Getting the most out of Padi AOW

[Frosty]

My wife and I are off to Rarotonga. She will be doing her OW so I thought I'd do my AOW. Its through a Padi dive shop.
I've been snorkling for years but only have now 17 Scuba dives in my book
All my OW training has been off a boat.
So folks do you have advise as to whaty to do to get the most out of the AAW ?

 

[divermike1011]

I think a large part of how your AOW class goes will be your instructor, so I'd spend some time both researching and then contacting various instructors at your destination to find a good 'fit.' As far as what you can do, you can always get a copy of Adventures in Diving, and when you've worked out which specialties you can complete both the knowledge reviews and if you're interested follow up with some independent research on those topics. I tell people to be patient with themselves when they are learning a new diving skill -- for instance on your deep dive you'll notice you burn a lot more air then you do on your 10m dives. Be safe, have fun, and I hope you learn some more skills to put in your 'toolbox.'

Michael

 

[BrianKon]

Good for you to gain additional training. I would definitely recommend Peak Performance Buoyancy as one of your courses, you may also want to do Nitrox as well.

I feel these two courses will benefit you the most in addition to the required Deep and Navigation.

For your final course, I would then go with Drift. This is important because on some charters you may be doing a drift dive because of conditions or other factors. There are many post on here about newer divers having bad experiences with Drift dives, mostly because they were not prepared. By adding Drift to the other courses, you will have a good bag of tools to use for a variety of diving.

good diving to you!

 

[spectrum]

My wife and I are off to Rarotonga. She will be doing her OW so I thought I'd do my AOW. Its through a Padi dive shop.
I've been snorkling for years but only have now 17 Scuba dives in my book
All my OW training has been off a boat.
So folks do you have advise as to whaty to do to get the most out of the AAW ?

Deep and navigation are givens.

Peak performance buoyancy is up to you. If it's a weakness take it. If you feel you're on the right track and are improving steadily it's a toss-up. With 17 dives you probably won't be an ace regardless of courses taken.

See if you can break the boat cycle. Shore diving alone may not fly but if a rough water entry lesson can be taken it can open a whole new world of affordable diving. I've see enough boat people deal with shore diving to know it's not as simple as it sounds.

Search & recovery can be helpful and will also get you up to speed on shooting a bag/buoy. Running grids will reinforce navigation.

Night is awesome but you may want to wait to pick that up with your wife.

Nitrox will become useful but again may be just as well done with your wife.

Stick with dive skills. Photography, fish ID, naturalist and basket weaving can be learned elsewhere.

Does PADI now allow rescue ahead of AOW? If so, go do rescue to make you a safer stronger buddy to your wife. Then you can sync up to do AOW together.

Pete

 

[fire_diver]

You may not have any choice in what "adventure dives" you do with AOW. When you do them in the ocean, you can expect to do deep, nav, ppb, boat, and whatever else the instructor likes teaching.

What you get out of AOW as a whole will depend on your instructor. If they do a bare-bones class you won't get anything out of it more than reading the book. If you get a good instructor will learn more than the book offers.

Good luck, and have fun.

 

[spectrum]

You may not have any choice in what "adventure dives" you do with AOW. When you do them in the ocean, you can expect to do deep, nav, ppb, boat, and whatever else the instructor likes teaching.

In reality that is often the hoax of it all. Many times the content is dictated, so much for electives.

 

[Frosty]

Hey gosh sorry guys -Typical impatient me diddn't type the whole story.
My first 7 dives were boat dives off a 20 foot twin hull dive boat. All the rest have been shore dives in a variety of conditions from millpond to 3 foot waves.
Two of my first 7 dives were amazing drift dives at a place called the big W in Fiji Its a wall dive under the surf break. It felt like we were really motoring along at about 10mph ish.
As far as dive companies goes we chose Cook Island Divers who came highly recomended by the local (to us) dive shop.
Other than figuring out the best place to stow gear on my BC (spare second stage and gauges) I feel comfortable diving
Sorry to only lay out half the story folks

 

[oddible]

PADI AOW isn't really a course in itself - though PADI offers it that way. It is the first chapter and the first dive from 5 specialties. There isn't even a place to sign in the PADI log book that you've completed AOW, just the 5 specialty dives. The nice thing about this is exposure to some different aspects of diving, but the name is very misleading (after 5 dives you are now "advanced").

The biggest factor in making your AOW is a success is the instructor. Not the dive shop - though the dive shop can create a culture which encourages and supports good instruction (the 5-star rating is pretty much meaningless in this regard). And even shops that are great may still have a few of the Joe Weekender instructors who are just checking off requirements for some extra cash on their days off. And dive experience isn't the only factor in making a good instructor - have seen instructors who were commercial divers with thousands of hours of bottom time kicking the bottom with every kick cycle, leaving their students in a cloud of silt and wreaking havok on the wildlife. So ask the dive shop if they have any instructors who are really good instructors / educators and ask if you can have one of them (likely the dive shop will say "all of our instructors... yadda yadda" and perhaps you can press a bit, "no really, everyone isn't equivalent, who are your best instructors").

You can get the Adventures in Diving and parse the good material from the marketing shlock - there is some good material there - read everything from cover to cover if you've got the time - you can't go wrong picking up more info than needed - on specialty dives you won't even do! Read before you go - no sense in studying on your vacation

For PADI Rescue you need Adventure Diver which basically just means 3 specialty dives:
http://www.padi.com/scuba/padi-cour...ew-all-padi-courses/rescue-diver/default.aspx

 

[fire_diver]

For PADI Rescue you need Adventure Diver which consists of the full Deep and Wreck courses (AOW doesn't get you either full specialty):
Rescue Diver Primary and Secondary Care Courses - PADI Scuba Diving Training Organization

Where did you get this information? I just looked at the PADI website, and it doesn't say that. It says you have to have "Adventure diver", which when clicked on takes you to the AOW page. It says nothing about full deep or anything else (much less wreck) to take the rescue course.

 

[Peter Guy]

From the PADI 2011 Instructor's Manual -- Prerequisites for Rescue Diver Cert:

PADI Adventure Diver -- what this means is that you will have done the first 3 dives of the AOW course which (for Rescue) must include the Underwater Navigation Dive.

The AOW course consists of 5 dives, two of which must be Nav and Deep -- but if you just complete the first 3 dives, you have become a PADI Adventure Diver (for those of us instructors who need certs, an OW/AOW student can provide us with 4 certs by the time she has done 9 dives with us!). These "adventure dives" are NOT full specialty courses, but, to the contrary, they MAY BE the first dive of any particular specialty. (If the instructor is decent, she won't give you "credit" for those dives but, to the contrary, will just build on them and provide you with MORE teaching and instructional dives -- but it is up to you and the instructor.)

Although EAN may be an "Adventure Dive" it will NOT give you a Nitrox card -- you will still need to take the class to get the card.