Good/Bad AOW Experience/Failure. Any advice? (LONG!)

[carvemeister]

I wanted to share my recent experience and get some feedback on where I went wrong and where (maybe) the dive shop and/or instructor might have gone wrong. So, here it is:
I attempted to get my PADI AOW Certification this week while on vacation from snowy NY, in the southwest (in a lake). I won’t name the shop for now, but I think they failed me somewhat and I’m disappointed, but I also may be completely wrong.
I started way back with a NAUI Open Water Cert about 35 years ago and hadn’t dove since my OW dives way back then. Always wanted to get back to it and something spurred me to finally go for it this year. I’ve always felt good in the water and have done some snorkeling over the years. Anyhow, I decided my 3 elective dives would be Dry Suit (I live in NY), Peak Buoyancy, and Computer/Multi. When I went to the shop for my pre-dive chat with my private instructor on the night before my dives, I expected to be fitted for a 7 mil wet-suit (lake was in low 50’s). I had brought my booties and hood along. But they just fitted me for a dry suit since that was one of my electives and said I would just use that for all of it. Sounded good to me (at least I’d be warm). We did some pool work in the dry suit for about 60-90 mins and I felt pretty good in my first ever dry suit by the end (or so I thought).
The instructor was a very nice guy, but I wasn’t sure about his actual experience level. After doing in-pool buoyancy, me, at 230 lbs. ended up with 36 lbs of weight! Seemed right at the time, but I did have some issues with feeling just slightly off. Instructor said we’d work on it the next morning at the lake and he brought some extra weights just in case.
Next morning the two of us did a “buoyancy dive” mostly just getting used to the suit in the lake and then getting down to ~35 feet. I practiced using just my suit for buoyancy (as it seemed to describe in the PADI manual). I seemed to stay pretty balanced through my 1^st dive with no real issues and 36 lbs of weight. Apparently well enough to clear the Dry Suit and Peak Buoyancy dives. But then came the Nav. Dive. I’m good with a compass and for most of the dive I was ok, but eventually started having run-away ascents when I ascended up 20-15 feet. My instructor (who I repeat was a heck of a nice guy) didn’t seem to have a good answer and by then I was out of air. Day over. Maybe it was all my inexperience. He said I’d meet the next day with another instructor from the shop for my 2 final dives and he gave me some extra weights in case I needed them to figure out my buoyancy.
Later that night I called a divemaster friend of mine who said he thought I had way too much weight. Then I searched the net and read a bit, coming to the same conclusion (I mostly had a problem with air ballooning into my legs on ascent).
I decided to go from 36 lbs. to 28 and next morning met my 2 instructors. Very experienced guys, much more so, it seemed than the 1^st guy. They seemed to agree with my weight reduction and we started our deep dive along with 2 other guys doing a specialty dive. Got down fine to 85 feet and I felt pretty good with my weight and after a short time at that depth we started heading back up a deep slope. Suddenly at ~ 65-55 feet I started to feel a rapid ascent beginning. I dumped all the air I thought I could while the 2 instructors held my legs down. I was running much lower on air than I should have been as well and they guided me back to the ascent rope with their buddy air. We got up slowly to 15 and did a safety stop. I ended up fine, but apparently this was (rightfully so) a FAIL on my deep dive.
Following that and a rest period, one instructor took out some more weight, so I was at 24 lbs and we worked hard on my buoyancy again, and breathing regulation. I did very well controlling myself in a bunch of drills in 15-30 ft. and by the time I was done I felt as if I really had the dry-suit + weight buoyancy nailed. Great Instructor, very patient and knew exactly how to get me where I needed to be.
So, unfortunately I had no time for another deep dive because I had to fly home after a full day of no-diving. Not having one instructor throughout confused the program a bit, and it wasn’t clear to me, but I assumed if I had one more day, they would have gotten me another deep dive and therefore the AOW Certification I thought I would get. Yes, 4 dives are signed off in my book, but now what? I won’t be back in this area for a long time. Too cold back in NY.
So, VERY sorry for the LONG story, but I’m frustrated a bit. I know my inexperience is the main factor, and planning in too small a window, but all I heard was how you can always get this all done in a weekend! My biggest beef is that I think the first instructor was too inexperienced and should have known I was over-weighted. I figured that was what we did the Peak Buoyancy dive FIRST – to get that sorted out. But it took the 2^nd instructor to get me fixed when it was a bit too late.
Questions:
1) Should the shop and or instructor been clear that I might be biting off more than I could chew by using a dry suit throughout with no experience? Shouldn’t it have been a wetsuit AOW Cert. with a Dry-suit intro dive?
2) Did I get “screwed” on a Peak Perf Buoyancy Dive which wasn’t by having an instructor who overweighted me and should have known better?
3) Or was I just bound to fail anyhow in this time frame simply due to my inexperience?
I’m glad I got in some diving anyhow and I did learn a lot, especially on my last day, but can’t help feeling a bit ripped off. I paid for an AOW course and feel like I didn’t really get what I paid for. I don’t really want to complain to the shop, or about my 1^st instructor, but should I say something, or just accept the fact that this one falls on my inexperience,etc?
4) Did anybody actually read this whole thing? God Bless You if you did!!
Thanks, and looking forward to more dives as soon as I can get enough $$ to pay to fly where I can dive in a damn wetsuit for a change.

 

[CheddarChick]

Did you ever hear the quote "biting off more than you can chew?" Seems you were a tad unrealistic about time frames and you are putting a lot on the never met before trainer. Did you have to redo all the bookwork? Cheer up, even in New York you have summer.....Take a retry, you will be fine.....

 

[Scared Silly]

Welcome to the board. You had the right idea, take course to get you back in the water while learning something new. However, it sounds as though you needed more time in the water and thus allocate more time for the trip. That happens to many people. IMHO they should have had you spend more time in the pool getting used to gear again. Then put the dry suit on and do all kinds of exercises to know how to get out of feet first ascents, control run away ascents, etc. Then finally head out to the lake for the check out dives. You should be able to finish the course through them (w/o additional charge) or get a referral for the missing dives at another locations (w/additional costs).

Perhaps in hind sight the shop failure was in that given the amount of time since you had dived they should have done a couple of simple refresher dives. Not saying they could have not been done the AOW dives. i.e. done the navigation as part of the refresher.

FWIW I started diving from day 1 in a dry suit. To avoid run away ascents. Before ascending significantly in the water column dump some air and use your lungs. If heading to the surface dump a lot, use your lungs, and kick up. With practice you will soon learn to float up as one would do with a BCD.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

I started way back with a NAUI Open Water Cert about 35 years ago and hadn’t dove since my OW dives way back then.

So you took OW, then did no diving for 35 years, then did AOW? I think a refresher OW course would have been a much better idea.

1) Should the shop and or instructor been clear that I might be biting off more than I could chew by using a dry suit throughout with no experience? Shouldn’t it have been a wetsuit AOW Cert. with a Dry-suit intro dive?

If you're supposed to come out of the class certified for dry suit then you ought to dive with a dry suit. I think two days of dry suit diving aren't nearly enough though - I did my OW in dry suit and IIRC I wasn't comfortable with it until maybe the 10th dive.

2) Did I get “screwed” on a Peak Perf Buoyancy Dive which wasn’t by having an instructor who overweighted me and should have known better?

The idea that you were 12 pounds overweighted in PPB by definition makes it NOT PPB. It's not "peak performance".

3) Or was I just bound to fail anyhow in this time frame simply due to my inexperience? I’m glad I got in some diving anyhow and I did learn a lot, especially on my last day, but can’t help feeling a bit ripped off. I paid for an AOW course and feel like I didn’t really get what I paid for. I don’t really want to complain to the shop, or about my 1^st instructor, but should I say something, or just accept the fact that this one falls on my inexperience,etc

35 years is a l o n g time. I think you were essentially a pre-OW diver jumping into AOW in a dry suit. It's kind of a recipe for failure.

I don't know that you were ripped off but you clearly didn't have the time to learn (no less master) the skills they set out to teach.

4) Did anybody actually read this whole thing? God Bless You if you did!! Thanks, and looking forward to more dives as soon as I can get enough $$ to pay to fly where I can dive in a damn wetsuit for a change.

I did!

I think you should consider an OW refresher course. And go diving.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

Clearly things could have gone better, and based on the version you tell it sounds like your first instructor didn't do you any favors. If it were me, and I saw the shop and a really good instructor, I'd consider calling and telling them what happened so they can work on some remedial stuff with the instructor you had first.

I don't think it was all for naught though. You very likely can get a local shop to complete your final dive to get your card (instructors usually charge $35 or so to do something like this). They should be able to the call the shop you did the rest of the dives with for verification if needed. You may have to pay another $20 or so for submitting your paperwork to PADI through the new shop, but you'll be AOW certified.

 

[scoobydrew]

I think you were mis sold a course that did not match your requirements. Having sat out for 35 years my advice would have been to have pretty much do the course again. Of course you are still a certifed diver so do not need to buy your own manual and pay for registration again but I think you would have got far more value from having jumped in on an OW course to have gone over the basics again. You could still consider doing this back home, there will no doubt be a dive centre near you who run theory and pool sessions, these could well be beneficial for you and an immediate example is the issues you highlight around correct weighting, did you have correct weighting? you are unsure 36lbs sounds very much? I weigh about the same as you and use about 28lbs in a dry suit, my point is if you had the skills that are taught in an OW course then you would be able to establish whether you were correctly weighted.

I think you were trying to run before you can walk, learn to walk again and then start thinking about further development once you have the basics down. Joining an AOW course while trying to figure out the basics taught in an OW course is a waste of time and money.

In terms of what you have said about the actual course, well, sounds like the dive centre and instructors were doing right but my point is you should not have been in that situation in the first place. The only point I can think about with your positive buoyancy on the navigation dive is that I often see students either ascend or descend on these skills because they are so focussed on the compass that they forget the other things like position in the water etc. Again, having the correct foundations will enable you to progress but without them you'll most likely end up in a situation like the one you experienced.

Take a step back in order to take two steps forward.

Stick at it and good luck

 

[Steve_C]

Weighting for a dry suit is more complicated than for a wet suit since you have to take into account the amount of undergarments. You add another or different layer and the weighting changes.

I did two dry suit dives as part of my AOW. One was dry suit and the other DPV. No problem but was weighted by a tech instructor and had essentially no undergarments.

A few years later I took a dry suit class because I thought I might want to rent a dry suit in cold areas. Rented a dry suit and got some undergarments of my own choosing. Had on the most weight I had ever wore. Part way through the first dive I started going light. I picked up a rock. Continued to go light. Got a bigger rock. Now I am swimming along holding this big rock at 10 ft and all the air is out of my suit. (yes I made sure I was head up when I dumped air). Finally gave up, rose slowly to the surface and dumped the rock. Added more weight on dive 2 and it went fine.


Decided that dry suits were not something I was going to rent and dive in unfamiliar waters without a lot more dry suit practice.

Sounds like you got some good experience. Keep diving.

By the way all dives get logged. If you did 5 dives, you log 5 dives. Fact they did not sign off on a dive only matters for the course and not for your experience.

 

[Wannabedivebum]

Im not sure everyone elses take on this but, maybe try only putting in as much air into you suit as you need to stay warm. Use your buoyancy control device to control buoyancy. That is what is is made for. As long is you don't get too overwhelmed when ascending keeping track of the air in your suit and BCD, however your suit should dump most of the air as you ascend by itself through your dump valve if its opened enough. That and dive some more, it takes awhile to get the hang of diving with a dry suit, and once you are more experienced you can use just the suit, or both or just the bcd or what ever works best for you.

 

[carvemeister]

Yep, probably all true. Just looking for someone to give me an unbiased reality check. Thanks for the input!

Did you ever hear the quote "biting off more than you can chew?" Seems you were a tad unrealistic about time frames and you are putting a lot on the never met before trainer. Did you have to redo all the bookwork? Cheer up, even in New York you have summer.....Take a retry, you will be fine.....

---------- Post added February 23rd, 2014 at 09:30 PM ----------

Welcome to the board. You had the right idea, take course to get you back in the water while learning something new. However, it sounds as though you needed more time in the water and thus allocate more time for the trip. That happens to many people. IMHO they should have had you spend more time in the pool getting used to gear again. Then put the dry suit on and do all kinds of exercises to know how to get out of feet first ascents, control run away ascents, etc. Then finally head out to the lake for the check out dives. You should be able to finish the course through them (w/o additional charge) or get a referral for the missing dives at another locations (w/additional costs).

Perhaps in hind sight the shop failure was in that given the amount of time since you had dived they should have done a couple of simple refresher dives. Not saying they could have not been done the AOW dives. i.e. done the navigation as part of the refresher.

FWIW I started diving from day 1 in a dry suit. To avoid run away ascents. Before ascending significantly in the water column dump some air and use your lungs. If heading to the surface dump a lot, use your lungs, and kick up. With practice you will soon learn to float up as one would do with a BCD.

Thanks, especially for the last bit of technique advice. I should have noted that I did do a quick in-pool refresher at a dive shop pool near me before I went on vacation and felt very comfortable. However, that was without the dry suit in the equation. And I sure wish I allocated more time during my trip, but didn't have the flexibility this time. Had I known the dry suit would be that challenging (for me), I'd have left an extra day or two for a re-do. Won't happen again!

 

[DogDiver]

Did you ever hear the quote "biting off more than you can chew?" Seems you were a tad unrealistic about time frames and you are putting a lot on the never met before trainer. Did you have to redo all the bookwork? Cheer up, even in New York you have summer.....Take a retry, you will be fine.....

I totally agree. Just food for thought. With 18 years of teaching... My weight guesstimate is: 10% of your body weight +4 lbs. that's were I start and trim off from there.


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