How important is it to stick with your original agency for ADV OW?

[bradlw]

I know that there's no significant restriction on sticking with an agency, but I was wondering how you folks generally feel about this.
I'm thinking from the perspective of a brand-new OW diver with just a very few dives logged since their OW class.

My family was just certified through SDI, and my son has already asked some questions about advanced.

So I started think about the logistics of getting him through an Adv OW class efficiently...I mean like wrapping up the whole thing on a weekend trip somewhere rather than doing it through the local dive shop. Is it even realistic or possible these days to do the whole thing in a one-day or two-day weekend trip to a dive destination?
and that thought process led me down the path of wondering if it would be easier to just stick with an SDI school, or does ot really matter?

 

[Blackcrusader]

No need. I did my OW with PADI then did my sports diving deco courses with BSAC.

My BSAC instructor was a world apart from my Padi OW instructor. It is the instructor not the agency that matters.

 

[caotoole]

Welcome to the Scuba world. The agency doesn't make any difference. You should be paying for learning not a card, so talk with instructors, find out how they do their advanced classes and what you can learn from them. The advanced is a great class because it should give you a sample of all the other aspects of diving besides the basic skills, kind of like a buffet of SCUBA. After the class you will know what it that you want to do more of i.e night, navigation, deeper dives, search and recovery, wreck... the list goes on.

Remember, this is about enjoying being underwater safely not the next card - this from a instructor that sells classes.

 

[The Chairman]

Forget the agency: choose a great instructor. For many, it's nothing more than ticking off boxes. A few choose to impart insight and their philosophy. My experience was not worth the plastic card it was printed on.

 

[KenE]

I second @The Chairman : The agency doesn't really matter, the instructor is the important component. Why pay for training if you are not going to get quality training. Find a good instructor that the student can relate and learn from and you will have a great experience. Continuous learning is the best, so I do suggest using your local instructor if he/she meets the requirements. Find a good instructor and keep using them!

 

[Wibble]

There's a lot of recreational diving agencies, all do the basic courses. There are equivalence charts.

Aside from some really obscure agency, most certifications will be accepted when you go to dive pretty much anywhere -- obviously if the certification is applicable to the conditions at the dive site.

Regardless of what some instructors say ("you can dive anywhere with this certification"), you may need to do a checkout dive to prove your skills before you dive somewhere more challenging.

As there's equivalency between agencies, the core syllabus will be pretty similar for those courses. Some agencies may add much more to a course, but the basics will be covered. For example, the BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) Sports Diver covers far more than the PADI "Advanced" diver course (quotes used as it is not advanced).

The main thing you need when diving is experience and skills. These take time to master and refine. When you arrive at a new dive site, you'll be using your experience to get the most from the dive and especially when in more challenging conditions that you may not have experienced in your training (currents, poor visibility, cold, rough seas, wrecks, etc.)


TL;DR
As long as the agency is reasonably well known, nobody cares as it's your skills that matters most.

 

[boulderjohn]

In addition to the instructor, location is important if you want to get the most out of it. If you are just looking for a card, it doesn't matter.

After quite a few years of instructing in Colorado, I do not have a lot of AOW certifications on my instructional résumé, and that is because Colorado is not a good place to get your AOW. We really don't have any reasonably diveable water that will get you anywhere near the maximum depth for the deep dive--even traveling to another state for that is a challenge. (I firmly believe that you need to go near the maximum to get the benefit of that dive.) Our murky waters mean you won't be able to do a number of the dive options (videography, photography, fish identification, etc.). Wreck diving is not an option.

I did my AOW many years ago in Cozumel, and I had the full range of options open to me. My deep dive was nearly to 100 feet. It was a great experience that improved my diving significantly.

 

[Wibble]

I did my AOW many years ago in Cozumel, and I had the full range of options open to me. My deep dive was nearly to 100 feet. It was a great experience that improved my diving significantly.

I did my "A"OW in Spain in the Mediterranean. Lovely warm conditions, no currents, no tides, calm, 100ft visibility, benign dive sites.

Then I dived in the UK south coast. Wow. Just wow. It was rougher, tides running, low visibility (6ft), dark, wreck with sharp bits on it, have to descend a shot line, must use a SMB to ascend... Chalk and cheese in comparison and a complete shock to realise that I had a fraction of the skills required to dive and continue living!

I'd recommend training in the worst conditions you can find. Then when you get to the good conditions, it'll be a pleasant surprise and you'll have all the skills you need.

 

[Eric802]

I did OW and AOW with PADI, then after a looooong hiatus I did a refresher course, nitrox, and wreck with SDI. Really the determinative factor for me was that the closest shop was SDI. As others have said, the quality of the instructor is what matters most.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'd recommend training in the worst conditions you can find. Then when you get to the good conditions, it'll be a pleasant surprise and you'll have all the skills you need.

That is the opposite of what is normally recommended for instruction in pretty much all areas of training. In general, you teach the student under conditions that enable successful learning and then you add difficulty. When I started diving in the challenging environments you describe, I already had years of experience in more benign environments and was able to transition with relative ease.