PADI OW Cert.- Depth of 4 OW dives

[scubajo007]

NoDiver I know the feeling “do I have to go that deep, what if …”
I don’t think you should be too concerned at this stage, just get on with it. On a bottom dive with a gentle slope, whether you are 12 or 18m down you will not feel much of a difference, and remember you are entitled to abandon a dive at any time, in case just don’t bolt up, signal and then you and the Instructor can assent slowly. One thing I would recommend is that you get your own Instructor so he/she only have you as a diver that should make things much easier.
I think you will be fine once you get on with it and, it is a great feeling when you have completed the dive and you get the debriefing, you feel so relaxed just wait and see.
Good Luck and let us know how you did.

Mjatkins, Yes you are right logging 13.3m as 12m that’s to cover the Instructors butt.

 

[Diver0001]

There are various degrees to this. For example going to 12m and diving to 18m isnt in reality much difference.

Id be more nervous AOW wise if they'd been to 19m and are now qualified to 30m as this is now a large difference in terms of possible narcosis, air consumption, suit compression, light levels, no stop times and so on.
Even worse a deep spec and potentially visiting 19-20m then certified to 40m.

I agree with this too mate. There *is* a big difference between 19 metres and 29 metres because of narcosis pressure, light levels, less time, less air supply etc....

When I teach AOW I take them to 25/26 because that's how deep the best site I have available to do AOW is. When I train for 40m then I take them to min 36. I do this because the site where I can do this is good logistically, but more importantly, because I think there is something significant to be learned from feeling it first hand on deep dives.... and because the psychological aspects of diving deep really are a key issue in the training. Getting that bottom time in at depth is important.

So yeah, I fully agree with you on this point.

R..

 

[NoDiver]

NoDiver I know the feeling “do I have to go that deep, what if …”I don’t think you should be too concerned at this stage, just get on with it. On a bottom dive with a gentle slope, whether you are 12 or 18m down you will not feel much of a difference, and remember you are entitled to abandon a dive at any time, in case just don’t bolt up, signal and then you and the Instructor can assent slowly. One thing I would recommend is that you get your own Instructor so he/she only have you as a diver that should make things much easier.
I think you will be fine once you get on with it and, it is a great feeling when you have completed the dive and you get the debriefing, you feel so relaxed just wait and see.
Good Luck and let us know how you did.

As Diver0001 stated in an earlier post, the difference, then, is psychological rather than physiological.

Thank you all for your invaluable comments and advice.

All I need to do now is pass the medical.

 

[Quero]

Hi NoDiver. I'd like to echo much of the insight you have been offered in this thread. In the PADI Open Water course, the first two open water dives are required to be fairly shallow and the second two are allowed to be deeper. I always take my students to 18 meters on at least one of the last two training dives. We don't stay at that depth very long, but we stop to look at gauges a couple of times and then head up to shallower areas of the reef to complete the dive. This way students see firsthand how depth impacts their reserves of air, and they answer some of their own questions such as, Isn't it very dark down at 18 meters? Will I feel pressure on my body at that depth? How do I keep from going TOO deep? I can explain the answers to these kinds of questions, but it's so satisfying when students get back on the boat and say, You were right! I didn't notice any difference! Wow, the air really does go fast when we get deep! I see what you mean that I have to put air in my BCD as we go deeper, and so on. I think there's real value in going a bit deeper while under the care of an instructor.

Having said that though, there's nothing saying that just because you're trained to that depth you are obliged to dive that deep when you plan your own dives. I know lots of very experienced divers who love to stay at 10-15 meters because they like the vivid colors and the extended dive times that shallow dives allow them to have.

Finally, I tell all my students who have finished their courses with 4 to 6 open water dives that they now have a license to learn, and that they should dive as if they had a great big red L on their wetsuits for a while. They'll realize one fine day that everything just 'clicks' on a dive and they finally feel like 'real divers.'

PS--Among my favorite ways to do AOW courses is on our liveaboards here. My typical liveaboard AOW is 14-15 dives long--of course only five of them count towards the cert, but we're consciously putting into practice the new skills even on non-training dives.

 

[Peter Guy]

One thing that I think has been skipped over in this discussion is the following (from the old PADI Manual) -- Open Water Divers are certified to do dives with a buddy

in conditions with which they have training and/or experience.

It is because of this that I try to get my students close to the maximum depths "allowed" by their cert -- AS LONG AS they appear to be capable of going there. This is certainly true at the Open Water level where on Dives 3 & 4 I want the tour to be to at least 50 feet (sorry, not metric capable!).

This "restriction" is also why I do not encourage local divers to do referrals because my goal is to teach a student how to dive in our local waters -- cold, dark and full of life.

In the OP's situation, where he appears to live in the UK, diving locally will probably NOT be similar to his Open Water dives "in warmer climes." Even though he might get somewhere close to 60 feet during those dives, IF he decided to try local diving, I would urge him to start out with a much more experienced diver (if not a pro).