Should I Do My Advanced O/W?

[jviehe]

AOW is about gaining experience, not learning stuff. You do indeed learn somethings, however. Furthermore, you can not take the PADI wreck class without having done at least 3 adventure dives, or having an AOW cert or equivelant cert. If you have only 8 dives, I recomend doing the AOW class before deep and wreck specialities, as the AOW will broaden your experience, and count towards those specialities.

 

[ligersandtions]

My wife and I got certified two weeks ago and we have 8 dives so far. We are primarily interested in wrecks but we are practicing in the quarries to get a level of comfort with the basics before our first ocean dive on the Indra next week. It seems to make more sense for us to take the deep and wreck specialty courses where we would actually learn something useful and get qualified to do what we truly desire. I'm sure some folks learn something in AOW class, but I see minimal benefits other than five more supervised dives.
"
So, what is your recommendation - the AOW class or the deep and wreck classes? "Both" is an option, but I don't see much benefit in the AOW class.

If you are already planning on doing deep and wreck, you're 2/5 of the way toward your AOW. You have to do underwater navigation, which is an important skill for diving in general (one that I'm working on because I'm not the greatest....although I navigate a mean square! ). Another one that would probably be good if you're interested in diving deep and wrecks is a night dive....then you get used to lower visibility and using a light. That puts you at 4/5 of the way toward your AOW, all of which will help you in your ultimate goal of diving wrecks that are deep underwater. Now you just have to choose one more....and if I may recommend, I would say peak performance buoyancy is likely to help a new diver who may not have worked on their buoyancy much.

After you take those five, one of the deep and one of the wreck dives will count toward your specialty courses....and you'll have more tools in your diving "toolbox" to help prepare you for them.

 

[goodluck99]

Hi everybody,
90% of you seem to be towards the idea of me taking my AOW soon; so I've booked on to a course next week, which by then I'll hve 11 dives. Thanks!

 

[floridanewbe]

Go for it

 

[Tigerman]

Get about 20 dives first, the more experience you have, the more you will get out of the course. Work on your bouyancy control and finning techniques. As others stated it is not really "advanced". But it is a chance to learn more skills under supervision.

I dont find that to be quite true.
The more expereience you have, the more likely it is that you have already done the types of diving youll do in AOW (and gotten bad habits is a fair chance) and end up doing it "just for the plastic"...

 

[String]

Im of the view that the more dives you have the less useful AOW will be to you.

AOW is basically a way to get people to have 5 more dives since qualifying under the watch of an instructor. Its a safe way for them to get early experience and reinforce things such as buoyancy they would have touched on but not really mastered in basic training.

To someone thats been out and dived lots chances are they have this experience anyway so AOW isnt worth it.

For UK diving the navigation one is fairly useful but 2 absolute essentials id say are drysuit and SMB (which afaik cant count towards advanced) so id say do those specialities instead first and just go diving.

 

[Sas]

What Tigerman and String said. If you dive regularly or have an experienced buddy who can show you the ropes then AOW won't really teach you much so do it as soon as you get out of OW I think, if you plan on getting at all. I started off my AOW (mine took from March - Jun as I did SSI) with the idea I would learn a lot more about diving but by the end of the course I was only doing it to be allowed on charters to deeper dive sites, it doesn't give much benefit other than that to me. But I did have nearly 50 dives by the time I finished it... if I had done it all when I first started it would have been useful. Instead I went on charters and got instabuddies, not sure which way would have been the best to be honest... but doing it the way I did certainly made me realise how I need to be self-reliant, even when diving with a buddy!

 

[FishOutUvH2O]

I dont find that to be quite true.
The more expereience you have, the more likely it is that you have already done the types of diving youll do in AOW (and gotten bad habits is a fair chance) and end up doing it "just for the plastic"...

Im of the view that the more dives you have the less useful AOW will be to you.

AOW is basically a way to get people to have 5 more dives since qualifying under the watch of an instructor. Its a safe way for them to get early experience and reinforce things such as buoyancy they would have touched on but not really mastered in basic training.

To someone thats been out and dived lots chances are they have this experience anyway so AOW isnt worth it.

For UK diving the navigation one is fairly useful but 2 absolute essentials id say are drysuit and SMB (which afaik cant count towards advanced) so id say do those specialities instead first and just go diving.

What Tigerman and String said. If you dive regularly or have an experienced buddy who can show you the ropes then AOW won't really teach you much so do it as soon as you get out of OW I think, if you plan on getting at all. I started off my AOW (mine took from March - Jun as I did SSI) with the idea I would learn a lot more about diving but by the end of the course I was only doing it to be allowed on charters to deeper dive sites, it doesn't give much benefit other than that to me. But I did have nearly 50 dives by the time I finished it... if I had done it all when I first started it would have been useful. Instead I went on charters and got instabuddies, not sure which way would have been the best to be honest... but doing it the way I did certainly made me realise how I need to be self-reliant, even when diving with a buddy!

I just certified in Texas last week and I'm down in Cozumel right now (I'm typing this in my hotel room during a quick food break) to take my AOW and then do some reef diving. After having done all of the reading for the AOW (we start the dives tomorrow) and speaking to our instructor, I'm going to have to agree with these posts. AOW is just simply an extension of OW. I'm glad I chose to take the class right-out of OW. A lot of the reading is good stuff, but could've, maybe should've, been taught in OW (but then how would PADI & dive shops make more $).

 

[hvulin]

just do it, look at it as a fun way to learn something and do some diving at the same time...

depth is not limited by your courses but by your head... (and experience)

 

[orionnt]

I did my AOW training immediatley after my OW training. I actually took the course for OW, and while i was in teh process of getting my check out dives for OW done, I started the AOW course. We went to Key Largo for a few dives, and i remember getting my OW cert on Friday and starting the dives for my AOW cert on Saturday.

Like some people said, If you have alot of dives, or have a more experienced buddy, AOW may not be worth it. But it does increase your depth, and several operators i have been with will not let you dive some of the cooler and deeper sites w/o the AOW cert. Id say if anything, just get it for that purpose. Also, if you plan to get the more advanced certifications, i believe you need AOW as a pre-req.