New Diver seeking advice and recommandations

[Scythe]

Hey Everyone,

I am looking to start diving as a main side activity by the end of 2024.
I intend to take a month ++ to learn around south east Asia and if possible obtain my Advanced Open Water Diver level and explore diverse dive spots as I go along.

I would love to get some precious advice from this experienced diving community.
Here are a few questions I have :

How long does it take to obtain an advanced Open Water course by starting from scratch, considering I have a month to take the time to learn ?


What are the essential things I need to know before my first dive and just overall ?

Do you have any recommendations for reputable diving schools or beginner friendly diving spots in the area ( Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines ).

I'm all ears for any tips and wisdom you can share. Thank you in advance for helping me !

Best,

Oscar

 

[Belzelbub]

How long does it take to obtain an advanced Open Water course by starting from scratch, considering I have a month to take the time to learn ?

There are two schools of thought on this. Neither is necessarily wrong. Per the requirements of the training agencies, there is nothing preventing going directly from OW to AOW. I didn't do it that way, but not saying you can't. Key thing to remember is that you won't be an Advanced Diver after that getting that AOW card. The AOW card requirements will vary by organization. PADI and SSI have different approaches to this.

I think that getting OW and AOW in 1 month is likely doable with PADI. Probably quite a bit harder to do with SSI as it's not really a certification, it's a recognition of completing 4 specialties after OW.

With e-learning these days, you can get a lot of the academics done ahead of time from wherever you are. Then all that would be needed is to do the pool and checkout dives.

What are the essential things I need to know before my first dive and just overall ?

That will all be covered in the academics portion of the class. They'll go over the gear you'll use, how to set it up, as well as some dos and don'ts during the dive. Don't worry about trying to get ahead of yourself here. What you can do before the class is make sure you are quite comfortable in the water. People with strong water skills tend to have less trouble with the skills. Mask clearing and mask removal and replacement are often skills that people report trouble with.

 

[arew+4]

Most agencies can put you through the Basic Open Water cert in under a week, a few days if you do the e-learning online first. There are people with Padi AOW certs and less than 20 total dives.

All that said, nothing is better than actual experience, if money is no object get both courses done right away and dive dive dive, the rest of the month. If there are budget constraints, get the OW and do as many dives as you can afford.

 

[texasdivemaster2012]

One other consideration is that the cost of an aow course could be about the same cost as diving for three days of regular diving at a destination if boat or guided shore diving is involved and included in the price of the course.

Some places have offered free aow courses if you book boat dives thru them and pay for any additional costs like the learning materials and the processing fees.

 

[MidOH]

Hey Everyone,

I am looking to start diving as a main side activity by the end of 2024.
I intend to take a month ++ to learn around south east Asia and if possible obtain my Advanced Open Water Diver level and explore diverse dive spots as I go along.

I would love to get some precious advice from this experienced diving community.
Here are a few questions I have :

How long does it take to obtain an advanced Open Water course by starting from scratch, considering I have a month to take the time to learn ?

3 days. I had to complete the book and online training first.

Same thing for advanced.

What are the essential things I need to know before my first dive and just overall ?

Never ever hold your breath. Out of air? Swim to the surface, humming, ahh-ing, or screaming. Your choice, easy as heck. Apparently this isn't taught so well anymore.

Never panic. Youre not in danger on a rec dive, relax, do what you need to.

Get some practice with you're fins and mask on a few snorkeling trips. Learn how to flood and clear your mask like it's 2nd nature.

 

[Walde]

Just visited Tulamben and conditions were really good for a week, barely any current during 15 dives that we did. And if there is current, it last for a minute I was told.
Stayed at Dive and Retreat in Paradise | Bali Dive Resort & Spa
They do PADI OWD and AOWD, place was nice and prices aren't bad.
Have you thought about Thailand? Koh Tao is a good place for starting scuba diving. You get good training and you can dive a lot with cheap prices. Diving makes you a good diver, not the certs. Tao is not the best place for seeing amazing things, but it's a good place to start.

 

[jongalong]

Hey Everyone,

I am looking to start diving as a main side activity by the end of 2024.
I intend to take a month ++ to learn around south east Asia and if possible obtain my Advanced Open Water Diver level and explore diverse dive spots as I go along.

I would love to get some precious advice from this experienced diving community.
Here are a few questions I have :

How long does it take to obtain an advanced Open Water course by starting from scratch, considering I have a month to take the time to learn ?


What are the essential things I need to know before my first dive and just overall ?

Do you have any recommendations for reputable diving schools or beginner friendly diving spots in the area ( Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines ).

I'm all ears for any tips and wisdom you can share. Thank you in advance for helping me !

Best,

Oscar

Hey Oscar, welcome to the sport!

A question first: why do you want to get to an AOW certification quickly? Is it solely for the depth?

I think if I had a month and was starting over knowing what I know now, I would get the basic certification I needed, and spend the rest of the time diving and gaining experience. If you have the ability to travel and see the life and structure in that part of the world, I wouldn't spend the time in classes, I would spend the time learning and getting time under water.

The experience you gain by diving and paying attention to other experienced divers around you, practicing your weighting and buoyancy skills, learning to be completely at ease in the water, refining your gear rigging and experimenting with different techniques will go much farther in making you a more accomplished diver, and will increase your enjoyment of it.

If at some point you think that AOW certificates will contribute in a material way to your diving path, then schedule it, but I would suggest that experience is going to be more valuable in the short term.

Either way - it sounds like a wonderful way to spend a month!

 

[NauticalNick]

I did 10-15 dives in between but not sure it matters too much one way or the other. If cost isn't an issue I would say why not do both! Many of the posters seem to imply that getting more experience and doing the AOW are mutually exclusive but you are still diving for your AOW. Diving usually ends pretty early in the day so while you'll be tired, there's not reason you can't work on your AOW e-learning for a bit in the evening as you're doing your pool/checkout dives for your OW. If you really want to dedicate the time every day it's quite feasible to finish it all in as little as 10 days. As others have said though, being AOW doesn't make you an advanced diver so always keep that in mind. There's no reason though you can't do the courses and then do fun dives the rest of your time there with a bit of additional available depth (if that matters where you are) to get your experience up.

 

[tursiops]

It is best to think of AOW as just Part 2 of your basic training. Get OW, and then AOW, and THEN dive a lot using your new skills you learned in AOW like navigation, better buoyancy and kicking, perhaps how to signal at night, etc. You can do OW plus AOW in one week. the problem with waiting to do AOW is that you might be missing some skills, and you can learn some bad habits that are hard to break. Why would you wait to learn how to dive? Learn, then dive.