Badly trained?

[gr8fuldiverNC]

Its not so much that AOW is crap as in the time frame. Doing 4 O/W dives
followed by 5 AOW all supervised and you can call yourself advanced........
AOW is to me the most important non pro rating as (here in NZ) it dictates
where you can dive etc most of our charter boat skippers require it to let
you dive in our better spots. A required min number of dives to be logged
would IMHO be better as in a DM course or the old CMAS based courses.
Anyway back to my original thread even the O/W diver should have been a bit more competetent. The DSDs were. One common denominator they had was they'd all been warm water trained.

the emphasis in aow should be on the ow part, not the advanced part. this class does not make you an 'advanced' scuba diver by anyones definition even padis. they only way to become truly advanced is through experience and training. i wish they would change the name to avoid confusion. personally, i dont generally consider a diver to be even competent until the rescue level and well over 100 dives, much less 'advanced'. i guess it depends on your definition of advanced. i think 1000 dives might be enough to qualify as advanced, if the person is talented.

 

[Slonda828]

I agree, blanket condemnation is not the most contructive methodology. However, someone, or rather a large group of divers, need to explain in emphatic terms to the agencies, that the training is not what it could be, or even what it should be, and you can't lay it all at the feet of the instructors. The agency bears responsibility for the ambiguity in it's standards. It needs to be corrected.

I don't usually reply to these kind of threads, but I have to say this. I took a PADI course to get my C-card, and it didn't teach me very much. It taught me exactly what was outlined in the standards verbatim, but it didn't teach me very much. I didn't blame PADI, because they have to make a living just like me. What I did do is not put entirely too much stock in that piece of plastic they mailed me with my cheesey smile on it. I went out DIVING...a whole lot. I also did it with people who I viewed as both skilled and experienced. During the vintage period of diving your aqualung came with a pamphlet explaining how to not kill yourself and some dive tables. You were expected to learn the rest. Why are we laying this all on the feet of the businesses and not the people who dive? If you nuke yourself on a wreck dive because you have no skills, then that's your fault, not PADI's. If you drown diving for lobster because you aren't smart enough to check your SPG, then that is also your fault. If you know that the industry has low standards then hold yourself to higher ones, and don't dive with crappy divers. My only concern with the industry would be when people think that having an "advanced open water" card actually makes them an advanced diver. If lots of people actually think that (VERY few I have ever met have, but then again, I don't dive with morons), then we as a community need to do something about that.

FWIW, YMMV, ETC.

 

[NudeDiver]

Its not so much that AOW is crap as in the time frame. Doing 4 O/W divesfollowed by 5 AOW all supervised and you can call yourself advanced........

So, it's not even the time frame. You're just stuck on the word "advanced".

Having read a bunch more posts - it seems a lot of people are stuck on this word. Why???? What do you care what it says? A lot of people are a member of an "Elite Flyer's Club" due to how much they fly - it doesn't mean there is anything elite about those people - it's just a word - a name. I think the people walking around and fretting about people who had an Advanced Open Water cert who are not really "advanced" are at least as foolish as the people walking around with an Advanced Open Water cert who are telling people, "look at me - I'm advanced" with their chest all puffed out.

It's a word people. Nothing more.

 

[NudeDiver]

The point I'm making is 9 dives is not enough to gain experience.

What, are you crazy? It's enough to gain 9 dives worth of experience.

 

[bfw]

Some boats will require AOW to let divers do certain dives. I agree that there should be more, but such is life...

They can't spend the time to evaluate their customers - they have a business to run, so they depend upon credentials. As society has gotten bigger, dependence on credentials has increased, and demands for access without effort have swayed those issuing credentials to dilute their meaning. It's not so much a diving problem as a societal problem. For a glaring example, just watch Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment when he quizzes college seniors on the way into their graduation ceremony.