PADI Advanced Open Water Question

[Random Dude]

Hi all, would like to go for AOW course, as a lot of dive sites requires AOW as a minimum requirement, but have a few questions about it.

I currently feel that the concept of having 5 adventure dives is a bit waste of money and time considering that those specialties won't be covered in full, and would be more of a "Try Specialty Dive" rather than a fully fledged course.
Also, I'm quite sure for now that I would want to take the following full specialties at a later time anyway.

As such, I'm wondering whether it's possible to obtain the AOW certification via completing 5 specialties course, and save some money and time in the progress.

Specifically, the route would be
1. EANx Specialty (Minimum OW required)
2. Night Dive Specialty (Minimum OW required)
3. Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty (Minimum OW required)
4. Underwater Navigator Specialty (Minimum OW required)
5. Deep Diver (Minimum Adventure Diver required)

Following the sequence above, by the time the PPB specialty is completed, I would be able to get the Adventure Diver rating, which would make me eligible for the Deep Diver specialty.
At the end of all 5 specialties, I would have gotten and exceeded all the components required for AOW rating (5 adventure dives with compulsory navigation and deep)

Would there be any obstacles in getting PADI to recognise the route above in order to get my AOW rating?

Please do also comment if you guys opine that AOW is distinctive enough to be deserving of a separate course consisting 5 "try specialty" dives.

 

[boulderjohn]

There is no obstacle from PADI for doing it that way. As per saving money, that is up to the instructor or shop doing the instruction. I know that if you came to me with that plan, I would sit down, come up with schedule, and offer a discount for the full package, but that is just me.

The original theory behind AOW, as created by Los angeles County and then NAUI, was to give divers a little more training but mostly to give them an introduction to different kinds of diving. That is still the theory behind PADI's version of it. It does introduce you to some of the diving that is covered in more depth in the specialty, leaving it up to you to decide whether or not you want that additional training. I believe SSI requires the 5 specialties for AOW, meaning you will have greater training when you get the certification, but you will have been required to do a lot of training that you might not have otherwise chosen to do.

Take, for example, the night dive specialty. You may very well decide that you know all you need to know to be a safe night diver after that first dive, and you may then wish you had spent the money and time on a different specialty. (And if you came to me, that would have been my recommendation.)

 

[jlcnuke]

(which I think is the case but I could be wrong).


Edit: apparently I was wrong.

 

[tursiops]

One potential issue I see is that the PADI AOW course has it's own coursework above and beyond "just" the specialties themselves (the first 2 chapters of the AOW book). So "just" doing the specialties likely wouldn't give you the entirety of the AOW course so they probably wouldn't give you the cert without the course. Also, enriched air isn't one of the listed "specialties" in the PADI AOW coursework iirc (I could check when I get home, but I don't recall it being in there when I did it last month), so I don't think it would count for the AOW course as one. There are multiple specialties that PADI has that aren't included for AOW if the only ones allowed are those discussed in the course's book (which I think is the case but I could be wrong).

OP, ignore most if this quoted post as being wrong. You can do what you propose, although you'll need to do dives with your EANX class, which is a bit of a waste. As Boulderjohn said, you may discover one dive is all you need to get most of the info and skills, the remaining dives of the specialty being more for practice than for additional content. Night is like that. You'll find Search and Recovery dive #1 quite interesting, and Cavern #1. So, consider doing a combination of "sampler" first dives, like Night and S&R, the full specialties for Nav and PPB and Deep, and do EANX as just classroom work while doing the other stuff. Any good instructor can work this out with you. And do PPB first....it is a foundational skill.

 

[northernone]

I like your thinking. At least, that's similar to how I did my AOW. Talked with various instructors until I found one willing to provide the 5 I wanted. Of course it needs to make financial sense as well.

The value of gaining experience in various environments and dives focused on specific abilities is valuable. Having a card that let's you do the dives you'd like is also valuable...

Regards,
Cameron

 

[Bob DBF]

There are advantages to taking AOW. It takes time to complete all the specialties, so you may be restricted to OW dives by dive Ops until all are complete, which may not be a problem if you are only doing training dives. You may change your mind on completing a specialty after the first dive, so choose your specialties carefully and discuss this issue with with the instructor.


Have fun

Bob

 

[PatW]

There is another advantage of doing AOW vs doing the specialties separately. You may find that the training is AOW is enough training in a particular specialty. In my case, AOW was fine for enriched air, deep diver and night diver. I would have benefitted from more work on buoyancy. Navigation could have been more thorough but for my kind of diving, my skill works well enough.

 

[shurite7]

Boulderjohn made some very good comments. I too would offer a package. PPB is the first course I recommend. EANx is a nice course to take, but I would suggest something like Multilevel Diving which is good for planning and complements Deep Diver. Take EANx before and use nitrox during the dives.

I like your plan. Is it worth the cost of all the courses and can you complete the courses in a reasonable amount of time? Others above had made significant comments regarding the value. That is the big question you need to answer. Do come up with a schedule to complete each course so that they are not dragged out over a really long period of time and then never completed. If the time frame doesn't meet your expectation then perhaps AOW will suffice.

Have fun and good luck.

 

[mi000ke]

I posted the following in this thread, which you may want to check out

Cannot find a reason for AOW certification

If instead of thinking of AOW as learning/demonstrating a fixed set of skills (most of which many of us attained just by experience), you think about it as a more general learning opportunity, than I can think of two good reasons to do it, plus a third that made it a financial no-brainer for me:

1) An opportunity to have a personal dive with a DM to work on whatever issues or skills you would like to diagnose and improve: For me it was fine tuning my buoyancy and trim and making my underwater movements more efficient. So I discussed this with the instructor and that's really what we worked on for each dive, including my nav dive. It was an opportunity to get personal instruction on things I wanted to work on in general - so we did them on deep, on a wreck dive, a boat dive, a nav dive and a PPB dive.
2) If there is a specialty you might want to investigate before deciding to go in more depth
3) the no brainer: I got five dives with a personal DM for essentially the same cost as it would have been if I had gone with the rest of the group. So for the same price, I got personal instruction and my AOW cert. If you can find a deal likek this then why not do it?

And I did my EAN immediately before AOW and dove on EAN for all of my AOW dives.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I think this is a much better way to go. Good luck! Honestly, considering the cost of a PIC, a dive shop (assuming you go to the same one) should just throw in the AOW certification after you complete 5 courses that include nav and deep.