OW + AOW timing?

[dwatts]

Thoughts from another diver with limited experience.

My wife and I got OW certified together about 4 years ago. As vacation divers, we have only been diving once a year...actually, I got in a few more trips than she did.

Anyway, I just got my AOW after 30 dives. I felt that I was "ready". My wife, however, if generally a nervous, anxious person and this is VERY true when diving. Without a doubt, she is not ready for her AOW...she still needs to develop some very basic comfort level with shallow diving.

Our plan this year is to get her into the water a bit more (than one annual trip) and work on basic skills and her comfort level. Only then do I think she should focus on the skills taught in AOW. I know, someone is going to say that buoyancy is worth developing right now. But you don't know my wife...that would be task loading a highly anxious diver that just needs to take it very slow (for now). She'll get it...but at her own pace.

Anyway, my bottom line thought is to do AOW once you feel comfortable with the things that you learned in OW. If you're comfortable after just a few post-OW dives then great. If it takes longer then that's fine, too.

 

[Blackwood]

Anyway, my bottom line thought is to do AOW once you feel comfortable with the things that you learned in OW.

Unfortunate statement, but likely true on average.

 

[NYCSurfer]

FWIW, I just complete my AOW. Began after logging 16 dives. Now in fairness, I was NAUI certified in 1976, and this was really pretty much review and refresher stuff that came back pretty quickly. I did my PADI OW last June.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Personally, I think it's ideal, so long as you realize that finishing AOW doesn't make you any kind of advanced diver. The AOW class is designed as OW part II, and they expect people to do it right away, or very soon. It's not that great a class most of the time, but it is 5 more dives with an instructor.

Some how I must have missed the interview/article with the designers of the AOW Course where they said "we designed AOW as OW part II." Could you provide a link to that interview/quote?

Is it the same interview/article that details the "expectations" of "they" as well as just who "they" is/are? How many AOW classes have you personally witnessed? Isn't it a bit presumptuous to say "most" are "not great" when you have only witnessed a few.

With regards to the questions posed by the OP; if you did your OW training dives with an operator that also does the 80' deep dives you are interested in you might be better served to put off the AOW training until you have a few more dives under your belt. It is common to have a deeper than 60 foot depth dive planned for right after certification, when it is guided by the same operator you just certified with; maybe even guided by your instructor.

Every beginning diver is different, every dive operator is different and every instructor is different. Some new divers will walk away from their OW class and go out the next weekend to do a 90' shore dive with their classmates, some new divers will never dive without a guide.

Some divers will only take AOW because that makes it easier for them to book dives, some need to take AOW to make a decent guided dive, others might never do AOW and instead do a Deep or Wreck Specialty Course. If you have already done 8 dives before certification it is very likely you are not the students that will end the OW Course with skills so bad the AOW Course has to be done immediately.

Waiting 80 dives before doing AOW is probably waiting too long, but some diving before AOW allows many divers to better appreciate the AOW training dives, IMHO.

 

[Walter]

These are PADI courses. The instructor we dove with last year will be with us again this year. He's fabulous, and really did an excellent job of covering things like buoyancy control and trim.
I've been looking through the PADI AOW course, and it looks like it's basically a primer to get you started towards their various specialty certs. Which is exactly what we want. We'd like to dive the WWII minesweepers off Cancun, and they're in 80 FSW. We'd also like to dive a cenote or two while we're there. All in company with an instructor.

As someone mentioned, Colorado is not exactly a divers mecca. About the only diving here is cold water lakes with very poor visibility and not much to see. The local resevoir is noted to be particularly good for practicing navigation skills... There's also diving in the shark tank or reef tank at the Denver Aquarium, which appeals to us. Other than that, we're going to be limited to vacation diving. We don't ever expect to be truely advanced. But in company with an experienced guide/instructor, we'd like to be able to see some of the slightly deeper sights.

In that case, there's no reason not to take them back to back.

 

[ScubaduoAdventures]

I still remember all those years ago having done my OW course in southern CA off the beach in colder,murky, rough diving conditions. I luckily did pass my course and two weeks later found myself in Kauai HA with my wife thinking I was now just going to do some fun diving. We saw that the dive shops AOW price included five dives with gear and training and experience in dives I had not done yet with a instructor, so we signed up.
I was glad that we did as I did my first deep dive and night dive in the company of a instructor along with gaining better navigation skills, more streamlined buoyancy and in general gained more confidence than I had before. Most of all though I had a lot of fun doing it.
When I returned to socal I was then able to do things such as night dive for lobsters off my local beach and go on deeper dives with my wife on the backside of Catalina which I would not have been able to do had I not done my AOW when I did and it added to the fun I was having in my diving.
I of course was having so much fun diving that I decided to take even more courses that led me to be a instructor today and though I will not bore you with my diving resume I will say that I am still having fun and still learning new things to this day. I would say that if you are having fun in your resort course and if you having fun in your OW course then you will have fun going right into your AOW course also and you will learn new skills which will help you to enjoy your diving. And though you may not be a truly advanced diver in your own mind when you get done you will be more advanced than when you started and if you keep having this much fun you may just be teaching me and a few others on scuba board a few things in the future!
Remember you have to walk before you can run, keep having fun and hope to see you under the water .

 

[Dirty-Dog]

We saw that the dive shops AOW price included five dives with gear and training and experience in dives I had not done yet with a instructor, so we signed up.

My thinking was influenced by this, too. We're going to be diving anyway. And some of the dives we'd like to make (i.e. the minesweepers) are beyond the recommended scope of OW divers. Several people pointed out that we did more than enough diving last year to get OW c-cards, but did not. So... since we're going to be diving, and since we're going to be hiring a guide/instructor anyway, we might just as well make it educational as well. The difference in price between just diving and taking the AOW class is fairly trivial.

 

[Sinbad the Diver]

From what I experienced, I think taking them back to back is a good idea. It gets you more dives under an instructor's supervision and more information. But as has been said, the word advanced is a minnomer in some cases, having an A card doesn't make someone a great diver. Another great path is to find some experienced divers who are willing to dive with you and dive a lot after you complete your initial training (either OW or AOW).

 

[FireInMyBones]

I took AOW as soon as I could. I recomend taking the saying "A good diver is always learning" to heart.

With that said: just because you hold the cert doesn't mean you are prepared to do any specific dive. I love my dive group. They have a few hundred more dives than I do. I am always learning something, even on the shallow, short, and warm dives.