How do you choose your Advanced Open Water speciality

[brsnow]

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.

I don’t know if we were or not. I am sure we were close though.

 

[tursiops]

We did the color card, but that was in the pool.

Which both stupid and against standards. The point is to show how colors are lost with depth; not much loss in a swimming pool.

 

[Bob DBF]

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.

We had good visibility, so the instructor made the legs of the navigation exercises longer. No one needs a compass when they can see their objective. In my case, the lower the visibility, the more I rely on the compass for navigation.

 

[brsnow]

We had good visibility, so the instructor made the legs of the navigation exercises longer. No one needs a compass when they can see their objective. In my case, the lower the visibility, the more I rely on the compass for navigation.

We partnered with one on compass and one doing the kick counting. You literally could not see the person you were partnering with, even though they had a hold of you or you of them. At any rate I am sure the Bubble pattern at the surface was entertaining I use my compass regularly and my dive buddy and I work on skills regularly on trips. He was already a well skilled diver when I first started out.

 

[Onetouchcomfort2021@gmail]

Just received my Open Water through SDITDI and also recieved the Nitrox Certification (not comfortable applying in real world yet since the instructor didn't have time to provide physical Nitrox training). Due to my discomfort with the first instructor, I found a Padi Advanved Open Water Instructor who also agreed to provide some training for Nitrox. He advised that Padi requires a few specialty for the Advance Water completion (tuition includes the minimum speciality requirements. Charges $100/each, if I wish to do addt'l specialities).​

​

Can you guys tell me any speciality you recommend or specialities you wish you had done when you did your training? I love options but my goal is to become a good diver with safety as my #1 priority.​

​

Addt`l helpful info: My goal is to eventually start a worldwide underwater Scuba Diving cleanup + Marine animal rescue group or club. Definitely plan to get my Rescue Diver probably go as far as technical diving. At the current time I don't see myself ever going into caves. ​

(Feel free to message me if you require more info to further assist)​

​

As always, Thank you all and safe diving!​

So we got certified and did our nitrox class at the same time as well . We are ssi certified so juat though that the most beneficial would be .night and low visibility, stress and rescue, navigation and when you buy a package with ssi they give you another one for free like boat diving lol

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I would have to dog 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 fewe triangles. I needed to be able to land back and 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.

Eric,

Thanks for elaborating on your AOW and OW course. I believe navigation is a key skill and I do appreciate that it was well emphasized in your OW and AOW courses. These are unfortunately not the norm. When it comes to nav, I absolutely love trianges as I have found students have a more difficult time with that pattern than with a square.

However, your AOW (and your OW) are exceptions. I wish they were the norm. As navigation is a 3-dive course, you essentially had most of it. I hope you of all people will agree with the value in a full navigation course as you almost had that yourself. I don't think that the current requirements for a deep dive where just looking at colors/dive depths does justice to narcosis/emergency management (though the minimum requirements are still paltry). Search and recovery with doing a number of patterns can be challenging/worthwhile as a full course as well. For those people against full courses, I'm happy to have a dialog and ask them to retort the benefits for these particular courses.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Eric,

Thanks for elaborating on your AOW and OW course. I believe navigation is a key skill and I do appreciate that it was well emphasized in your OW and AOW courses. These are unfortunately not the norm. When it comes to nav, I absolutely love trianges as I have found students have a more difficult time with that pattern than with a square.

However, your AOW (and your OW) are exceptions. I wish they were the norm. As navigation is a 3-dive course, you essentially had most of it. I hope you of all people will agree with the value in a full navigation course as you almost had that yourself. I don't think that the current requirements for a deep dive where just looking at colors/dive depths does justice to narcosis/emergency management (though the minimum requirements are still paltry). Search and recovery with doing a number of patterns can be challenging/worthwhile as a full course as well. For those people against full courses, I'm happy to have a dialog and ask them to retort the benefits for these particular courses.

I personally think they should re-name AOW to something like “Extended open water” or “Enhanced OW” or more to the point “Exploring specialties”. Something besides “Advanced” because they’re not very advanced at that point. If they were to take all the five full courses then they could be called Advanced. So to me it’s somewhat of a misnomer.
I took rescue and nitrox (up to 40%) woth PADI.
Instead of doing the deep specialty, I did AN/DP with TDI which also gave me 100% O2.
Gas blender was in there too.
I have never done any further specialties with PADI. I was more interested in just going diving, doing real dives, not class dives. I never took a drysuit course but dived drysuits for several years. Never took a solo class even though I’m an avid solo diver. Never took a kayak diving specialty, hunting specialty, boat diving specialty, farting in your wetsuit specialty, or any other specialty.
If people want to take those classes because they like the class atmosphere and the class structure, the camaraderie, the friends and social aspect then great! More power to them.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I personally think they should re-name AOW to something to the effect of “Extended open water” or more to the point “Exploring specialties” or something besides “Advanced”, because they’re not advanced at that point. If they were to take all the five full courses then they could be calld Advanced. So to me it’s somewhat of a misnomer.

Master diver should be everything they offer short of the pro route being DM, AI, Instructor, etc.
I took rescue and Nitrox. IMO those two should be part of an advanced rating.
Instead of doing the deep specialty, I did AN/DP with TDI which also gave me 100% O2.
Other than that I have never done any further specialties with PADI since Inwas just more interested in going diving and figuring it out on my own and from buddies. I never took a drysuit course but dived drysuits for several years. Never took a solo class even though I’m an avid solo diver. Never took a kayak diving specialty, hunting specialty, boat diving specialty, farting in your wetsuit specialty, etc.
If people want to take those classes

Makes sense. The reality is just a few con ed courses are useful if taught in depth. However, a proficient dive buddy can easily replace most instructors. Given the conditions in which you dive, like cold water and surge, fluff divers don't last long, so the ones left more likely than not make good mentors.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The reality is just a few con ed courses are useful if taught in depth. However, a proficient dive buddy can easily replace most instructors. Given the conditions in which you dive, like cold water and surge, fluff divers don't last long, so the ones left more likely than not make good mentors.

Like I said, some people really enjoy the whole class setting. Almost like professional college students who go to college for ten years because they just love the whole academic class environment. But they never really move on to get a great job with their learned skills. It’s the classes and whole learning environment that becomes the end in itself. I feel some of the endless dive training can be the same way. People take class after class after class and it becomes the normal way that they go diving, always in some skill learning related environment. I’m not sure they ever actually get out and do an independent dive on their own and put all these learned skills to work, I’m not sure that’s really the point or the end goal. There’s also the issue that some of these people get addicted to classes and always needing to take part in some sort of structured class setting. Maybe It’s a security blanket, or they’re short on friends and they like the whole social aspect, who knows?
I’ve known so many of these types. After a few years they either run out of classes to take or get bored with hanging around helping with classes so they move on and find another hobby.
I felt like my old LDS was like this, always trying to get people to take classes, or helping with classes, or becoming a DM so you could intern (slave) with classes, or better yet to become an instructor so you could teach classes. Everything was about classes classes classes. It was like a Ponzi scheme!
I’m not into that.

If by fluff divers you mean warm water vacation divers? There have been a few that make it here but not many. Most I run into say they want to try diving here but when they hear the water is 48 degrees and the vis is 10’ they won’t do it. The divers that dive here want to dive here, and they train for it here.

 

[TMHeimer]

Like I said, some people really enjoy the whole class setting. Almost like professional college students who go to college for ten years because they just love the whole academic class environment. But they never really move on to get a great job with their learned skills. It’s the classes and whole learning environment that becomes the end in itself. I feel some of the endless dive training can be the same way. People take class after class after class and it becomes the normal way that they go diving, always in some skill learning related environment. I’m not sure they ever actually get out and do an independent dive on their own and put all these learned skills to work, I’m not sure that’s really the point or the end goal. There’s also the issue that some of these people get addicted to classes and always needing to take part in some sort of structured class setting. Maybe It’s a security blanket, or they’re short on friends and they like the whole social aspect, who knows?
I’ve known so many of these types. After a few years they either run out of classes to take or get bored with hanging around helping with classes so they move on and find another hobby.
I felt like my old LDS was like this, always trying to get people to take classes, or helping with classes, or becoming a DM so you could intern (slave) with classes, or better yet to become an instructor so you could teach classes. Everything was about classes classes classes. It was like a Ponzi scheme!
I’m not into that.

If by fluff divers you mean warm water vacation divers? There have been a few that make it here but not many. Most I run into say they want to try diving here but when they hear the water is 48 degrees and the vis is 10’ they won’t do it. The divers that dive here want to dive here, and they train for it here.

You may be right about those addicted to the class setting. I took a lot of courses from 2005-2011. But, I had a lot more money then.....