PADI Depth Restrictions

[DBailey]

<snip>... I'm not claiming to have a vast knowledge, but considering PADI will give you AOW certification the week after OW I agree with you its a joke. ...<snip>

Just remember that there is nothing "Advanced" about any of the agencies' AOW course. You are given more knowledge (some AOW instructors give more knowledge than others), more time in the water, and more supervised dives. None of this makes you an advanced diver.

<snip>... My friend actually did his AOW at one of our local quarries were the max depth is about 60 foot. So how does doing your AOW deep dive in 60 foot of water give you anymore experience than the many OW divers who do this routinely. ...<snip>

Well, this comes down to local conditions. In your friend's case it would suck to have to travel just to get the AOW certification. In the end it gives you more experience through education. This might only be a small increase in experience, but it is still an increase. As mentioned in other threads, the education has to be vague enough to cover the general diving population. YMMV.

<snip>... BUT regardless I will get my AOW as it seems alot of places are now covering their rear and now require it for certain dives. I'm sure insurance has alot to do with it. ...<snip>

Yes, you will notice a lot of the requirements/forms for diving have been created due to our "sue happy" requirements.

In the end, try to find an instructor for your AOW class that will make it worthwhile.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

.......Steve, I remember the Advanced Plus. I was sorry to see it disappear. It was not a bad class, not perfect, but none are. It was certainly much better than AOW. Does anything stop you from teaching a course equal to Silver Advanced and issuing an AOW card?

Nothing stops me from teaching a course equal to the Silver Advanced, you are correct.

I have my own "version" listed on my site, and I feel that it is complete and pretty thorough.

Of course I'd love to do 20-50 dives with a student during my advanced, but where would it end and how much would it cost and who would take it?

There's a line I have to draw in the sand somewhere, so a dozen properly instructed dives with adequate inclass instruction is probably close to what I am looking for.

As for depth, 10 out of 12 dives are done much less than 60ft on average. Skill and confidence building can be done "shallow" so the divers are actually safe(r) when finally hitting deeper water. It's no suprise most students accidents and deaths are from AOW-Deep classes. It's because the diver and a lot of the times the Instructor doesn't have a clue how to properly conduct a safe dive in 20ft of water for pete's sake.

The causes are that obvious and seen weekly at dive sites near you, folks.

To be honest I can't offer "my" course to student of shops I teach for, since it doesn't pay the bills in my household. This is the dilemma I am in with that. However, my private students get the full meal deal. I do what I can with the others, which is still over and above the standard.

Yes its a hack situation, but it's the best I can offer unless I want to work for nothing, which isn't going to happen any time soon.

Regards

 

[wedivebc]

Agencies have no power to enforce their own standards. What does regulate agency limits is the lawyers who represent the families of the people who get injured or killed when diving. The AOW may be a joke or at least treated like one by some instructors but if this trip is planned with a group there may well be a DM or instructor coming along to lead the group. This person has every right to enforce the limits set down by the agency. This person or more likely the store they work for will the defendant in any litigation that may result in any accident. You can be sure that any jury won't think the AOW is a joke. When the lawyers are finished convincing them how the DM lured poor Jimmie into the deep without proper training they will be ready to award huge amounts of money to the family.
That is who regulates the scuba industry. Don't think for a minute a scuba agency cares for anything more than their bottom line.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I used the word lure before and it didn't take, so I won't use it again, but I have "tested" an AOW student with going off his game plan as far as depth was concerned. It was all entirely under a controlled situation as his buddy was a DMC (my wife) who was obviously onboard with this.

I test many things under controlled circumstances, and next to none of it is rehersed or known by the student before hand.

Obviously each student is prequalified for each "test" thrown at them, and it is a highly individualized situation, that is built upon during the course.

If someone wants 5 guided dives, I'll do it for 3/4 the price, and they will have learned nothing, or very little.

YMMV.

I personally don't want to test the agency's power to enforce their standards. I'd rather just do my level best job and make a few bucks while doing it. Besides, it's still fun for me.

Regards

 

[tboxcar]

Interesting subject, one that is firm in my mind after a recent dive trip to Honduras. I will leave the Island and dive operation out of the story (although at the end of the trip I ended up having alot of respect for them). After nearly 19 years of diving, but only about 160 dives I have never gone beyond O/W, due to my own laziness or whatever. Did my training in the waters above Sydney, Australia and since them most of my diving has been in the SE Asia, and a little bit in both the Pacific, E. Africa, Red Sea , OK you get the point, I have seen a few places, but in my humble opinion I am still a very 'average' diver and only dive about 6 months out of the year.
I arrived at my dive destination in Honduras with all my gear and after a short talk with the operation ( we had been talking for weeks on line before) and it's head guy, he informed me I would not be able to dive deeper than 60ft. since I was only O/W, I thought he was joking at first, but he was not, I went home that night and looked over my log books going back to early Australia days, it amazed me how many of my dives were over 60 ft. (far the majority) and at how many dive operations did not ever even 'blink an eye'. Well long story short, I ended up taking his AOW course, and it was a breeze, what did I learn, well not a whole lot more!!! But I guess when it comes to diving anything learned or re-learned is beneficial. But can you imagine the frustration I felt when I first arrived at this resort and learned I could not dive deeper than 60ft. while others around me were doing there DM course with less than 100 dives and some doing there AOW course after only 15 dives or so. Nothing replaces experience when it comes to diving, and what an experience I had there!!!!!

 

[Curt Bowen]

My suggestion is to just go diving. Get in a group of experienced divers and put some serious time in the water. Live aboard charters are an excellent method to gaining serious bottom time and experience.

I do not believe in depth limits or restrictions be it 60 feet, 130 feet, or 500 feet. It all depends on your experience level.

 

[Iruka]

I arrived at my dive destination in Honduras with all my gear and after a short talk with the operation ( we had been talking for weeks on line before) and it's head guy, he informed me I would not be able to dive deeper than 60ft. since I was only O/W, I thought he was joking at first, but he was not, I went home that night and looked over my log books going back to early Australia days, it amazed me how many of my dives were over 60 ft. (far the majority) and at how many dive operations did not ever even 'blink an eye'.

I think this illustrates the "experience" part of the PADI recommendation is sometimes ignored by dive shops (~new OW diver should not dive deeper than 60' without additional training or experience.) Obviously, you had plenty of experience & could do the dives safely....more safely than the brand new AOW students, I expect. Sometimes I think this recommendation is mis-used to basically coerce people into paying for a class in order to do certain dives. I used to work for a shop which wouldn't allow night dives unless the diver had 100 dives or AOW. And these were just shallow, very easy dive sites.

 

[garyfotodiver]

So why do the major agencies NOT provide the level of basic training that will allow a OW diver to dive deeper than, well, 60ft? Is it so they can charge more money for additional "advanced" courses? This benefits the dive shop owners.

Perhaps the real question to ask is this: Who do the agencies REALLY represent, divers or shop owners?

 

[Walter]

So why do the major agencies NOT provide the level of basic training that will allow a OW diver to dive deeper than, well, 60ft? Is it so they can charge more money for additional "advanced" courses? This benefits the dive shop owners.

Perhaps the real question to ask is this: Who do the agencies REALLY represent, divers or shop owners?

Who says they don't. AOW isn't designed to provide additional training.

 

[DiveMaven]

I guess we were really lucky then. When we did our AOW last year, we actually learned something and got instruction!! Admittedly, the boat diving specialty was a total joke, but PPB, Navigation, and Deep were all excellent and done well by our instructor. He talked about deep theory, gas planning, turn around pressure, etc. in the deep class, we spent a long time working on our buoyancy in our PPB, and he really ran us around in navigation to test us.

Guess it goes back to that old OW recommendation.....instructor, instructor, instructor!!