Newbie Question

[camuhrun]

Can someone give me the rundown of SCUBA courses. I'm about to start the Open Water certification course at the YMCA. I could wait 'till my class on Monday to ask my instructor, but i'm too excited about SCUBA to wait to ask my questions..haha

So what does it exactly mean when i am open water certified? Can I go anywhere? I think i have to have different certifications to go down deeper and ship and cave dive, right? What is AOW, i saw that on quite a few posts. Then what courses should i look into after i get done with the open water course?
If you have any good informative websites, let me know!

okay, i'll it to these questions for now, i am sure i will have more later...haha

thanks!

 

[landlocked]

Can someone give me the rundown of SCUBA courses. I'm about to start the Open Water certification course at the YMCA. I could wait 'till my class on Monday to ask my instructor, but i'm too excited about SCUBA to wait to ask my questions..haha

So what does it exactly mean when i am open water certified? Can I go anywhere? I think i have to have different certifications to go down deeper and ship and cave dive, right? What is AOW, i saw that on quite a few posts. Then what courses should i look into after i get done with the open water course?
If you have any good informative websites, let me know!

okay, i'll it to these questions for now, i am sure i will have more later...haha

thanks!

Let see... Open water certified means that you can rent or get fills for your tanks and that you should be able to dive to a depth of about 60 feet (some might say a little more), in more or less calm water, safely. After some experience you can lengthen that to a 100 feet, lower the visibility, and get into some current, night dives, surge etc. AOW, Advanced Open Water, is part of gaining that more experience. It specifically deals with diving in these situations. Other courses you may want to keep in mind for the future would be Stress and Rescue, and maybe Nitrox. Wreck and Cave are way in the future. Hope this helps, welcome to Scuba Board and have fun in the class.

 

[RonFrank]

Different cert agencies do things differently. Basically:

OW - beginner - upon cert, can get air, and dive to 60', but no one is going to exactly prevent you from going deeper.

AOW - PADI's AOW is just completing five different dives from a number of dives. Examples include Deep, Navagation, Night....

Specialities - These include Rescue, Nitrox, Drysuit, etc.

From there you can do many other things...

Visit the PADI, NAUI, SSI, YMCA, etc., websites, and they walk you through the various paths.

Ron

Can someone give me the rundown of SCUBA courses. I'm about to start the Open Water certification course at the YMCA. I could wait 'till my class on Monday to ask my instructor, but i'm too excited about SCUBA to wait to ask my questions..haha

So what does it exactly mean when i am open water certified? Can I go anywhere? I think i have to have different certifications to go down deeper and ship and cave dive, right? What is AOW, i saw that on quite a few posts. Then what courses should i look into after i get done with the open water course?
If you have any good informative websites, let me know!

okay, i'll it to these questions for now, i am sure i will have more later...haha

thanks!

 

[DandyDon]

Padi's Open Water - OW - allows you to dive without a Dive Master supervising, but it's really a license to learn. Start easy & safely and learn in recreational diving compatible with being a newbie.

AOW used to stand for Advance OW, but now it-s Advetnrues-something I think. Many operators will accept this to let you do more challenging dives, but the better ones want to know your actual dive experience. Anyway, the course is a good idea; just don't think that you're an experienced diver because of it.

Nitrox glass along with AOW is a good idea, to give you longer bottom times at depth without pushing NDLs.

Beyond that - get the experience of a few dozen dives before going crazy on cards.

 

[DEEPLOU]

Padi's Open Water - OW - allows you to dive without a Dive Master supervising, but it's really a license to learn. Start easy & safely and learn in recreational diving compatible with being a newbie.

AOW used to stand for Advance OW, but now it-s Advetnrues-something I think. Many operators will accept this to let you do more challenging dives, but the better ones want to know your actual dive experience. Anyway, the course is a good idea; just don't think that you're an experienced diver because of it.

Nitrox glass along with AOW is a good idea, to give you longer bottom times at depth without pushing NDLs.

Beyond that - get the experience of a few dozen dives before going crazy on cards.

I believe its "Adventures in Diving". But we still refer to it as "advanced".
Personally I believe it is just getting in a few more challenging dives under soneone's(an instructor) wing.

The most important part of advancing is as you say, actual dive experience.