Cannot find a reason for AOW certification

[JamesBon92007]

Being certified in 2005, of course I didn't have to do any of those things aside from the 10 minute tread. I have however at one point done the gear on the bottom drill, which was no big deal (with an instructor from a different shop) and of course the free ascent from, well 30'--are you talking about a CESA or free diving without scuba so you have to swim down without anything, such as fins? Still seems doable for me. Never did the blind folded mask thing--what skills did you have to do blindfolded? Anything complicated like removing/replacing scuba unit? Did you do the uw 75' swim with or without fins? I'm pretty sure I could do that with fins.
Anyway, my point is I think I would've done OK in these long ago courses. But I spent a lifetime in and around water before OW course. When I was DMing OW courses I did see a number of students who would be nowhere near doing some of this stuff. Things have changed in that regard.

By "free ascent" I meant with scuba--take a breath and exhale all the way to the surface. I don't recall that there was anyone in the class that couldn't do it. The underwater swim was without fins. As for the blind-folded drill, if someone shut off your air you had to remove your tank, turn the air back on, and replace the tank--or make a free ascent. If they only yanked the regulator out of your mouth all you had to do was locate it and stick it back in your mouth. Of course, if anyone wasn't successful we didn't know it because we couldn't see them. I agree that doing the gear at the bottom of the pool was no big deal, but it did make sure that you could function underwater, and make decisions on what to do in what order. I think these kinds of exercises gave us confidence.

 

[Moray]

With reference to DAN's dive insurance, I am very confident they will cover dive injuries you might sustain at 30m as that is still within the limits for recreational diving. The same applies to their travel insurance. After all of the discussions on this board, I am amazed that some folks can't let go of the myth that OW divers are limited to 60'. Yes, some dive ops may limit an OW diver to those limits, but I usually find that once the DM figures out you have your act together and don't need close monitoring, the 60' "limit" goes out the window. On a recent trip to French Polynesia, after one dive @60' or so to assess capabilities, and then asking what depth I was comfortable diving to, we all dove to 100+ft. If I ever find a dive op that is hard over about having the AOW card, I will know about their policy before I sign up for the dives, and just find someone else to dive with, or dive some other place. Life is too short to put up that kind of BS. Yes, I know it's their boat and their rules, but it is my money and for me, that rules.

. If you have Master or Preferred plans you seem to be covered

 

[TMHeimer]

James, That is a long way underwater without fins--don't know if I could do that (probably, but not sure). Swimming on the surface involves 75% arm motion, 25% feet. Add fins and it changes dramatically. If someone turned my tank valve off, I'd opt for the free ascent. Reg retrieval is no big deal and there are several methods to retrieve it, not to mention just breathing fro your own octo, which may not have been as possibility back then.

 

[JamesBon92007]

James, That is a long way underwater without fins--don't know if I could do that (probably, but not sure). Swimming on the surface involves 75% arm motion, 25% feet. Add fins and it changes dramatically. If someone turned my tank valve off, I'd opt for the free ascent. Reg retrieval is no big deal and there are several methods to retrieve it, not to mention just breathing fro your own octo, which may not have been as possibility back then.

No octo back then. Recovering your second stage is easy--when you can see 75 feet is only two lengths of a typical 35 foot swimming pool, plus a couple of feet. I routinely swim five laps underwater without surfacing in my 35 foot pool, so that's about one hundred feet more than the 75 feet. Of course that includes pushing off the sides and subtract a couple of feet for pushing off the step, so probably around 165 feet. If I recall correctly the pool where I took my class was about 40 feet and I think the requirement was 1 1/2 lengths but most just did the full two. That's roughly the equivalent of diving down about 37 feet and back up. Does it sound easier when you look at it that way? When I took my second class in '83 the instructor had us dive down to about 35 feet and bring back a handful of sand. We were wearing 1/4" farmer johns, no mask, and no weights. We must have been wearing fins otherwise I don't think anyone would have made it. It turned out that all of us had a handful of sand.

 

[Nianne]

SSI offers different "validations" for divers, you can get an account for free and log your dives over there and at certain point get a card that proves you have reach a lot of dives.

That may be the best solution without paying a dime for any other training.

 

[TMHeimer]

james, Yes the down 37' and up sounds doable--especially with fins. I used to "free dive" as they call it now (I called it snorkeling and going down) to maybe 12-15' looked a bit for shells, then back up--with fins.
What about those uw pool laps you did--165' with fins or no? Especially if no fins, what sort of arm stroke did you use? The forward "crawl" would seem ineffective underwater--ie. "Don't use your arms when on scuba".

 

[JamesBon92007]

I don't use fins in the swimming pool. And no, I don't swim with my arms when scuba diving, except when I'm playing around. As for the arm stroke, um, I don't really know the names of all of the kicks and strokes. I suppose "breast stroke" and kicking with my feet might describe it.

I guess that was a bad analogy--I was just comparing the underwater distance--it doesn't seem that far if you're talking about free diving. And just because I can swim 165 feet underwater in a swimming pool does not mean I can free dive 82 feet, at least not any more But I suppose I could swim further than that underwater with fins, say at a depth of 10 feet maybe (?) It's certainly true this particular type of swimming won't really work for scuba diving but it gives me confidence that I can swim a certain distance underwater if needed (or simply just wanted) plus after swimming a bunch of laps I'll do a couple underwater when I'm winded just so I'll know I can. I can't say for sure if it builds up my lung power because I used to be able to swim a lot further underwater in a swimming pool. I have lost some ability over the decades and I'm trying to postpone more loss.

 

[Saboteur]

If instead of thinking of AOW as learning/demonstrating a fixed set of skills (most of which many of us attained just by experience), you think about it as a more general learning opportunity, than I can think of two good reasons to do it, plus a third that made it a financial no-brainer for me:

1) An opportunity to have a personal dive with a DM to work on whatever issues or skills you would like to diagnose and improve: For me it was fine tuning my buoyancy and trim and making my underwater movements more efficient. So I discussed this with the instructor and that's really what we worked on for each dive, including my nav dive. It was an opportunity to get personal instruction on things I wanted to work on in general - so we did them on deep, on a wreck dive, a boat dive, a nav dive and a PPB dive.
2) If there is a specialty you might want to investigate - for me it was nav
3) the no brainer: I got five dives with a personal DM for essentially the same cost as it would have been if I had gone with the rest of the group. So for the same price, I got personal instruction and my AOW cert. If you can find a deal likek this then why not do it?

Agree. I had ACUC certification in 1979 and had a 32 year layoff from diving. AOW was useful in that I received a more accepted c-card and had 5 private dives where all skills were tuned up.