Q on PADI's AOW regarding specialties

[Gabriel Torres]

Hi,

I think I finally understood how it works, but I wanted to double check with you.

From PADI's website and documentation, I thought you could pick and choose the three elective specialties for the Advanced Open Water Course, but in reality, we are limited by the specialties offered at each dive shop. On the region I plan to do my AOW (Australia), it seems each shop/region has these three specialties "fixed," so if I want to take the specialties that I want, I must find a dive shop that offers them. Namely, if I want to take wreck dive, I must find a dive shop that offers it (most likely one near a wreck site).

Thanks in advance,
Gabriel.

 

[RJP]

Yes.

It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" proposition.

Yes, most shops offer a specific slate of dives, so you're often stuck with that.

Yes, you might be able to find a shop that will adjust that slate. But you might be running into a situation where the instructor might not be particularly adept at that specialty.

Wreck is a good example; an introductory wreck dive from an instructor who is not an avid wreck diver would be of limited utility. Photography is another... if your instructor isn't a capable photographer what are you really going to learn?

The fixed slate approach is unfortunate, as it goes against the intention of the PADI AOW approach, which is intended to allow divers taking the course to experience a range of specialties that appeal to them... not those that appeal to the shop offering the course.

Hopefully you can find a shop that will be both willing to accommodate you and able to provide a capable instructor.

 

[Bob DBF]

Let's face it, a boat specialty on a shore dive, altitude specialty at sea level, wreck dive with no wreck, to name a few, would be a waste of everyone's time. The LDS here has a set of specialties they do depending on where the class is held. On a boat dive out of Monterey there are a few more choices than a weekend at Lake Tahoe, in any event PPB, Nav, and deep are on all that I have been around.



Bob

 

[yle]

The unfortunate fact of the PADI AOW course is that many of the elective dives require either a special location (drift dive, altitude dive, shark dive, etc) or special equipment (drysuit dive, DPV dive, photo or video, etc) or could be viewed by the student as having questionable value (boat dive, multilevel dive, etc). It's rare that any one shop has the right location and resources to offer the full menu and allow students to pick whichever three electives they like.

I'm sure there's plenty of AOW students that want to do that AWARE shark dive, and the shops have to explain that they're still working on getting the sharks to participate.

 

[TMHeimer]

Our shop has it written in stone--Deep, Wreck, Night, S & R and PPB (that one I think). I think this is a pretty good idea as these are better than some of the "fluff" ones. I took a number of them with a shop in FL that was a bit more flexible.