Padi Master scuba diver

[DevonDiver]

Open Water is an entry-level qualification. Advanced Open Water is an advancement at that entry-level.

I mean no offence - as, yes, an Open Water diver can subsequently gain experience. Whether that experience makes them an 'advanced diver' is another matter... as technically, their training is not progressing into more complex or demanding diving activities.

I quote again: Advanced - "ahead in development or progress". In terms of training... an Open Water diver isn't advanced. In terms of experience, they may be.

I'm struggling with your perspective because you left out one of the words yourself. The title is clearly: Advanced [-]Open[/-][-] Water[/-] Diver

Ok... so we're only to ignore 50% of the words to meet your imaginary qualification status, rather than 75% of the words.

What a great [-]moronically[/-] [-]stupid[/-] idea

 

[TMHeimer]

While I don't agree with it and wish it was changed I understand from a marketing view why PADI or any agency uses the terms "Advanced" and "Master". And I support any diver that gets continuing education.

But I think it is up to all instructors to make sure each of their students receiving those certifications hear something like:

"Congratulations you passed the AOW class and will receive that certification. I do believe your skills have advanced since you entered the class but please be aware you are not necessarily an Advanced diver. You should be very careful in your dive site and condition selection. There are many dives or conditions you are still not qualified for. Continue to dive and practice skills within your reasonable limits, take additional classes, dive with a mentor or more experienced diver, and continue to learn and advance your skills. Have fun but dive safe!"

I'm sure those more experienced than me could think of much more to say.

Don't know what more could be added. IMO you said it perfectly.

 

[Crass3000]

I don't think anyone is delusional enough (I sure hope not) to think that if they go straight from OW to AOW and then quickly advance through 5 specialties plus rescue that they are either "Advanced" or a "Master Scuba" diver. Besides taking classes I dive solo so the extra supervision in classes and introduction to quarries was a great thing. I personally went through the ranks as fast as I could schedule them to gain more experience around professionals and get the book knowledge that even comes with each of the AOW dives. There is undeniably some good knowledge you have to read before each AOW dive (not tons of course but better than nothing). I then did the nitrox, deep, navigation, wreck, and night specialties that I believe helped me gain more skills than if I just tried to figure out tricks on my own. There is really no use in recreating the wheel. I also dove as much as possible between classes and practiced different skills on different dives. I am not dumb enough to think I have touched even a small amount of the experience or knowledge that I would like to have but for me taking the classes is safer as I dive solo (which I was comfortable with right after my OW class). I certainly understand why people think that AOW and MSD should be renamed and they probably should but that all on PADI and their marketing. I felt like I got a good deal. I paid for my MSD card and am heading for a SDI Solo class soon. Hoping to get a technical set-up so that I can do some cavern, cave, decompression classes in the future but at this point I'm OK with practicing the skills I have learned before moving further. In any case, I understand why you all are uncomfortable with the names AOW and MSD but there is really nothing a student can do about the names. I'm sure nobody really puts too much into the names as the more you know about diving the more you realize that you don't know much. I guess my point is that you should take the class names up with PADI. As a student, there is just a reasonable progression and AOW and MSD is basically part of it if you can spare the $50.

 

[chrpai]

I don't think anyone is delusional enough (I sure hope not) to think that if they go straight from OW to AOW and then quickly advance through 5 specialties plus rescue that they are either "Advanced" or a "Master Scuba" diver.

Tack on DM, AI and OWSI and add the fact that they live in a land locked state and get a pathetic number of dives in per year.... yes, there are those around here that are that delusional.

And there are LDS's that market "Master Diver .. the black belt of diving!" (Google It)

 

[eponym]

And there are LDS's that market "Master Diver .. the black belt of diving!" (Google It)

. . . and fail to mention that no-one can see your black belt against your black exposure suit . . .

Seriously, that's a lame claim. I do often draw parallels between diving and martial arts when I'm teaching, but along the lines of life choices: whether to follow the discipline or take shortcuts; being aware of your choices; taking responsibility.

 

[WheelsUSN]

I think SSI have a better approach - to be "advanced" you need to do full specialty courses, not simply a try-dive. If it was up to me i'd also make a full rescue course a requirement of AOW too, and ensure that the specialites have to fall into a certain bucket - i.e deep and nav would qualify, but not photo or boat diver - but that would make the PADI 5Star standard practice of up-selling OW students to AOW just a bit hard for the money making machine to keep churning over.

Its true that SSI requires 4 full specialties but according to the SSI training standards that can be done in as few as 4 dives if the instructor wishes.

Nitrox can count as one of the specialties without any dives required. For all other specialties, the instructor can combine the dives and count them towards more than specialty.

Open water specialty training dives may be combined so that the total minimum numbers of required dives are as follows:
Combining 2 specialties requires 3 total dives
Combining 3 specialties requires 4 total dives
Combining 4 specialties requires 5 total dives

It is true that SSI requires 24 total dives to be certified as Advanced Open Water but other than the 4 dives for OW and the possibly as few as 4 dives for the specialties, the other 16 dives can be unsupervised and potentially even faked in the students logs. In addition there is no requirement for any deep or navigation training. The four specialties chosen could be Nitrox, Boat, Altitude and Computer.

Once again it comes down to the Instructor being more important than the agency to determine how valuable the training required to earn the certification actually is.

 

[eponym]

It is true that SSI requires 24 total dives to be certified as Advanced Open Water but other than the 4 dives for OW and the possibly as few as 4 dives for the specialties, the other 16 dives can be unsupervised and potentially even faked in the student's logs.

Please. These are my students, my buddies. They've been out diving with me after OWD and during and after their individual specialties. Let's not go all conspiracy theory here. Let's have a modicum of respect for divers and for the process.

 

[WheelsUSN]

Please. These are my students, my buddies. They've been out diving with me after OWD and during and after their individual specialties. Let's not go all conspiracy theory here. Let's have a modicum of respect for divers and for the process.

I just said it was a possibility not a probability. Hopefully any diver that really wants the training isn't going to cheat himself out of the experience. But I still believe it could happen. I do know of someone who went to a local dive site and went down to one of the platforms at 15 feet and would sit there for 20 minutes, make an ascent and then descend again and count it as a dive so he could pad his dive count to be eligible to start DM training. He logged 12 dives in one day.

 

[boulderjohn]

I just said it was a possibility not a probability. Hopefully any diver that really wants the training isn't going to cheat himself out of the experience. But I still believe it could happen. I do know of someone who went to a local dive site and went down to one of the platforms at 15 feet and would sit there for 20 minutes, make an ascent and then descend again and count it as a dive so he could pad his dive count to be eligible to start DM training. He logged 12 dives in one day.

This is called "teabagging." It is common enough to have a nickname.

 

[chrpai]

This is called "teabagging." It is common enough to have a nickname.

Yet another reason to not bother counting dives....