How do you choose your Advanced Open Water speciality

[Bob DBF]

I think they probably conceptually got it, but focusing on compass or counting kicks with no visibility and keeping Good buoyancy in shallow cold water is hard, especially if you have 5 or 6 previous dives all based on training.

That's all we have is cold low viz water around here, although the viz wasn’t bad that day. All the training was in 20 to 30 feet, and the shop does pretty good on weighting, so it was pretty easy for the new diver to keep it within a few feet of target depth. More dives would have given him more bandwidth to keep everything tighter, but he did ok.

 

[inquis]

We did the square and such but on our own and in general that is outside of the skill set of a brand new diver.

I find the part I bolded hard to believe.

 

[brsnow]

I find the part I bolded hard to believe.

I witnessed it and think most diver’s struggle with compass and limited visibility to achieve accurate results. You need to really practice. I would guess it is far easier in clear water where you can see vs rely on a compass and counting kicks.

 

[inquis]

I don't expect mastery of navigation by a freshly certified OW diver. I do expect they can dive. I expect they can turn 90 degrees 4 times. I expect their buddy can hold depth of the team to within 5 or 10 ft.

If they cannot, then their OW instructor should not have certified them. I'm not naive enough to believe every OW student passed the OW standards, but I'm sure the majority certainly do.

Again we're talking about AOW which introduces the topic, not completion of the specialty.

 

[Vicko]

Tell me about the "old" aow class. I am not familiar with it.

The padi aowd program that was the third step, after adventure diver.
Got cancelled around 2005 or something, after that naui, cmas, bsac, sdi, iantd and problably others kept some form of "advanced" diver training while padi was printing money, or certifications.
Like I said in my post before, if I became a PADI instructor it would be against the PADI standards for me to do "free" specialites for my students. I would have to buy the materials and additional certifications from PADI which came to around 600 euros extra on the cost of the adventure diver, meaning the padi aowd that I would be comfortable with would be close to 800 euros in just padi fees and materials, not including anything I charge as a instructor.

That's unlike sdi that I currently teach, and ssi where the whole aowd along the 5 full specialties has less than 200 euros of agency fees attached to it.

 

[tursiops]

The padi aowd program that was the third step, after adventure diver.
Got cancelled around 2005 or something, after that naui, cmas, bsac, sdi, iantd and problably others kept some form of "advanced" diver training while padi was printing money, or certifications.
Like I said in my post before, if I became a PADI instructor it would be against the PADI standards for me to do "free" specialites for my students. I would have to buy the materials and additional certifications from PADI which came to around 600 euros extra on the cost of the adventure diver, meaning the padi aowd that I would be comfortable with would be close to 800 euros in just padi fees and materials, not including anything I charge as a instructor.

That's unlike sdi that I currently teach, and ssi where the whole aowd along the 5 full specialties has less than 200 euros of agency fees attached to it.

You may be thinking (incorrectly) of the old Advanced Plus program, which was ended in 2001 but reannounced/reaffirmed as dead in 2005. It was EXACTLY like AOW except had 7 elective dives instead of just three, so 9 dives total instead of 5. Each of the 9 dives was the first dive of a full specialty, EXACTLY like AOW. You got zero specialty certifications from Advanced Plus, just a lot more different subjects to try out. It cost more than AOW because it had more dives and more training.

As a PADI instructor you can do free specialties for students; that is your choice based on your financial plan. PADI really does not care nor recommend what you charge for classes, but they DO want to be paid for their training material and cert card. You, of course, still pay PADI for the training materials and the cert card, but the student pays nothing. An example is taking students on a trip that they pay for; you can offer free training to them as a trip benefit. Part of the trip cost is the PADI training material and cert card cost....so they get a "free" class.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I think I took AOW a couple months after OW.
I took it because it was the next step in progression I guess and so I could go on dive boats. We had vacations planned to Australia and Hawaii and my dive shop mentioned I should probably have it to make operators happy.
Getting on dive boats in Monterey, CA they never asked to see an Advanced card. In fact right out of OW I found myself on the Cypress Point owned by Capt. Phil Sammet. We went to a wall outside of Point Lobos around 100’. Me and my also freshly minted OW buddy did a dive on the wall to 95’ using our trusty PADI tables, no DM no guide, just come back with 500 psi have fun and don’t die, pool’s open. We had a ball.
So AOW would have been pointless in that situation. I guess they must train divers to actually be able to dive where I’m from?
The funny part is, when I did the deep portion of the AOW I had already been much deeper doing my own OW dives. I was never told in OW that 60’ was my hard limit, they told us 130’, 140 in an emergency, we went according to the tables. I guess they blew standards, lol! Maybe I should report them!
I came down with the flu right during my initial AOW class and couldn’t do the second day. So when I got better the shop lined me up with another instructor and we went out to the ocean and finished up. We did a lot of navigation training since that’s critical where I dive. It was one on one and really good, lots of fun.
I thought my AOW was worth every penny.
I don’t know why everyone always bitches about AOW being worthless?

 

[inquis]

I was never told in OW that 60’ was my hard limit, they told us 130’

Yep, because it's not. 60 ft is the hard limit during OW instructional dives -- before certification is awarded. @boulderjohn described it perfectly.

 

[boulderjohn]

I did my AOW immediately after OW. It was great.

I go certified on a short vacation in Puerto Vallarta, and those were the only dives I did. A few months later I was in Cozumel for a week, and I did AOW the first two days I was there. I was the instructor's only student. He taught me about diving far beyond what was in the course descriptions. I did not take the buoyancy class, but we worked on that throughout the 5 dives. He worked on my breathing to improve my gas usage. There was always something to show me--wherever I was screwing up, he worked on it. When we were done, I went out and dived with full confidence for the rest of the week.

I don't get to teach AOW too often because the class cannot be completed in Colorado (not enough depth), and students frequently take the class during group dive trips. When I do teach it, I try to do the same as my AOW instructor--I look at the student, see what needs to be done, and work on that. I like to do the navigation as one of the first dives so I can have the student use that skill on the remaining dives.

There was an earlier reference to altitude as one of the choices. I like to do that because with absolutely no skills required on the dive itself, I have complete freedom to do whatever needs to be done throughout the dive. I have written materials that go far beyond the materials in the specialty class, so the student comes away with a solid understanding of altitude issues. (I recently met an SSI instructor who said they use my materials, which I have published on this site often, instead of SSI materials for their class.)

That altitude dive is a good example of what I wrote earlier in this thread. Once you have had the academic training, what is the point of getting the specialty, which consists of another dive with no skills? What are you getting out of that? A student who takes the altitude AOW class can skip the specialty and go elsewhere for further training.

 

[brsnow]

I think I took AOW a couple months after OW.
I took it because it was the next step in progression I guess and so I could go on dive boats. We had vacations planned to Australia and Hawaii and my dive shop mentioned I should probably have it to make operators happy.
Getting on dive boats in Monterey, CA they never asked to see an Advanced card. In fact right out of OW I found myself on the Cypress Point owned by Capt. Phil Sammet. We went to a wall outside of Point Lobos around 100’. Me and my also freshly minted OW buddy did a dive on the wall to 95’ using our trusty PADI tables, no DM no guide, just come back with 500 psi have fun and don’t die, pool’s open. We had a ball.
So AOW would have been pointless in that situation. I guess they must train divers to actually be able to dive where I’m from?
The funny part is, when I did the deep portion of the AOW I had already been much deeper doing my own OW dives. I was never told in OW that 60’ was my hard limit, they told us 130’, 140 in an emergency, we went according to the tables. I guess they blew standards, lol! Maybe I should report them!
I came down with the flu right during my initial AOW class and couldn’t do the second day. So when I got better the shop lined me up with another instructor and we went out to the ocean and finished up. We did a lot of navigation training since that’s critical where I dive. It was one on one and really good, lots of fun.
I thought my AOW was worth every penny.
I don’t know why everyone always bitches about AOW being worthless?

My first dive out of OW it is still my deepest dive. I do not recall a hard stop for OW. I had many 100 plus foot dives when I took AOW. The deep dive in AOW was around 60 feet adjusted by elevation to meet the PADI requirements here in Colorado.It certainly was one of the coldest!