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

[lowwall]

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?

Does not matter. Do note that different agencies have different names for the course that is equivalent to PADI AOW.

For example:

These three all require 5 dives including nav and deep [edit - SSI doesn't actually require nav and deep, but all responsible ops do. I would avoid any course that doesn't include these dives unless you also have done or are planning on doing the full nav or deep specialty course.]

NAUI recently changed their course name from Advanced Scuba Diver to Advanced Open Water Diver, some ops still show the older name. They require 6 dives including night (or limited viz), nav and deep.

 

[scubadada]

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?

Hi @bradlw

PADI advanced open water, SSI advanced adventurer, and SDI advanced adventure diver all have 5 dives that would take a minimum of 2-3 days to complete. They are very similar, PADI and SDI require deep and navigation. SSI has no required dives but deep and nav are often also done. I am with the others who have recommended a good course and instructor over the choice of agency. I did a good PADI AOW course 21 years ago in Grand Cayman

I see you are located in northern Florida and would have a significant drive to SE Florida or the Upper Keys for a long weekend. If you are particularly interested in drift diving in SE Florida for your future diving, you might consider doing advanced there. The Upper Keys may have less current, especially on the reef dives.

I could give you a couple of recommendations for SE FL from personal observation. DM me if you are interested.

Best of luck for your family diving


EDIT: Ha, I see my friend @lowwall just beat me to some of this

If you want a more rigorous course, take a look at the RAID Advanced 35 course.

 

[bradlw]

thanks!

I didn't get too deep into the weeds of it but after making this original post, I did a little more reading in the descriptions and standards. Seems like most (or all?) of the agencies are going to this adventure model. Mix and match your own combination of x number of specialties...
but
it seems that these are just introductions and not the full specialty "certification".

It's been so long since i went through it with SSI I can't recall how mine was structured, but I believe it was some number of full specialty classes (that were mostly a joke as I remember them) + having some number of dives in the logbook

The other thing that I noticed.... well, I could be wrong but my takeaway was that the Advanced OW cert alone, doesn't certify to max training depth limits (132ft)
Seems like that comes with the deep dive specialist classes,
so now I'm scratching my head about the adventure program... If a new diver gets an intro taste for the specialties...that means that they are getting an introduction to the deep diver specialty, but not actually getting deep "certified"

I keep seeing these referenced to ADV OW being need to go on charters for certain trips...
and so I'm wondering if a diver goes through the full deep specialty "certification", but NOT the Adv OW course, will charter operators let those divers go on trips to recreationally deep wrecks (say in the 80-130ft range)? Seems like the full specialty for deep will better prepare a new diver for it than advanced which only gives a taste of it, along with a sampling of a few other specialties, such as photography or fish spotting for example...

ALSO, I found it interesting that some train to a standard limit of 100ft, others to 130ft, etc... why not just universally to the recreational limit of 132ft???

 

[rhwestfall]

my bio can provide clues to answer the question (short version - agency really doesn't matter)...

Scuba Diver - Open Water: YMCA - May 1988
Advanced Open Water: PDIC - August, 1996
EANx Diver: NAUI - January, 2012
Scuba Rescue Diver: NAUI - June, 2012
Master Scuba Diver: NAUI - September 2013
Technical EANx Diver: NAUI - May 2016
Decompression Techniques Diver: NAUI - May 2016
Ice Diver: SDI - March 2017
Visual Inspection Procedures: SDI - June 2017
Air Fill Station Operator: SDI - June 2017
Technical Gas Blender: PADI - October 2017
Solo Diver - SDI - October 2017
O2 Service Technician - TDI - November 2017
CPROX Administrator - SDI/TDI - March 2018
Project AWARE - Dive Against Debris - PADI - April 2018
EDGE/HOG Equipment Service Clinic: TDI - April 2019
Deep Six Equipment Service Clinic: TDI - April 2019
Helitrox Diver: NAUI - in process 2015.....

(find the instructor and environment for you to gain the necessary knowledge)

Open Water is always a "crap shoot" as you don't know what you don't know... Once you begin to advance, you should be able to self identify what some of your shortcomings are, and seek out the instructor to help you improve as you get to the "next level."

Of importance, is don't try to go from "zero to hero" on the shortest path possible. Take time to dive outside of training, and gain experiences.

 

[BabyLitigator]

Aren't GUE's standards different beyond OW? Rec Diver 2/3 seem different in intensity from AOW.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @bradlw

Your questions regarding training and diving depth have been discussed/debated on SB an infinite number of times. I would imagine that you could find these threads easily with the search function.

I took PADI AOW and Deep Diver in 2004. My AOW cert has been requested many times by operators who do not know me in order to do their more "advanced" dives. Nobody has ever asked to see my Deep Diver cert. The only other certification that is usually requested is nitrox.

 

[lowwall]

I didn't get too deep into the weeds of it but after making this original post, I did a little more reading in the descriptions and standards. Seems like most (or all?) of the agencies are going to this adventure model. Mix and match your own combination of x number of specialties...
but
it seems that these are just introductions and not the full specialty "certification".

It's been so long since i went through it with SSI I can't recall how mine was structured, but I believe it was some number of full specialty classes (that were mostly a joke as I remember them) + having some number of dives in the logbook.

Your memory is correct. SSI will give an Advanced Open Water card to anyone who has completed four SSI Specialty programs and has 24 logged dives, They call this a "recognition" rather than a certification. It was kind of a midway point for people trying to collect enough specialties to get the "Master Diver" card. SDI and NAUI have (or had) similar programs.

But times have changed. Very few people care about being a Master Diver anymore. The whole concept has become what the kids call kind of cringe.

Meanwhile PADI really started pushing their AOW cert. Shops like it because it's an extra class and it gives an excuse for the obvious inadequacies of one weekend OW course in training an autonomous open water diver. Insurance companies like it because they can now argue to a jury that an Advanced diver should have known better. Ops may insist on it for at least some dives because their insurance company requires it or in some places (i.e., wherever there are a lot of mainland Chinese divers) it's a useful tool for dividing the highly questionable divers from the, hopefully, marginally competent.

With so many ops requiring AOW for at least some dives, SSI, SDI and NAUI had a big cost disadvantage with their multi-specialty course requirements instead of PADI's 5 dive sampler. So rather than lose divers to PADI AOW, SSI and SDI created their Advanced Adventurer certs and NAUI dumped their original cert and met PADI about 80% of the way since they do require 1 extra dive.

 

[steinbil]

Aren't GUE's standards different beyond OW? Rec Diver 2/3 seem different in intensity from AOW.

Yes, to quote the standards:

3.1.4.3 Course Content
The Advanced Open Water Diver course is normally conducted over six days. It requires a minimum
of eleven dives (including a dive in reduced ambient light conditions) and at least forty-eight hours
of instruction, encompassing lectures, land drills, and in-water work.
The GUE Advanced Open Water Diver certification can also be obtained by successfully completing
GUE Navigation Primer, GUE Rescue Primer, and GUE Deep Primer courses.

---SNIP---

3.1.4.6 Academic Topics
a. Introduction: GUE organization and course overview (objectives, limits, expectations)
b. Applied diving physics
c. Applied diving physiology
d. Situational awareness
e. Breathing gas overview
f. Dive planning, gas management, and logistics
g. Introduction to triox
h. Decompression overview and minimum decompression procedures
i. Diving safety and accident prevention
j. Rescue diving techniques, emergency management, and diving-related BLS skills

3.1.4.7 Land Drills and Topics
a. GUE EDGE and pre-dive drill sequence, including gas analysis
b. Rescue skills, including managing a rescue scenario, swimming and non-swimming assists, egression techniques, controlling a distressed diver, underwater search patterns, managing and surfacing an unconscious diver
c. Navigation skills using a compass, guideline, and natural navigation
d. Light and touch communication protocols
e. Surface marker buoy (SMB) deployment utilizing a spool

 

[bradlw]

I think that I wasn't clear in my original question. I know that the agency between your certs doesn't matter in general. I was thinking in terms of a brand new diver that doesn't have experience, but wants to start working on it. They are familiar with the shop, the format of the course materials, etc.. so from that perspective, does it matter. I'm thinking that lots of little trivial thing to an experienced diver but to a new diver I can imagine them thinking well, they just taught me to do this a certain way, now these new folks are telling me to do it a different way.
A lot of that is probably more about the instructor, but the agency and their standards drive a lot of it

anyway
my side trail line of questions I suppose is now about what is the easiest and most expeditious path to Advanced OW these days

 

[rhwestfall]

what is the easiest and most expedition path to Advanced OW these days

I reject the search for "easiest." Earn it!