PADI AOW Training

[djhall]

WreckWriter once bubbled at me in another thread...


The standard AOW class, as a learning experience, is a complete joke. ALL it gives you is a lifeguard while you conduct these dives which are only slightly beyond what you should have done in o/w. Its a money machine, nothing more.

You would have learned just as much, and been equally as safe, if you just done the dives and skipped the class. Chances are real good that the resort DM had far more dives and a much greater variation of experience than your instructor did.

This was certainly true for me. I was handed the "Adventures in Diving" book the night before my first dive. I read the appropriate chapters and completed the reviews. The next morning, I went to the diveshop, completed a comprehensive test on the BASIC open water course to ensure I remembered the basics, TOLD them I had read my book, and went diving. For my dives (in Belize):

DEEP DIVE: The instructor timed me writing a sentence and doing a simple addition problem on the surface. We descended to 100ft, waited one minute, timed me writing a sentence and doing a simple addition problem, ascended to 60 feet and toured the reef.

NAVIGATION DIVE: We descended to the boat anchor. The instructor had me swim two squares and two triangles (one in each direction) with legs of -x- kick cycles. Success, I assume, depended on how close I returned to the boat anchor at the end of each pattern. (No one actually said how I could fail the navigation dive). After the patterns, we toured the reef.

MULTI-LEVEL & COMPUTER DIVE: I planned a dive profile using the wheel (which I already knew how to use) and then we did a nice scenic tour of the reef with me leading and him following, instead of the other way around.

BOAT & DRIFT DIVE: We dove from a boat (which we had been doing the whole time) which followed our bubble trail and picked us up where we surfaced, rather than anchoring and having us return to the boat to end the dive.

I definitely learned from reading the book and doing more dives. However, the instructor was, for the most part, worthless. This was not the case with my PADI open water instructor, who taught me a lot. Is this a typical experience for AOW students, or did I just get a bad instructor?

 

[WreckWriter]

djhall once bubbled...
For my dives (in Belize):

One thing I find interesting is that the standards have apparently changed since I retired.

No night dive???

MULTI-LEVEL & COMPUTER DIVE???

BOAT & DRIFT DIVE???

Sounds like its even more of a joke than it was when I was teaching. Somehow this doesn't surprize me.

Its not just PADI, I bet most agency standards have dropped over the last few years, PADI is as good as most any.

Why? Good question. My theory is that the quality of the average student has dropped and, in order to make more money, they must drop the standards or risk failing students (who might demand refunds).

Anyone care to refute that?

Tom

 

[Fetch]

I'm wiping tears from my eyes, but it is some bitter laughing...

My deep dive maxed at I think 65' (whatever the bare minimum "deep dive" depth is for the PADI speciality). As I mentioned in another thread, my instructor and the other students weren't prepared with proper exposure protection (I was, yay for me ) so very little time was spent at depth.

The multi-level dive was on the deep dive, when we practiced going at multiple depth levels on the way up. I'm not even kidding. There was no planning involved.

This deep dive was also a boat dive. Of course, there'd been other boat dives on the trip, but regardless it was mostly just "get in the water". TexasMike gave me more tips on my first boat dive (which happened to be about my 3rd dive out of class).

The nav dive was a wretched joke. There was nothing setup to measure fin stroke distance, so myself and a DM trainee would take sites on the surface, descend, and try to hit our target. He was an ex-Marine, and a lot better at the navigation than I was. Of course, he also kicked too fast for me to keep up, but oh well. And his Air2 was broken, so his inflator hose was disconnected. His words - "so, if you run out of air... head for the surface". (I've made my share of stupid dives).

The night dive was a bit better, I lucked out and got one of the few competent people who dive with the LDS club as a buddy. I should clarify - "competent at being a buddy". Oddly, the boat DM did more last-minute instructing than the instructor did...

*sigh* oh well. I lived, I got the plastic, and I've pretty much foresworn further PADI training (I might take the Rescue Diver class, since I've already got the MFA and DAN O2 provider training).

My gf got certified through NAUI (college class), but at the BOW level I couldn't tell any difference in her skills.

jeff

 

[O-ring]

Navigation dive - did some squares and took some headings from one platform to the next.

Wreck dive - sketched a sunken bus on a slate

Night dive - jumped in the quarry at night for a 19 minute bottom time

Deep dive - dropped down to 76' and then came up, no math problems, no cool 2 liter bottle demonstrations, no sentences..just descend and come up.

Search and Recovery - it was raining and the instructor wanted to get home so this dive was a 17 minute bottom time consisting of finding a box of rocks and bringing it up with a lift bag. The box was in between us and shore (50 feet away).

The reason I took the class was for an NC trip that required AOW...do you think this got me ready to dive on 100'+ wreck dives?

Here was my take on the class when I first wrote it:

First off, he is a PADI master instructor with 30 years of experience and somewhere shy of 1000 logged dives.

First, he noticed my bp/wing as we were gearing up... he said, "what, are you planning on going into tech diving someday?" He was on me like stink on a pig about my wrist mounted compass...telling me I should take it back immediately and get a proper console. He kept telling me my navigation skills sucked and it was because of my compass - while he was lavishing praise on my console wielding buddy. He told me I should get a bungee or something to tie my 7' hose off to my tank because "it is too long"...and this was all before we got in the water.

After we surfaced from the AOW navigation dive (IMHO, I did fine...I was right on the money and found everything he made me find) he said (to my buddy), "wow, you are a natural born navigator, which is more than I can say for froggie boy. Why the hell would you want to kick like that?" He was referring to my frog kicks and modified frogs that I was using since I don't really use a flutter much at all except in open water when I am far from the bottom. I was tempted, at this point, to cram my fist down his throat or at least to mention something about his technique being piss-poor (his proper flutter kick looked like a WWII bombing run when he cruised the bottom of the quarry) since he was blinding all the students with his silt throwing kicks. I may not be god's gift to navigation, but my buddy could do no wrong and her buoyancy was a sight to behold. She had a hell of a time descending. He complained that I didn't "descend quickly enough" when he gave the thumbs down, but I guess he had his eyes closed when I had to swim back up to the surface, aborting my descent, grab my buddy by the BC straps, and yank her down to about 10'-15' so her suit would compress so she could stay down. She was so underweighted she could not even descend at all (she would dump the air from her back inflated BC in a vertical position and try to "scull" her way down with her hands. I kept telling her to pike, but she never tried it). After the dive, I gave her 4# of my weight to put in her trim pockets so she could at least get down. After that, she would descend ok and stop when her fins or stomach hit the bottom...buoyancy all over the place. He NEVER mentioned one word about her buoyancy or lack thereof.

That was dive #1. On the deep dive I think he could tell I was getting pissed because he kept his mouth shut. On the night dive, he complained that I didn't have my backup lights on a wrist lanyard. I told him they were "backup" lights, and I can use them clipped off to my harness just fine and that I was not buying a "proper light" because I was saving for a canister light. He didn't like that.

On the search and recovery and wreck dives, he wasn't as vocal, but when we were heading back to shore (at about 30') he gave the thumbs up. We all started to ascend, when my Vyper gave me a safety stop as I hit 19' or so. I hovered and finned around looking at fish, etc. for 3 minutes and ascended when my computer told me I had finished my safety stop. As soon as I broke the surface, he said, "normally, we ascend when the thumbs up signal is given." I noticed everyone (including my buddy...who is NOT SUPPOSED TO LEAVE MY SIDE) blew off his/her safety stop and followed him up. I told him, "well, my computer mandated a safety stop, so I thought it prudent to do what my computer says." He replied, "well, you shouldn't have to stop on a dive that shallow...that computer is probably wrong."

To date, I have not returned to that shop..

 

[Dryglove]

O-ring once bubbled...
Navigation dive - did some squares and took some headings from one platform to the next.

Wreck dive - sketched a sunken bus on a slate

Night dive - jumped in the quarry at night for a 19 minute bottom time

Deep dive - dropped down to 76' and then came up, no math problems, no cool 2 liter bottle demonstrations, no sentences..just descend and come up.

Search and Recovery - it was raining and the instructor wanted to get home so this dive was a 17 minute bottom time consisting of finding a box of rocks and bringing it up with a lift bag. The box was in between us and shore (50 feet away).

The reason I took the class was for an NC trip that required AOW...do you think this got me ready to dive on 100'+ wreck dives?

Here was my take on the class when I first wrote it:

To date, I have not returned to that shop..

Wow!! Sounds like advanced openwater from hell.Makes me more thankful for my LDS and the shops where i dive.Most of them are really great.

 

[djhall]

WreckWriter once bubbled...

No night dive???

Not anymore. Its optional! I assume it was too big a pain in the a** to drag the instructors out after dark every time they taught an "advanced" class

 

[djhall]

Fetch once bubbled...
My deep dive maxed at I think 65' (whatever the bare minimum "deep dive" depth is for the PADI speciality)

Wow, a whole extra five feet! At least we know you don't get narked really, super, shallowly easy.

Fetch once bubbled...
The multi-level dive was on the deep dive, when we practiced going at multiple depth levels on the way up. I'm not even kidding. There was no planning involved.

Of course... you come up at multiple levels, and then you can always figure out your profile later when you know what you actually dove.

Fetch once bubbled...
And his Air2 was broken, so his inflator hose was disconnected. His words - "so, if you run out of air... head for the surface". (I've made my share of stupid dives).

When you get to be a DM or better, you don't need to worry about safety because you know to much to get into any REAL trouble. This is something you should start learning in an "advanced" class.

Sheesh! Is this kind of crap just limited to some lazy PADI instructors, or are there NAUI, YMCA, SSI, and other instructors out there doing the same thing?

I will ask around about the local instructors, because I have thought about doing rescue, the five specialties, and master diver. Will a different agency give me better classes? Or should I just skip the instructor and read the book?

 

[Dectek]

My AOW was more of a joke than that. While on vacation I tried to book a wreck and a wall dive. I was told that I could not as an OW diver, BUT if I signed up for Advanced we could kill two birds with one stone. I could get a new slab of plastic and I could dive the sites I originally asked for. $49 for the crew pak and $40 for the instructor. I was told to read the chapters for each type dive I wanted to do and fill in the chapter reviews for each chapter the morning before that dive.
Navigation.... two 120 degree turns with 20 kick cycles between.
I did have to do a few things while still dry like take a couple bearings, give the reverse and give triangular readings and 90s.

Boat... Yep... Dove from a boat.

Wreck... My luck.. A 19 yr old French Blonde Knockout of an Instructor. She announced that we would be going down, but there would be no penetration. I said something about not being the president and she told me she was pretty sure that I would get a lot of mileage out of that comment.

Deep... Dove a wall and she called for 85 foot max and quickly gave in to a beg for my first 100 footer. The photo was great. Me at 101 next to a 4 foot purple tube coral.

Naturalist.... Let me lead a discussion during a surface interval about some of problems folks were having on the previous dive with keeping out of the coral and not acting like a bull in a china shop, yada yada yada.

At the end of the week I was asked for my book. The Chapter reviews were torn out and put into my folder.

Instruction of Profit maker?
I feel that this is Adventure....NOT Advanced.

I have read Naui, SSI, IANDS, and Padi books along with many non Agency books and several of the specialty manuals, viewed the videos and practiced my skills on my own. This and reading thousands of posts and even contributing a few. ( 100 posted = ?dives) I feel that this has advanced my Edumication more than getting a new card.

I did not write this to start any debate about quality of Instruction or any agency disputes. We are all in complete agreement about Individual Instructors or dive shop/centers not being a Gauge for the Agency they represent. I just thought I would let others know of this particular joke of a cert.

 

[randyjoy]

Just like has been said many times in these forums, it is the instructor that makes (or breaks) a course.

Saw an instructor sign off on AOW with the student only doing two dives - he said he could combine them all for quicker certification (you can't).

Saw another instructor that actually lectured and taught, set up navigation courses, set up search and recovery scenarios (multiple per student using different search patterns), set up buoyancy courses with hoops and gates, etc. and actually required the student to learn something from the AOW course.

Problem is, most students have no idea which instructor they're getting (even after the class, they have no idea that they've been shorted. They just get turned off from taking additional instruction, thinking they've thrown their money away; they received no value for their bucks. And then, the LDS wonders why no one comes back after AOW).

 

[jeandiver]

Reading thru the replies makes me feel very fortunate. I did my AOW in Late Sept. thru my LDS. My instructor was wonderful. We did the Nav, Night, Deep , Multi-level and Buoyancy. There was only 2 of us in the class and we both agreed on the choices. I was told that the night dive was manditory. We also had courses set up for our nav dive. Anyway, my experience was very good. I learned a lot and from what I have read from others, feel very fortunate!!!