Open water + advanced in one go?

[MichaelRyanSd]

As someone who is actually doing what you are proposing to do. My advice would be to ask whomever is teaching whether or not they think you should go ahead with the advance and do it, if they think not, then get some regular dives under your belt and then do em.

 

[CapeUW]

After I was first certified (YMCA course) I did two week-ends of diving, then took the advanced course and it worked out great for me. I think everyone is different, but I enjoyed the advanced course very much and got a great deal out of it. It was a good formal learning experience, as well as the informal learning I received from spending time and talking with my instructor, divemasters, and other open water divers, during the course. My friend who took the open water course with me did the same. That was a few years ago now , and I think it was a perfect way to start for me. I would also agree with and recommend as well the earlier post that recommended getting certified and experience in the colder UK waters closer to home. I learned in the cold water here in New England off Cape Ann, and anyplace warmer always seemed much easier afterwords. Maybe do your open water course close to home, do some local diving, then get your advanced while you travel. The important thing is to gain experience, and you can do that as well being an open water diver and diving with more experienced buddies. The most important thing is to be safe and have fun, whatever way you decide to go.

 

[ScubaDocER]

Hello Pixie,

I have read the posts and am trying to come up with something constructive to contribute to the discussion. Here are my thoughts.

Some have suggested that AOW is useless and does not contribute anything more to your diving experience immediately. I would place an asterisk by that statement. The quality of the course depends on the latitude given by the agency and the motivation and course construction as designed by the Instructor. If the course consists of doing 5 dives without any genuine education or being challenged then I would concur that it does not amount to a significant difference. If the Instructor instead focuses on skills that increase your comfort level (no mask swimming, buoyancy skills that require you to remain relatively still within the water column while performing them, etc.) as well as broaden your experience (OOA drills during a night dive, AAS breathing as you ascend from 100 ft with a buddy controlling ascent rate and situational awareness) so that you feel more "advanced", then the course has substantial value. I have always believed that the AOW course can and should be a valued course to a diver who seeks proficiency and competence in their underwater skills. If it fails to do so then the Instructor failed the student or the student failed to expect more from the course.

A good Instructor should expect you to look like an "Advanced" diver and work with you to achieve that goal as well as help you define what it means to be an "Advanced" diver.

I believe, as others have posted, that you should gain more diving experience as an OW diver before pursuing an AOW certification. Your Instructor can help you to know when you're ready for that next step. I often invite my students to join me on fun dives at the local quarry. There they can gain additional diving experience and I can offer suggestions as to things they can continue to work on to be prepared for the AOW course if they are interested.

Before taking a course it helps to know why you want to take the course and what you expect the course to give you as a diver. Your Instructor can help guide you with some of this but the rest is up to you.

Hope this helps.

 

[binsea]

All,
As I posted in the Intro area last month, I plowed thru my 4 OW dives & 5 AOW dives in a three day weekend.

The arguments against doing this seem to be along the lines of "you won't get much out of it" and "for safety's sake, you should get more experience".

I have no problem with either statement, but since I live in Colorado, a dive trip is a big deal. It didn't make a lot of sense to me to put off the AOW cert just because it "allows" me to do diving that I "shouldn't" do.

I'm a fairly cautious guy. I look before I leap. Although I hold an AOW cert card, I'm going to dive within my comfort zone.

As long as the original poster is doing OW & AOW together for convenience, rather than to do advanced-type-dives right out of class, I'd say there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[k ellis]

All,
As I posted in the Intro area last month, I plowed thru my 4 OW dives & 5 AOW dives in a three day weekend.

The arguments against doing this seem to be along the lines of "you won't get much out of it" and "for safety's sake, you should get more experience".

I have no problem with either statement, but since I live in Colorado, a dive trip is a big deal. It didn't make a lot of sense to me to put off the AOW cert just because it "allows" me to do diving that I "shouldn't" do.

I'm a fairly cautious guy. I look before I leap. Although I hold an AOW cert card, I'm going to dive within my comfort zone.

As long as the original poster is doing OW & AOW together for convenience, rather than to do advanced-type-dives right out of class, I'd say there's nothing wrong with it.

You know I have to agree with you.

 

[OceanEd]

There is no question that it is better to take the Advanced OW course right after the OW class for several reasons. Let me give you some history:

In the early 1970's the diving organizations were forming their courses and really becoming what they are today. They conducted many surveys and were constantly analyzing who was diving, how they were learning, when they should take classes, etc. What became very clear was that it takes the average new diver 9 to 10 open water dives before they stop being inwardly focused and start to become outwardly focused. This meant that the OW class really should comprise 10 dives but no organization was willing to make the course that long or expensive. That is how the "Advanced" course concept came into being with the idea that the instructors needed to encourage the new OW divers to continue their diving under supervision for another 5 dives to finally become outwardly focused.

Taking the AOW class right after the OW class really shortens a new diver's learning curve and if it is a well taught AOW class it really can set the foundation for a much better diver in such things as buoyancy control and other critical skills.

Just don't take an AOW class that is only 5 pleasure dives with little training.

I conducted an AOW class last year for 22 people (I had other instructors and DM's working with me). They were a mix of 30% new OW divers and the rest very experienced divers. The new divers were a breeze because they had no bad habits.

I was blown away with the bad habits and lack of good skills in the experienced divers. All of them were diving with too much weight and by the end of the class we managed to get them to drop at least 50% of the weight they had been using. They were also in need of a lot of fine tuning on their buoyancy control. Even though it is required by the dive boats here in Jupiter, few of them really knew how to properly deploy a safety sausage and none of them had ever done it from depth which is a far superior method. And the list goes on. All this could have been part of their ingraned and basic training if they had have taken an AOW class right after their OW class.

The problem is that "experienced" divers don't think they have anything to learn and usually don't take an AOW class. I was so amazed with what we did in that class that this coming February I am offering a FREE AOW class to try to get more "experienced" divers to come back so we can help them improve their skills.

 

[victor]

I have to agree with OceanEd's post even though I did not recommend this course of action in my previous post.
Looking at the AOW as the second half of you basic training makes a lot of sense.
In a perfect world I would still advise half a dozen fun dives, under supervision, between the 2 courses.
This is the advantage of being a member of a club as these dives can be done at a minimum cost and don't need to be in an exotic location as the diver is concentrating on basic skills.
Without a doubt concentrated time in the water makes a big difference.
The biggest improvement in my diving came when I took a photo course in Bonaire. It was then I realised that my buoyancy control was just not up to taking photos. Two weeks of diving with 4 to 5 dives a day concentrating on my skills while enjoying the dives made a huge difference.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

All,
As I posted in the Intro area last month, I plowed thru my 4 OW dives & 5 AOW dives in a three day weekend.

The arguments against doing this seem to be along the lines of "you won't get much out of it" and "for safety's sake, you should get more experience".

I have no problem with either statement, but since I live in Colorado, a dive trip is a big deal. It didn't make a lot of sense to me to put off the AOW cert just because it "allows" me to do diving that I "shouldn't" do.

I'm a fairly cautious guy. I look before I leap. Although I hold an AOW cert card, I'm going to dive within my comfort zone.

As long as the original poster is doing OW & AOW together for convenience, rather than to do advanced-type-dives right out of class, I'd say there's nothing wrong with it.

Plowed thru sounds about right. What dives did you do and in what order? How much classroom time was included before this for the AOW dives? Where did you do it? And let me get this straight. You did the OW checkouts on days one and two. Then threw in a deep dive with 4 other dives somewhere in there? What agency was this with. I could not have done this under my agency standards. How deep was the deep dive and for how long? What gas management planning did you use? How much did they charge you for this cram it all in "course"? Whatever it was was too much. You got a an AOW card with no real experience. It would have been better to just do 9 dives and saved the price of the AOW course.

I do not believe in training for convenience(read profit). I train for safety, skills, and knowledge of the student. I do not allow MY OW students to take AOW with less than 10 dives post OW. If they are not my students they need more than that, an interview, a pool session, and maybe even a couple OW dives with me to see if they are even ready for AOW. I have a refresher coming up next week sometime. Following this the diver is going to Cozumel. When he comes back he is retaking the AOW course with me because the AOW course (with another agency) he took was less than satisfactory and did not offer much in the way of new skills. The refresher we will do will take about 3 hours and most of that time will be spent on getting his weighting and trim down because his OW and AOW courses did not spend much time on doing this. When he finishes with my course he will know how to use gas management, navigate, plan advanced dives, choose the right equipment, and know when the dive is beyond his level and not do it. He will also not NEED a DM or other pro in the water.

If anyone has taken OW and AOW and still needs a DM/Guide to lead the dives as opposed to wanting one for new sites, conditions, find specific points of interest of sealife, they got screwed.

 

[OceanEd]

Victor:

I agree with you. If I am teaching an U/W Hunting course or if someone wants to take our Photo course the first think I tell them is that you can't shoot from an unstable platform. Buoyancy control is the key, and you just don't have time to learn it all in the OW class.

I think PADI's idea of continuing education is a great one. The problem is convincing people they really will get a lot of good training and knowledge out of taking these courses. It is hard to do and sometimes impossible. That is another reason why I want to try to have them stay with me in the beginning and take the AOW course then.

 

[emoreira]

I think that with SSI it´s most improbable to do that.
To become a SSI AOWD, you need 4 specialties and 24 dives. Those 24 dives will be composed of :
5 dives to get the OWD certification.
4 to 8 dives to get the 4 specialty certifications.
At least 11 dives more to achieve the 24 dives required.
The AOWD certification in SSI is given automatically upon completion of the required points without additional training or course.