP. It's required, and the money goes towards the costs associated with purchasing thr Grove, and sinking her (which were considerable). IMO that $10 goes towards a good cause (assuming the $$$ IS going to where they say) which is to provide funds for future similar projects.

 

[Bill51]

A well conducted AOW class should teach you how much you don’t yet know as what you will learn, and serve as a reminder what your deficiencies are. It’s a reminder that you’ll always be learning and hopefully that restores some of the reality to the new diver with a growing ego.

 

[Web Monkey]

It's not as dumb as it sounds. They don't know your "cuz", and diving for 20 years may or may not mean anything, depending on the diving.

If someone spent 20 years studying critters that live at 15' in a protected area, it wouldn't mean much when dropping them off on a 100'+ dive in a ripping current.

You should thank them for beign careful. If things went badly, we'd all be ripping them a new ****ole for taking an OW diver on an "advanced" dive.

Terry

When I checked in with Aquanuts they asked if I was interested in doing the Grove. I had dove this a week previous, but was not sure if my Cuz was interested in doing it. Tammy is a Marine Biologist and has been diving since the mid 70's, maybe before that. However I was not sure of what level of certification she has.

So I said, well we maybe interested, and they asked if Tammy was AOW certified. I said I really was not sure, but told them she has been diving for 20+ years, and actively dives on a regular basis. They replied that was not good enough, she needed an AOW certification... WHAT? :toilet

As it turned out, she had one, however what the Ell is up with That? Is this common at most of the PADI shops? I'm very positive that we could have Dove the Grove with a different OP even if we were both just OW (which we were not), but when does a card matter more than a couple decades of experience?

 

[RonFrank]

So if you were a dive operator, what would you tell your insurance company you check for on "tougher" dives? How long does it take to write in a log book?

IMO with someone like Tammy, it's not difficult to determine her experience. Take one look at her faded 15 year old BCD and high end stainless ScubaPro reg, and it's clear she has put many dives on that gear. Then a quick conversation with her, and it becomes quickly obvious that she is either the most gifted of BS artists, or in fact she has dove the world over, and is an EXTREMELY gifted and educated Marine Biologist.

However, she ended up having more unusual (and very old certs) than most divers will ever get including some deep research certs required to do blue water diviing and collection at depth... so had she wanted to dive the Grove that would have not been an issue. She also had advanced, done well over a decade ago.

However the simple flact is that having an AOW card is hardly a qualification for doing a dive like the Grove. I think they should be requiring experience, not a card. Send a DM down with people on a shallow dive first if they have doubts, and see how they behave UW.

We got buddied up with a nebie from Pheonix, he basically ruined our dive. He hung 10 feet above us almost vertical when we decended. I asked him a dozen times if he was OK, and ready to go to the wreck (we were in a medium current taking us away from where we needed to be). He kept signaling OK, so I took off. He just sat there drifting away from the City of Washington/Elbow Reef. Tammy had tried to get him to follow me, but she was not comfortable leaving this guy alone.

When I realized Tammy and this GUY were not behind me, I went back to approx where they were. I then headed back to the boat UW, and surfaced. They had surfaced after we seperated far from the boat, and then for whatever reason, Tammy could not get him to go back down, and swim UW, so they did a huge surface swim to the boat. I was upcurrent next to the boat when they arrived, and we had wasted half the dive. Tammy was a bit upset for me not making sure they were behind me (and she was right), but she also said it made her realize how well we worked together UW, and how easy our dives together had been (this was our 7th dive together).

We asked the DM to buddy this guy with another couple for the next dive. Someone who is not comfortable in the water IMO is obvious.

 

[RonFrank]

I ran into this when I was down in Key Largo at the end of May. We dove through Quiessence and I do not have an AOW card. (Granted one of the others on the trip had one and made their FIRST ocean dive on the Grove......) I was actually allowed to do the dive because an instructor was on the trip and was willing to sign off for me to go.

I think it just comes down to the insurance company wanting to have someone else's 'behind' on the line besides their own. Spread the risk, give the lawyers two entities to sue instead of one!!!!

Ironically, if you DID die, they would likely sue BOTH the DiveOp, and the instructors insurance company as well. Lawyers have to name EVERYONE they plan on sueing in the beginning of a Suit, and they will name the Biggest Fish possible, and of couse everyone else

 

[RonFrank]

Having that card does not qualify one to dive the Grove.

I had my AOW after 12 dives. I was NOT qualilfied to do the Grove at that point IMO even if I think I would have been OK. After doing the Grove, I'm glad I had put a lot more dives in my log, including ocean drift dives before doing the Grove.

As others have pointed out, since having an AOW card can be meaningless, how does it quality one to do an advanced dive? If they REALLY wanted to be careful, they would make you dive with them a couple times BEFORE letting you do the Grove.

This is exactly how one Operator in Playa del Carmen worked with my Buddy while he was on Vacation. He wanted to do a wreck at 100fsw. They said fine, but we will schedule this for your third day of diving so we can be sure that we feel you are qualified for that depth. After two days of diving, the DM was comfortable taking them down to that depth.

So in fact there are better ways to qualify divers than to just ask them for a card.

It's not as dumb as it sounds. They don't know your "cuz", and diving for 20 years may or may not mean anything, depending on the diving.

If someone spent 20 years studying critters that live at 15' in a protected area, it wouldn't mean much when dropping them off on a 100'+ dive in a ripping current.

You should thank them for beign careful. If things went badly, we'd all be ripping them a new ****ole for taking an OW diver on an "advanced" dive.

Terry