Open water + advanced in one go?

[scubamountaingirl]

Good for you for asking....thats how we all learn how to dive.

First make sure the instructor is a really good one. they go from zero to hero.
Then take your time. The longer you take to learn the basic's the better you will be when trying to dive on your own .
If you need to after OW, get a mentor, rent a few weekends with a dive master and get all the comfort you can.Then dive as much as possible to find out where you short comings are. You can then bring these issues into your next lessons and know what you need to work on, not just the class outline.

If i may stir the pot? I would suggest looking into rescue then AOW.

I hope you have a great class and welcome to the pool.
ww

 

[Jerzi]

Hey Pixie I was just wondering if you have been in a water enviroment throughout your life?

 

[pixiefish]

I don't know what you mean by 'in a water environment'?

I'm a strong swimmer with good stamina; happy swimming in the sea and kayaking. I'm happy enough in water to just 'have a go' at wakeboarding in Ibiza this summer - I was rubbish at it, no upper body strength, but I didn't mind flopping about in the water!

 

[pixiefish]

scubamountaingirl - AOW is a prerequisite for rescue diver?

But if you mean learning basic rescue skills, thats why I think I'll choose NAUI over PADI (from my reading so far).

 

[Jerzi]

I don't know what you mean by 'in a water environment'?

I'm a strong swimmer with good stamina; happy swimming in the sea and kayaking. I'm happy enough in water to just 'have a go' at wakeboarding in Ibiza this summer - I was rubbish at it, no upper body strength, but I didn't mind flopping about in the water!

Thats what I wanted to know. You should have a lot easier time than most if you enjoy being in the water. There is a lot to take in mainly being the situational awareness, nuetral buoyancy and correct breathing, but it's a lot easier for water people. They tend to excel at it pretty quickly. You should set your own pace and see how comfortable you are after the OW to see if you should hold off on the AOW for a later time.

I would of felt comfortable enough to do both ,but it varies from person to person.
There was one guy in my class that was trying to keep his pride when he said his 1st stage was leaking because he blew through twice as much air as others in the class.
It was him actually shallow breathing,up/down with the inflatate,overfilling his BCD at the surface which was the BC releasing air that he thought was a leak.

I was like a magnet to him. He would descend down on top of me, fin me in the mask, shoot up to the top then back down to the bottom. The younger instructor grabbed him and pulled 16lbs led out of him and showed him how to properly use the inflate deflate and wow so much of a difference. I tried to give him a pointer on breathing but he kinda shrugged it off with his pride.

Anyway, go at your own pace and what you feel comfortable with. Don't let an instructor talk you into something.

Good Luck.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

scubamountaingirl - AOW is a prerequisite for rescue diver?

But if you mean learning basic rescue skills, thats why I think I'll choose NAUI over PADI (from my reading so far).

In the NAUI program AOW is not a prerequisite for Rescue Diver ... you can take Rescue Diver class anytime after OW.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[k ellis]

youll have to pardon me I did not get a chance to read most of the replys due to time constraints but my honest opinion is this. Most divers when starting out suffer from short down time to enormous air consumptions. Buoyancy also can be task loading for a new diver so I suggest after open water just experiment around for a while and learn to work these skills until they are perfected.

Deeper diving which is a part of AOW requires more thought and patience due to safety stops and accelerated air consumption at depth. These are skills a good mentor can teach but the class itself does have good information.

My thoughts are on the class that its better to spend a little and learn a lot then have to learn the hard way for free

 

[rstofer]

I am going to come out on the side of taking AOW right after OW and then follow it up with Rescue.

Now, I know it isn't a popular suggestion. Most instructors will oppose the idea. Many will say to get more experience. The thing is, getting that experience forces you to rely on 'mentors' for your intermediate education. And a 'mentor' will want to dive with you, why?

When I started diving, I only wanted to dive with more experienced divers. But they didn't want to dive with me! It was never really as blunt as that but I could understand why established buddy pairs didn't want to take on a 3rd or split up for dives.

So, I took the NAUI sequence of OW I, OW II, Advanced OW and Rescue in essentially back-to-back order. I had the same instructor for all and only a couple of buddies. I made over 100 dives with the buddy I finished AOW and Rescue with. We dove all over the world!

The NAUI program of yesteryear was markedly different than the PADI program of today. By the time the sequence was complete there were about 21 dives and all of the topics (Search & Recovery, Navigation, Rescue, Deep, etc) were covered in depth. The Rescue course involved writing a paper describing all of the potential marine injuries and the appropriate treatment. It was quite a time-consuming undertaking. All in, the program took about 3 months.

A number of instructors suggest that the 100 hour Scripps Program (12 weeks) represents the epitome of dive instruction. Well, the NAUI sequence would take just about as long and could, perhaps, produce a similarly qualified diver. It was just offered as 4 modules instead of one long program.

Have fun!

Richard

 

[k ellis]

When I started diving, I only wanted to dive with more experienced divers. But they didn't want to dive with me! It was never really as blunt as that but I could understand why established buddy pairs didn't want to take on a 3rd or split up for dives.

I going out on a limb to say this but I have dove with more experienced partners and also have went diving with newbies fresh after a certification dive. In my experience I really enjoy diving more with the newbies as most of the time they dont have the matio attitude like they are better then you. They also tend to be more safety inquisitive with things older divers negelct such as buddy gear check outs.

Diving with more experienced divers tends to lead to the attitude like oh your just a master diver and it dont mean a thing. Its also in the past given way to the divers comparing you to them and it almost always comes out they find ways to be little you as well.

 

[TSandM]

In an ideal world, you'd get a good OW class, and then you'd do some diving, and then you'd take an AOW class like the one NW Grateful Diver used to teach.

But that's a perfect world. In reality, you're likely to get an OW class that allows you the minimum time to learn skills in confined water, and then rushes you through four open water dives, at the end of which you're turned loose, bewildered, and wondering how you could ever conduct a dive by yourself. Doing AOW immediately gives you five more dives with an instructor, and that's five more dives to start building buoyancy control, become comfortable with your equipment, and learn a few more skills.

But what worries me about your original post is your statement that AOW will get you "better diving in Belize". One of Belize's signature dives is the Blue Hole, and you will NOT be prepared for that dive at the end of your AOW, even if the dive op would accept it as a prerequisite. A new diver, and you will be that either way, tends to have high gas consumption and little experience in how long a tank will last at a given depth, as well as having no education in how to predict that. Although you do a "deep" dive in your AOW, it's unlikely you are really competent to do any real deep diving. Deep dives early in a diving career are one of the most frequent settings for out of gas emergencies.

So, I'd recommend doing your AOW immediately, but recognizing that you are NOT trained for deep diving, and keeping your subsequent dives conservative until you build experience. JMHO.