How do you choose your Advanced Open Water speciality

[wetb4igetinthewater]

.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.

Did you look at colors disappearing on a card? Did you compared depth gauges to see if they measures differently? Or did you just go down to close to 100 feet? Fun is always great but did you learn anything on that dive? Did anything tell you that you did or did not need the full course?

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.

Did you work on navigation over a single or multiple dives? I know it was a long time ago but do you remember what you did?

I thought my AOW was worth every penny.
I don’t know why everyone always bitches about AOW being worthless?

What did you learn? How did your skills improve besides navigation? (Curious about that portion)

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Did you look at colors disappearing on a card? Did you compared depth gauges to see if they measures differently? Or did you just go down to close to 100 feet? Fun is always great but did you learn anything on that dive? Did anything tell you that you did or did not need the full course?

Did you work on navigation over a single or multiple dives? I know it was a long time ago but do you remember what you did?

What did you learn? How did your skills improve besides navigation? (Curious about that portion)

I would have to dig out my original log book where ever it is, but I don’t remember looking at a color card or comparing depth gauges. We might have, I just don’t remember. The max depth was about 70’ because it was a shore dive and we had to swim way out to find that depth. One of the students had his weightbelt slip down to his knees and we had to catch him and get him to roll his belt back on.
I also remember it was April and the water was 42 degrees (freakin cold in a wetsuit!).
The nav portion we did a square and a few triangles. I needed to be able to land back at the starting point which was a suspended buoy, and vis was about 10’ so nav had to be right on the money. I re-did it several times to get it right and had to concentrate on fin cycles.
I can’t remember what the other specialties were, probably underwater naturalist? They wanted us to identify several species of underwater fish and life. Knowing my smart ass I probably said something like “Is it OK if we identify the species back at the fish cleaning station?”
I remember the night dive was fun as hell! All the fish were sleeping. We did the double light thing on shore so you could line up one light over the other to get you latitude correctly lined up to navigate back into the cove.
So if you’re wondering if it was some sort of big breakthrough course, no not really. But it was pretty much exactly what was advertised, no more no less, (except for navigation). And it got me a card to make the boat operators happy.
I don’t know what you expect with 5 specialty dives as an introduction, it’s not like they have time to teach the finer points in one dive on each specialty.
Nav was two tanks though, so there was actually six dives, but it was completely voluntary. We were there and had extra tanks so why not?
In fact, navigation started in OW. They had us doing compass work after each skills dive with a DM. It started in the parking lot doing reciprocals. They wanted us to show we could find our way back to shore underwater. It’s pretty critical where I dive to make sure you can find your way back into the cove you started your dive out of. You don’t want to come up in a wash up against the rocks on the outside somewhere taking the full brunt of the Pacific swells, that would be no good. That was part of making a self sufficient OW diver out of you, to plan and conduct your own shore dive with another new OW diver in the environment where you were trained, by teaching about currents, swells, rips, and and being able to bail your ass out of those situations by staying down and navigating yourself out if it to safety.

 

[boulderjohn]

but I don’t remember looking at a color card

In all likelihood, the color card was not a part of the class when you took it. It as added when they took out the requirement to do some sort of task on the surface and repeat it at depth. The idea was to show how much worse you were at depth because of narcosis. I assume that requirement was taken out because instructors around the world were having the same problem I was--students were doing just as well or even better at depth. With a limit of 100 feet, an narcosis event serious enough to cause such a problem is rare. At 70 feet, it is almost nonexistent.

The deep dive is a problem in lots of places. In Colorado, for example, the only places I know (and have dived) deep enough for this are at over 10,000 feet altitude, which brings other problems. Some people go to Utah, where they can get just past the minimum depth of 60 feet. Others go to New Mexico, where they can hit 85 if they stick the computer down the hole at the deepest part.

You did a night dive, as did I. It used to be required. The main reason it is no longer required is because in many places it is darn tough to do a night dive. I spent three weeks in Scotland a few years ago, and I went to sleep in broad daylight and awoke in broad daylight every day. Norwegian divers have the same issue, and when it is dark the other part of the year, it is pretty darn nippy.

Nav was two tanks though, so there was actually six dives, but it was completely voluntary. We were there and had extra tanks so why not?

I have had to spread the nav dive over two dives because it can take a long time for each diver to do all the skills.

 

[brsnow]

In all likelihood, the color card was not a part of the class when you took it. It as added when they took out the requirement to do some sort of task on the surface and repeat it at depth. The idea was to show how much worse you were at depth because of narcosis. I assume that requirement was taken out because instructors around the world were having the same problem I was--students were doing just as well or even better at depth. With a limit of 100 feet, an narcosis event serious enough to cause such a problem is rare. At 70 feet, it is almost nonexistent.

The deep dive is a problem in lots of places. In Colorado, for example, the only places I know (and have dived) deep enough for this are at over 10,000 feet altitude, which brings other problems. Some people go to Utah, where they can get just past the minimum depth of 60 feet. Others go to New Mexico, where they can hit 85 if they stick the computer down the hole at the deepest part.

You did a night dive, as did I. It used to be required. The main reason it is no longer required is because in many places it is darn tough to do a night dive. I spent three weeks in Scotland a few years ago, and I went to sleep in broad daylight and awoke in broad daylight every day. Norwegian divers have the same issue, and when it is dark the other part of the year, it is pretty darn nippy.


I have had to spread the nav dive over two dives because it can take a long time for each diver to do all the skills.

We did the deep dive at Aurora, I think we needed 57 ft or so. We did the color card, but that was in the pool.

 

[boulderjohn]

We did the deep dive at Aurora, I think we needed 57 ft or so. We did the color card, but that was in the pool.

Wow!

I firmly believe the most important part of the deep dive is getting reasonably deep so you can see how much faster you go through your air. Altitude adjusting does not do it for me.

Doing the color card in the pool is insane. The idea is to watch the colors change one by one as you ascend to your deepest depth. Nothing will happen in a pool.

 

[brsnow]

Wow!

I firmly believe the most important part of the deep dive is getting reasonably deep so you can see how much faster you go through your air. Altitude adjusting does not do it for me.

Doing the color card in the pool is insane. The idea is to watch the colors change one by one as you ascend to your deepest depth. Nothing will happen in a pool.

I was wondering on the color chart, seemed pretty random.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was wondering on the color chart, seemed pretty random.

In a deep dive, colors gray out in the order of the colors of the rainbow. When I dived to 320 feet in Cozumel, that beautiful reef was about 100% blue/gray.

 

[boulderjohn]

We did the deep dive at Aurora, I think we needed 57 ft or so. We did the color card, but that was in the pool.

BTW, where did you get 57 feet at Aurora? I believe my max there was something like 37.

 

[brsnow]

BTW, where did you get 57 feet at Aurora? I believe my max there was something like 37.

You can get it, depending on where the buoys are set up you might be slightly outside of the dive area. The res I think at deepest point is over 100.

 

[boulderjohn]

slightly outside of the dive area.

I believe that is a key part of the requirement.

the same is true of Carter Lake, but if you stay in the dive area, by later summer you are at 10-12 feet max.