PADI AOW Deep Dive

[Divin'Papaw]

For those who are PADI Instructors or AIs, what is the requirement for depth on the deep dive in the AOW course? How "shallow" can a dive be and still meet the requirement for the deep dive? I'm curious to find out both (1) PADI's guidelines and (2) your common practice.

 

[ScubaBabe22]

For those who are PADI Instructors or AIs, what is the requirement for depth on the deep dive in the AOW course? How "shallow" can a dive be and still meet the requirement for the deep dive? I'm curious to find out both (1) PADI's guidelines and (2) your common practice.

I'm neither, but we maxed out at 122'. Mom got narc'd; daddy, DM & I laughed and took pictures of her writing Susan with backward "s"!

 

[Moese]

Also not an instrctor but If I'm not mistaken to pass the deep portion of AOW anything below 60' (but less than 130' for rec) is considered deep.

 

[Scottri]

It's generally accepted that anything below 60' is considered a deep dive. When we do our Advanced Open Water Deep Dive we take the students to 100'. If conditions don't allow us to do that safely we generally take them as close to 100' as we can safely.

For our Deep Speciality we take the students 130' but that is an entire class itself.

 

[ppo2_diver]

60 feet minimum. I usually take people to 80 feet or so. Depends on conditions.

 

[ScubaBabe22]

60 feet minimum. I usually take people to 80 feet or so. Depends on conditions.

Whoooohooo, 122! Livin life dangerously! kiiiidding. It was a good experience to see someone narc'd and see how it affected them-- (and laugh at how mom got it)

but in all honesty, since I've forgotten and my Dive book isnt at my internship, what do they equate being narc'd with? like, 2 martini's? 3? 1 joint? 5 redbulls?

 

[MikeFerrara]

I'm neither, but we maxed out at 122'. Mom got narc'd; daddy, DM & I laughed and took pictures of her writing Susan with backward "s"!

The dive must be at least 60 ft unless you get a waiver.

For the last several years the maximum allowable depth has been 100 ft (70 ft for Jr divers). So unless it was a long time ago, going to 122 ft was a standards violation.

Since a hoosier asked the question, I'll point out that all the AOW classes who are doing "deep" dives at Blue Springs are violating standards unless they have individually applied for and recieved a waiver from PADI!

 

[Divin'Papaw]

The dive must be at least 60 ft unless you get a waiver.

For the last several years the maximum allowable depth has been 100 ft (70 ft for Jr divers). So unless it was a long time ago, going to 122 ft was a standards violation.

Since a hoosier asked the question, I'll point out that all the AOW classes who are doing "deep" dives at Blue Springs are violating standards unless they have individually applied for and recieved a waiver from PADI!

Very observant Mike! That is my exact concern. We are going to BS and our instructor feels certain they can find 60'. I'm not so sure and from the posts of others who have recently tried, they also haven't been able to get to 60'. 58' max. However, most (all?) of the PADI AOW classes in central Indiana go to BS. Hummmm.....

 

[BrianV]

From the little research I've done and from comments on this board, it appears most classes try to take you down to around 85-90', however, there are classes who don't have those sorts of depths available for training. I live in Austin, TX and we have a lake that's 200-300+ ft deep. However, students in the Dallas area don't have a lake like that so on any weekend you'll see a bus load of students in from Dallas, majority of them are doing some sort of deep dive training.

For the record, my deep dive in AOW was 95', there was no light due to the depth, and vis was less than 2'. That said, it was pretty difficult conditions. My deepest dive to date was 110' and it had great visibility so it wasn't nearly as bad.

I thought I felt slightly narc'd the first time going to 95', but then we lost a student and immediately went back up and found her at 70'. When I went back to 95' to do the drill (combo lock), I felt 100% fine and was able to do the combo lock in about the same time I did it on land. I think I was just full of anxiety and since we had just passed a thermocline and I was freezing it took me sometime to get used to that.

At 110' I felt normal (not to say I wasn't slightly NARC'd), but there were no signs or symptons (I DECO'd on that dive as well).

I'd personally tell the instructor of your class that you'd like to go to somewhere around 100'. I went to 65' in my OW class and would feel like I was cheated on instruction if we only went to 60' since the reason I did AOW was because I was going on a trip where I knew I wanted to dive 90-110' and wanted the experience with a professional before.

If your area doesn't have access to deep water then that stinks.

-Brian

 

[battles2a5]

I went to 135' on my deep dive. It was in the Caribbean so the visibility was great, it was on a dive site where I had been a few times, so depth aside it was a pretty easy dive. Seems like this is a little beyond the norm though, I thought everyone went "deep" on the deep dive?