freewillie
Contributor
Just for semantic purposes.Hi there
I'm travelling to the Andaman Islands for a week-long diving expedition after having completed my PADI Open Water Level 2 Autonomous Diver Standard course last year then diving 40m down the Belize Blue Hole for a total of 8 dives.
I am eager to advance my qualifications as I have ambitions to increase my ability and reach greater depths in due time.
Naturally I thought I would next complete an Advanced Open Water course but have read that the name is just deceptive marketing.
What is the best way to continue to advance my qualification with the aim of diving to greater depths as soon as is safely possible?
Any help or advice would be much appreciated!
Cheers
Tom
1.) Certificate - document certifying that the person has completed a training course and requirements for certification.
2.) Qualified - having the training and experience for a position.
In the former you might have training and education but not the experience and skill. In the latter you have experience and skill. Think of it this way. After you pass basic OW training you have a certificate but you are not qualified to teach how to dive. You need a certain amount of hours and experience with additional training to teach how to dive.
The discussions on Advance Open Water training isn't that it is worthwhile, it's the difference between certified and qualified. You might be certified after AOW to dive to 130 ft. don't have the experience. Education and training is always worthwhile. But experience and training to be qualified takes time and dives. And the education makes the diving safer which is the ultimate goal.
What separates an experienced diver from an inexperienced diver is not how they dive when the dive goes as planned, it's how do they handle the situation where a complication or an emergency arises. Look at the current thread on "Another lesson learned." Conditions can change during a dive and how you handle that in large part will be determined by your experience. From another perspective, what would happen to you if something went wrong on a deep dive? If you are recreationally diving AL 85's then you have only 5 minutes at 130 ft. Not really worth the trip down. But what if spent 10 minutes? Now you are in deco and you didn't think to hang a decompression tank for your now obligatory safety stop. I guess taking your deep diving course to prevent this would have been worthwhile.