acteg
Contributor
Hey scubaboard, I recently did my AOW class. I had previously inquired on this forum regarding a good AOW instructor, so I thought I would pass on my experience to anyone else who is interested in getting their AOW cert. Mods, please feel free to move this if it's in the wrong place. My write up is kind of long, and I don't have any pretty pictures to break up the paragraphs; my apologies in advance.
I had the opportunity to do a one-on-one AOW class with scubaboard's own, Howard Ehrenberg. I decided to go with Howard for my AOW because one: he offered, and two: his professional dive resume. After my own experience during OW certification, and observing my girlfriends OW certification, I decided I wanted an instructor for AOW with broad professional/commercial experience, rather than a hobbyist diver. My main interests were deep dive, wreck diving, and search and recovery. Howard has vast working knowledge in these areas, so he seemed like a good fit for the skillset I was looking to acquire. Since the PADI AOW is a 5 skill speciality we did Deep Dive and Navigation as required, followed by S&R, Wreck, and Peak Buoyancy.
The first part of my AOW involved filling out a student questionnaire. After reviewing my answers, Howard provided feedback, and mentioned that he would wear a similar gear setup as mine. I thought this was a great idea for addressing any gear specific questions. On the day of my AOW class, I met Howard for the first time (we had corresponded via email up until this point), and went over the knowledge reviews in the PADI adventure dive book. Howard went over each knowledge review question, throwing in pointers or corrections when needed, as well as providing real world anecdotes. One thing I enjoyed about Howard's teaching style was that he gave you the "PADI definition", the real world "who what when where why" for every fundamental skill, and the occasional history lesson. I really enjoyed hearing about the practical application of the skills I was about to learn, from a commercial diver who has mastered these skills the old fashioned way... hard work in the field.
After going over the knowledge reviews Howard helped me with knot tying. The lesson wasn't just, here is a "bowline" knot, here is a "double hitch" knot. The lesson was here is a "bowline", this is how you do it, these are it's strengths, these are scenarios in which we use bowlines in the field. Howard also went over different ways to rig up different objects for lifting (from simple to more complex objects). In my case, I was to use a bowline knot to affix the line to the lift bag, and then a double hitch to attach the line to the object I was to lift.
After knot tying, we went outside to practice navigation. This was pretty straightforward. I had an electronic compass, so Howard lent me a standard compass so I could practice indexing North and maintaining a heading, etc.
Next up was the dive. We dove with South Florida Diving Headquarters. Standard reef dives at approx. 50'. Before getting wet, we took note of the features we could, sun angle, etc as per the PADI instruction to get our navigational bearing. Howard instructed me to descend, and maintain a west heading, which would put us in the sand. So in we went, maintaining contact as we descended. After a short swim we were in the sand, and I began my navigational training by counting my kick cycles along a 20' line. Once we had an estimate of distance to kick cycle, I performed additional navigational techniques such as the square pattern. I was happy to end up right where I started. Visibility wasn't too great, so I quickly lost sight of my starting marker soon into the pattern, but was relieved when I finished right on top of it. I then did a 100' swim based my kick cycle estimate. All in all it was a cool dive and I gained a lot more confidence in my ability to navigate underwater.
The next skill we did was search and recovery. Howard placed a fishing weight, somewhere in the area, and instructed me to perform the various search patterns to find it. I didn't have much luck finding it until we did the circle search pattern. Howard, was generous enough to lend me a reel, and with a little help I found the fishing weight. The cool thing about this dive, was that Howard gave me a brief intro into how they do S&R in the real world, what patterns work well, and what patterns don't, what knot's they use and when they use them, how they excavate sites, and how they move heavy items along the bottom. We finished this dive up by lifting a 25lb weight belt. I affixed a bowline to the lift bag, and a double hitch around the buckle of the weight belt. Once the weight belt had achieved neutral buoyancy, I began to swim it to the surface with a very slow ascent. About half way up, the lift bag seemed to be ascending a little too fast and I dumped some air from the valve. Oops.. too much air. Down, down, down, went the weight belt. I went back down and gave it a little more air, returning it to neutral buoyancy. Second time was the charm as I kept the bag neutral all the way to the top. Once on the top, I filled the bag a little more to make it a little extra positive, and swam it over the boat (which was nearby).
After we finished the S&R, we then did the buoyancy dive. In addition to the skills required, Howard filmed me. Howard gave me some pointers, and after watching the film, it was clear what areas could use improvement. This concluded day one of AOW.
Day two was set aside for Deep diving, and Wreck diving. The wreck dive was pretty cool. Howard had me draw a picture of the wreck as soon as we got to the tie off. I noted the position and depth of the tie off line, as well as the cardinal direction the bow was facing, per Howard's instruction. We affixed a strobe light to the tie off line as an "exit point" marker. I had never thought of doing this before, and I thought it really made sense. Besides the standard PADI skills, another cool skill that Howard showed me, was how to run line on a wreck, and how to work the line as a buddy team. Howard, had me run the line outside of the wreck, affixing it correctly at intervals, while he followed behind. Then we turned around and I followed him, reeling in the line as he kept tension on it. It was a really cool experience.
On the deep dive, Howard, had me perform some simple math problems at depth, and analzye different colors at depth. Either the math problems were too easy, or I wasn't deep enough to show any signs of narcosis. It was a fun dive and was one of my deeper dives to date.
All in all, AOW was a great experience. It was a pleasure to be able to receive instruction and real world knowledge from a guy like Howard. I highly recommend him for anyone who wants to get more than just another card.
I had the opportunity to do a one-on-one AOW class with scubaboard's own, Howard Ehrenberg. I decided to go with Howard for my AOW because one: he offered, and two: his professional dive resume. After my own experience during OW certification, and observing my girlfriends OW certification, I decided I wanted an instructor for AOW with broad professional/commercial experience, rather than a hobbyist diver. My main interests were deep dive, wreck diving, and search and recovery. Howard has vast working knowledge in these areas, so he seemed like a good fit for the skillset I was looking to acquire. Since the PADI AOW is a 5 skill speciality we did Deep Dive and Navigation as required, followed by S&R, Wreck, and Peak Buoyancy.
The first part of my AOW involved filling out a student questionnaire. After reviewing my answers, Howard provided feedback, and mentioned that he would wear a similar gear setup as mine. I thought this was a great idea for addressing any gear specific questions. On the day of my AOW class, I met Howard for the first time (we had corresponded via email up until this point), and went over the knowledge reviews in the PADI adventure dive book. Howard went over each knowledge review question, throwing in pointers or corrections when needed, as well as providing real world anecdotes. One thing I enjoyed about Howard's teaching style was that he gave you the "PADI definition", the real world "who what when where why" for every fundamental skill, and the occasional history lesson. I really enjoyed hearing about the practical application of the skills I was about to learn, from a commercial diver who has mastered these skills the old fashioned way... hard work in the field.
After going over the knowledge reviews Howard helped me with knot tying. The lesson wasn't just, here is a "bowline" knot, here is a "double hitch" knot. The lesson was here is a "bowline", this is how you do it, these are it's strengths, these are scenarios in which we use bowlines in the field. Howard also went over different ways to rig up different objects for lifting (from simple to more complex objects). In my case, I was to use a bowline knot to affix the line to the lift bag, and then a double hitch to attach the line to the object I was to lift.
After knot tying, we went outside to practice navigation. This was pretty straightforward. I had an electronic compass, so Howard lent me a standard compass so I could practice indexing North and maintaining a heading, etc.
Next up was the dive. We dove with South Florida Diving Headquarters. Standard reef dives at approx. 50'. Before getting wet, we took note of the features we could, sun angle, etc as per the PADI instruction to get our navigational bearing. Howard instructed me to descend, and maintain a west heading, which would put us in the sand. So in we went, maintaining contact as we descended. After a short swim we were in the sand, and I began my navigational training by counting my kick cycles along a 20' line. Once we had an estimate of distance to kick cycle, I performed additional navigational techniques such as the square pattern. I was happy to end up right where I started. Visibility wasn't too great, so I quickly lost sight of my starting marker soon into the pattern, but was relieved when I finished right on top of it. I then did a 100' swim based my kick cycle estimate. All in all it was a cool dive and I gained a lot more confidence in my ability to navigate underwater.
The next skill we did was search and recovery. Howard placed a fishing weight, somewhere in the area, and instructed me to perform the various search patterns to find it. I didn't have much luck finding it until we did the circle search pattern. Howard, was generous enough to lend me a reel, and with a little help I found the fishing weight. The cool thing about this dive, was that Howard gave me a brief intro into how they do S&R in the real world, what patterns work well, and what patterns don't, what knot's they use and when they use them, how they excavate sites, and how they move heavy items along the bottom. We finished this dive up by lifting a 25lb weight belt. I affixed a bowline to the lift bag, and a double hitch around the buckle of the weight belt. Once the weight belt had achieved neutral buoyancy, I began to swim it to the surface with a very slow ascent. About half way up, the lift bag seemed to be ascending a little too fast and I dumped some air from the valve. Oops.. too much air. Down, down, down, went the weight belt. I went back down and gave it a little more air, returning it to neutral buoyancy. Second time was the charm as I kept the bag neutral all the way to the top. Once on the top, I filled the bag a little more to make it a little extra positive, and swam it over the boat (which was nearby).
After we finished the S&R, we then did the buoyancy dive. In addition to the skills required, Howard filmed me. Howard gave me some pointers, and after watching the film, it was clear what areas could use improvement. This concluded day one of AOW.
Day two was set aside for Deep diving, and Wreck diving. The wreck dive was pretty cool. Howard had me draw a picture of the wreck as soon as we got to the tie off. I noted the position and depth of the tie off line, as well as the cardinal direction the bow was facing, per Howard's instruction. We affixed a strobe light to the tie off line as an "exit point" marker. I had never thought of doing this before, and I thought it really made sense. Besides the standard PADI skills, another cool skill that Howard showed me, was how to run line on a wreck, and how to work the line as a buddy team. Howard, had me run the line outside of the wreck, affixing it correctly at intervals, while he followed behind. Then we turned around and I followed him, reeling in the line as he kept tension on it. It was a really cool experience.
On the deep dive, Howard, had me perform some simple math problems at depth, and analzye different colors at depth. Either the math problems were too easy, or I wasn't deep enough to show any signs of narcosis. It was a fun dive and was one of my deeper dives to date.
All in all, AOW was a great experience. It was a pleasure to be able to receive instruction and real world knowledge from a guy like Howard. I highly recommend him for anyone who wants to get more than just another card.
