Should I do Advanced Open Water after completing OW?

[greg454]

I'm not an experienced diver, this weeked I'm completing my OW certification and I can't wait to continue diving. So my question is, before doing AOW, should I do a certification in Peak Bouyancy, Deep Diving, Night Diving, or can I go ahead and register for Advanced Open Water?

Also, I was checking out

Scuba News Network
http://www.cdnn.info/

and it seems they're very anti-PADI, does anyone know who's behind them? Are they radical environmentalists? Anti-free market?

 

[H20Bubbles]

Go ahead and register for the AOW class. It will provide you the introduction to the three specialties that you note and will allow you to determine whether you really want to pursue them further.

We did the AOW about 12 dives after getting our OW certs.

 

[AlexMDiver]

Ok, first off, if you like diving, then continue diving. Start getting your own gear (if you have not done so) if you think that you are going to keep diving. Don't get the brand of gear just because your instructor has it, but research into it (it is actually most of the fun in getting new gear is researching it and getting the gear you like best).
So, regarding your question. Skip the peak boyancy...it is a little bit of a gimmik, unless you are having trouble with boyancy. Do the AOW instead of the specialties, since the deep and night dive are part of it.
The AOW will teach you some things, but not many new things. Basically, it is just more time in the water with an instructor expanding your comfort zone. Remember what advanced literally means: Just beyond basic. Advanced therefore does not mean you are a pro, but means that you are allowed to have loads of fun in the range of your comfort and ability level. If you did not have a bad experience in your OW with PADI then I do not see a reason to change. As with any big organisation, there are people that oppose it or things they do. These things may have validity or might just be made up. If PADI worked for you, again, I see no reason to change it. Most other agencies are the pretty much the same and as most people will tell you on this board, it is all about the instructor, not the alphabet logo. If you are excited about diving from your OW, your instructor must be doing the right things.

I recommend you going at least up to Rescue Diver if you want to keep diving. This class will teach you a lot more and those skills will come in handy one day and is a lot of fun. Continuing education is a good thing in diving, you never will know it all. Whether it should be split up into the education chunks as they are at the moment (i.e. should the OW include more rescue skills) is up to debate in other threads maybe.

Great to hear that you enjoy diving! Welcome to the sport and see you u/w in some ocean sometime.

A.

 

[mike_s]

I'm not an experienced diver, this weeked I'm completing my OW certification and I can't wait to continue diving. So my question is, before doing AOW, should I do a certification in Peak Bouyancy, Deep Diving, Night Diving, or can I go ahead and register for Advanced Open Water?

Also, I was checking out

Scuba News Network
http://www.cdnn.info/

and it seems they're very anti-PADI, does anyone know who's behind them? Are they radical environmentalists? Anti-free market?

Yes... While AOW is not required, if you have a good instructor, then it will help you become a better diver. Since you "can't wait to continue diving", this will be a good course for you. As for the speciality courses, AOW is actually doing 5 of the specialty courses almost, or a shorter version of them. You have to do a Deep Dive and an Navigation dive for AOW, but you can choose three other "specialities" to do on your other dives. (However, many dive shops already do certain ones, like Peak Bouyancy for example). If you want to get into "card collecting" you can always take these clases as specialities later, or incorporate that with your AOW class, which might take it a little longer. check with your instructor.

does CDNN have something against PADI? from the stuff I've seen on their site I'd say that's a definate yes. Every now and then they have something usefull on their site but most of the time they seem to have a pretty biased agenda they are publishing. They are pretty negative most of the time.

 

[gander]

I would ask, "How comfortable are you in the water?". After getting my OW cert, I felt confident, however, it was pretty weird jumping into the water all alone (i.e., without an instructor at your side). It's kind of like when you first get to solo a plane.

My personal thoughts are that you should dive a bit to get your basic skills more refined. The more you dive the more refined you'll become. This will be especially noticable in your first 10 to 20 dives after certification. I chose to wait until I had about 30 dives in before I did the AOW course. At that point, I was very comfortable in the water under many conditions. Therefore, I was not in sensory overload trying to improve my basic skills while trying to learn new skills. I would say the exception to this is Peak Performance Buoyancy, but even with this specialty, I would suggest learning as much as you can by diving, then having an instructor help you to tweak your skills further.

Just my two cents.

Greg

 

[Wayward Son]

I dunno, I tend to be more of the "log a few dives & get comfortable with OW diving a bit" 1st. I've deckhanded with newbie OW divers when they took an AOW, at the end of it I really don't think they got as much out of it as they should have. Largely bc they were so new that even their most basic skills in the water were poor. Something that simply going diving & logging some bottom time would have taken care of.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm not an experienced diver, this weeked I'm completing my OW certification and I can't wait to continue diving. So my question is, before doing AOW, should I do a certification in Peak Bouyancy, Deep Diving, Night Diving, or can I go ahead and register for Advanced Open Water?

Also, I was checking out

Scuba News Network
http://www.cdnn.info/

and it seems they're very anti-PADI, does anyone know who's behind them? Are they radical environmentalists? Anti-free market?

First off, as someone already said, I would recommend (and do, to my students) that anyone who is interested in doing more than just following a divemaster around on vacation dives should pursue both AOW and Rescue training. It can help you improve both your skills and your confidence in them.

However, not all AOW classes are created equal. If you peruse the threads in this forum on the topic, you'll see a lot of people say they didn't learn anything in AOW. For the most part, those are the people who signed up for AOW fresh out of OW ... people who were sold the class as "five more dives with an instructor".

Not all instructors will teach the class that way. Do you want quick and easy? Or do you really want to learn something? If the latter, ask around till you find an instructor who will actually teach you something about buoyancy control, dive planning, and navigation ... at a minimum. Does the course include academic instruction? Not all of them do. Will the instructor show you how to calculate your SAC rate? More to the point, will (s)he show you how to apply it to figuring out how much gas you will use before taking you on a deep dive? That's kind've important, since you want to be assured you're taking enough gas with you for the dive you want to do.

I encourage my students to get out and do some dives between OW and AOW. I want them to get comfortable with the basic things they learned in OW ... so that we can spend our AOW time focusing on taking those skills to a higher level, and introducing new skills that will make drift, deep, and night diving more enjoyable.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dukeh20]

I did my AOW along with the Nitrox certification last summer. For me, by the time I was comfortable doing multiple dives (4-5 a day) so that I would enjoy the benefits of Nitrox, I figured I was ready for the AOW. It's even easier now that PADI does not require the dives as part of the nitrox certification. If you feel ready, go for it.

 

[Mr. Sunday]

I would agree with Bob (Grateful Diver). I would do both AOW and Rescue training. They are both important and will help make you a better, safer diver.

 

[greg454]

Thanks guys, from your advice, I've decided to log on more dives before attempting AOW. I like my OW instructor, he was a diver in the navy, so I'll definetely want to take more classes with him in the future.