How soon to take AOW after OW?

[ajtoady]

I did the AOW course right after my OW also. At the time of certification of my OW I was very comfortable under water and the "shopper" in me figured, for an additional 5-6 dives, I couldn't rent the equipment for what I was paying for the course! Looking back I would have to agree that AOW is sort of a joke in the sense that none of the 5 specialties really advanced any skills as such. Well that is not all true, I really liked the navigation part.
As for the "deep" dive, I did the math faster at 100' then on the surface! It is was it is, and you will get out of it what you put into it. Did it improve my skills, maybe. Did it make me a safer diver, perhaps. Did I meet new friends, yep. I have never regretted the time, effort or money spent on diving. I live next to the St Lawrence River and have at my disposal some of the best fresh water diving in the world! That however is my opinion.

 

[tomfcrist]

There are 2 commonly accepted thought processes for AOW classes.

1) AOW is merely a continuation of OW therefore can and should be taken immediately following OW. That sounds great assuming that all diver graduating OW are 100% proficient using the skillset they should have been taught in OW.

2) Get 20ish dives under your belt independently prior to taking AOW. This is probably the most realistic method, since 99% of OW graduates really have little to no proficiency in the water.

Some instructors are very critical about the basic skill sets their OW graduates possess...and they wont issue a c-card to anyone that doesn't meet "their" standard. This is not a bad thing. If you find yourself questioning your buoyancy skills and such...you did not have one of those instructors for your OW class. For the floks that were lucky enough to get one of those instructors, there is no problem jumping right into an AOW class after OW. For those who didn't get that privilege, the 20ish dive recommendation is legit. It gives plenty of time to really get a grasp on buoyancy, and hopefully navigation (assuming these 20ish dives aren't guided dives).

As for the sales pressure you are getting at the LDS, all I can say is welcome to the modern age of retail sales. These shops cant stay in business catering to window lickers....they have to make sales to survive. That being said, some salespeople are better than others at planting the seed and letting it grow on you vice dropping a 100 year old oak tree on your head.

 

[Littlerayray]

My instructor would not even consider you a diver until you had at least 50 dives under your belt this was easily accomplished over the course of a summer since I can dive every day of the summer if I really wanted to and I had the budget for air fills after the fifty dives you had to prove your skills to him he also insisted that after your ow checkout dives that you dive with him till he senses your comfort in the water I appreciate him for this he taught me a whole lot and he is confident in my skills

 

[apostle228]

In my opinion, the AOW class should be taken immediately after open water. I feel that the course is a bit misunderstood because of the name. It should really be called Open Water II or Open Water Continuation or something along those lines. Because the skills you learn are not advanced, they are merely more in-depth trainings on things you already learned in the basic OW course, designed to make you feel more comfortable in the water. If you are a bit nervous about doing the dives required in the AOW course, just keep in mind that you will have an instructor with you who will be by your side every step of the way to assist you. You'll do fine.

 

[Littlerayray]

My instructor and I were on a dive charter it was an open boat charter where anyone could sign up and a padi instructor there was with a student doing their aow checkout they went to 90 feet he had her count to ten on her fingers at depth and then they ascended a total of a proximate 20 minutes in the water give or take they were on the boat for 40 minutes before we all came back up and the student was proclaiming she was an advanced diver
My instructor and I both looked at each other and shook our heads she only had a total of ten dives under her belt and at that point I had over fifty and was just starting to feel confident about getting my aow

 

[seeker242]

First responder doesn't involve any diving. It's just CPR/AED/First Aid, which everyone would benefit from knowing, even non-divers. I personally did not wait to take that. As for the high pressure sales pitch, leaving the polite attitude at the door I find works best.

 

[Neilwood]

I made the conscious decision to do my AOW after I had a few dives under my belt.

Reasons were that I wanted to consolidate the skills I had learned in OW before more task loading (however minimal). I will be doing it later this year as I will need the card for a liveaboard in October.

As for the high pressure sales, I would find another dive shop. I wasn't too keen on my LDS so ended up doing my OW with another shop 100 miles away (for a number of reasons namely they would do a course mid week suiting my vacation time, they were friendly straight off and there was no pressure at any point for anything). Is the lack of pressure a sales tactic? Possibly but it works better than trying to beat me over the head to take courses.

Because of their flexibility, positive outlook and attitude (or lack of it), I have booked a couple of trips with them and will probably do my further training with them. I would rather give my money to people I get on well with than a shop that badgers me into doing things.

I personally will never call myself an advanced diver as there is always something else to learn or new theory to understand (as science improves).

 

[snowdog61]

Basically the answer is when you are ready. Work on your skills - buoyancy and trim especially but most importantly, find some good divers to dive with and then just dive. Once you see what good diving is supposed to look like, emulate it - you will advance more quickly being around great divers then being instructed by a mediocre teacher. Not to say there aren't great instructors but it seems the mediocre cash grab is more prevalent than it should. It was well over a year until I actually saw what good diving looked like and it was eye opening. If you are struggling in an area - ask ?s and solicit advice. A video of yourself diving is very illuminating in showing issues. I had an advantage of having friends with boats along with acquiring my Nitrox cert for free - No real impetus to get AOW at this point right?. I finally got an offered my AOW cert at basically cost once the instructors learned I wasn't AOW certified though I had close to 300 dives. I really just didn't see the need for it other than the annoyance at getting excluded from the occasional charter boats that were going deep (ie Spiegel Grove). A great instructor is worth their weight in gold IF, you can find one. If you are comfortable with your OW skills then jump in.

 

[Neilwood]

Basically the answer is when you are ready. Work on your skills - buoyancy and trim especially but most importantly, find some good divers to dive with and then just dive. Once you see what good diving is supposed to look like, emulate it - you will advance more quickly being around great divers then being instructed by a mediocre teacher. Not to say there aren't great instructors but it seems the mediocre cash grab is more prevalent than it should. It was well over a year until I actually saw what good diving looked like and it was eye opening. If you are struggling in an area - ask ?s and solicit advice. A video of yourself diving is very illuminating in showing issues. I had an advantage of having friends with boats along with acquiring my Nitrox cert for free - No real impetus to get AOW at this point right?. I finally got an offered my AOW cert at basically cost once the instructors learned I wasn't AOW certified though I had close to 300 dives. I really just didn't see the need for it other than the annoyance at getting excluded from the occasional charter boats that were going deep (ie Spiegel Grove). A great instructor is worth their weight in gold IF, you can find one. If you are comfortable with your OW skills then jump in.

I would say that bad diving can be as useful to learning as watching good divers.

My buddy on my first post cert dive displayed pretty poor buoyancy control, trim and habits especially when placed under task loading such as navigation work. Watching him going up and down as much made me concentrate that bit harder on my position and trim as I was determined not to be "that" diver.

 

[Rusty Roo]

I did mine after about 15 dives. i hated being on the dive boat and during the dive brief the guides saying, ~"then we'll drop down to 30m and there's often something cool down there, but you ow stay at 16m"