Finished AOW today!!!

[mfross]

Today, I finished all the dives +1 for my AOW certification. It was one heck of a good time and I can hardly wait to continue my diving education!

It was a great help having a DM trainee as my partner as he was able to help me a great deal with buoyancy, equalization, and air consumption issues, and other things as they popped up.

One think I learned--the hard way, is that going at 110% full throttle isn't the way to go while diving. I finished my navigation dive at a record pace and had the air consumption to prove it. Never mind that I had worn grooves in the grass by our dive site practicing, but even the instructor, sitting on a rock watching, was amazed at how fast I zipped through it.

I'm now better with the buoyancy issues, but still am working on air consumption.

It helped that I ended up doing much better than other students who had "a great deal more experience" who had one heck of a hard time with a number of issues to make me feel better that I recognized where I was having problems and was willing to learn to help develop good habits rather than their bad ones along with keeping an open mind to suggestions and offered help.

For someone who, before OW was outright terrified of water, having almost drowned three times in my life, I think I've come a great deal and am having a lot of fun learning and enjoying my SCUBA training. That my instructor is happy to have me along during the OW classes--both pool and certification dives will help a lot with my confidence as I add more dives to my log book. I'm not as interested in certifications as learning to become comfortable in a completely foreign and potentially dangerous environment.

I ended up with six-dives rather than the five dives as I helped my dive buddy map out a wreck. He asked for a dive buddy and I jumped right in, without question, merely for the chance to spend more time blowing bubbles.

As a bonus, there was a dry suit manufacturer willing to let us try them, which our class did for the deep drive and it made a scary dive almost comfortable--though I did suck a tank almost dry.

I've been a lurker here more than I've posted, and have learned a great deal and know I will continue doing so.

Thanks all!

Joe Collins
Paramedic/Firefighter

 

[fisheater]

Congratulations!!

Keep diving and keep looking to and for good dive mentors.

Also, when you're trying to slow down, remember that diving is MUCH more like floating than it is like swimming.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TartanFrog]

Congratulations! I just went through my AOW and I know it is a great feeling.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

It terrific to read from a diver who reports learning and growing on every dive and "gets it." AOW is to my mind the most skill expanding class of all, and it is a great basis from which to move to specialities, and of course, given your profession, Resue Diver as well. May you have calm seas, warm water, great viz and happy diving!
DivemassterDennis

 

[SlicerDicer]

Congrats on AOW, I just recently got mine

Ohh on your deep dive did they make you add a bunch of numbers? LOL I sat there and battled with that but I suck at math something horrible. I need to figure out a better test for narcosis.

 

[Zen1300]

Congrats! It sounds like you had a good experience. I think that helps to keep the motivation.

I'm curious. Did you simply do "checkout" dives with a task that you had to perform, or was there more of a hands-on training in the water?

I finished all but the Deep Dive, and my AOW experience was simply an explanation on land of the tasks that I was to do and a DM following me around as I did them.

Sometimes I think finding the good instruction is the hardest aspect.

 

[SlicerDicer]

I completed all the tasks that I needed to preform without issues other than the stupid math. I am not too worried about it though when I did my OW and AOW I already knew what I was going to have to do and had done it before, this was rather trivial to me to complete so I got to spend more time looking around after completing tasks.

Although not everybody has a dive instructor/hardhat diver for a Mom. Even though she is not the one who certified me.

Basically my OW and AOW were a formality not a difficulty so I could go to shops with a damn card LOL

 

[Kryssa]

Good to hear you had a good time! We're doing our AOW on a short liveaboard (3 days) that leaves on Thursday! What elective dives did you do?

 

[Bubbletrubble]

As a bonus, there was a dry suit manufacturer willing to let us try them, which our class did for the deep drive and it made a scary dive almost comfortable--though I did suck a tank almost dry.

Your instructor should be reprimanded for allowing this to happen. I don't think PADI would approve of this sort of thing. There is no good reason to put students into unfamiliar gear for the deep dive in AOW class. It's absolutely reckless to be sending out students, who may not have the best buoyancy control in a wetsuit configuration with only one buoyancy device, to do a deep dive with two buoyancy control devices (BCD + drysuit) and then challenge them with potential narcosis and accelerated gas consumption at depth.

Although I applaud your enthusiasm, you'll look back on this someday when you have more experience and realize what a terrible decision your AOW instructor made. It's decisions like this that get people hurt.

People with zero drysuit experience who want to demo a drysuit should do so in a controlled environment (shallow depth with hard bottom) under close supervision from a pro. The last thing a pro should want to do is take that drysuit newbie down to 100 ffw and test whether the newbie can control the suit. I have to say that I'm more than a little surprised that a drysuit manufacturer was willing to let AOW students on the deep dive demo the company's drysuits. :shocked2:

I apologize for the harsh tone of this post, but I do think it's warranted. We generally try to keep things fairly light in the New Diver forum.

Have fun out there and be safe...

 

[Zen1300]

Your instructor should be reprimanded for allowing this to happen. I don't think PADI would approve of this sort of thing.

This brings up a problem. Putting a student in the position of helping to maintain PADI standards and safety.

How do we get Schools, instructors, and PADI to police themselves?

Is it truly a minority of shops/instructors that don't comply with PADI Standards? Or is it a trend moving upward due to economic pressures to cut corners, combine different classes, speed people through?

The student that is put in a position to contact PADI QA risks being ostracized, which may be worth it to maintain standards and improve instruction. In locales with smaller tight-knit dive communities this may mean cutting oneself off.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk