someone please help explain this

[ASert]

so i have my AOW cert. i took deep,peak performance buoyancy, underwater navigation, search and recovery, and wreck. apparently there are more dives need for wreck, PPB, ect. to get the actual specialty? ( or am i not making any sense ) i probably am not explaining this properly

 

[robertarak]

AOW is like a sampler platter of specialty courses. It is designed to introduce you to Navigation and Deep diving, as well as 3 other specialties. It does this by giving you what is essentially dive #1 of each of the five specialties you take as part of AOW. All of the specialties are multiple dives to receive the specialty certification.

 

[Insta-Gator]

Did you not do any dives for your specialties for the AOW? (Non-pool)

 

[scoobydrew]

I understand what you are trying to say here.

The subjects you have listed are not subjects that can be taught to the point of being a specialist in them during one dive. The idea I think is that there are many different interests in diving, for example some people want to try photography, others wreck diving, others are interested in different types of marine life and as I assume you are referring to the PADI system then this system offers courses in certain areas which people can take in order to develop their understanding and ability in this area. These courses are normally 3-5 dives and in themselves do not profess to creating a specialist, they introduce new skills, ability and training for the diver to then take away and work on in order to increase their own ability. The Advanced Open Water course comprises of 5 dives and each one of these dives will be the first dive of the full specialty so it kind of gives the student the ability to try a few areas of interest before pursuing the full specialty.

A big reason people take the AOW is to get the greater depth certification from 18M/60feet to 30M/100feet and as the student gets this extra depth certification one of the dives has to be a deep dive (the first dive of the deep dive specialty course).

 

[ASert]

Did you not do any dives for your specialties for the AOW? (Non-pool)

yes all of them

 

[Agility]

Most specialities need more than one dive for completion.
If you take a speciality course with the same instructor/shop they might give you a rebate for having dive #1 in your AOW training. BUT if I were you I would take the whole speciality course because at our dive count supervised dives are very valuable to improve diving skills.

 

[PsyWulf]

AOW is an intro to specializations,just to get a feel for what certs you might like,you can do 30 adventure dives if you pay per dive ( 1 per cert )
These usually count to the specialization. The fee you pay for the specs is usually card fee,gear,and a bit for the school so AOW would cost a crapload more if they handed out 6 cert cards

 

[Mustard Dave]

PADI call the dives you do on AOW 'Adventure Dives'. If you have your OW and do three Adventure Dives, you are now an 'Adventure Diver'. There are no tangible benefits to this other than what you learn on the dives. If you have OW plus five adventure dives, you are now an 'Advanced Open Water Diver'. This qualifies you to 30m (100 ft).

If you wanted to do your deep speciality, that is four dives. Some instructors will include your deep dive from the AOW so you just need three dives to gain the speciality and a certification depth of 40m (130 ft).

The full specialities are mostly (IMHO) a waste of money that could be better put to use buying kit or just diving. The only ones I would bother with are deep and nitrox.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

The wreck diving specialty goes way beyond a wreck dive in an AOW course. Multiple dives; planning for special equipment use and practicing its use, rules for penetration, and so on. There is a difference in swimming around a sunken ship and entering part of it. There is technique to swimming with a line you deploy as you go, and keeping it from tanglingorr breaking,. These are just some areas you will address in a wreck course. I encourage you to take it. You will increase your skill set, and learn a bunch of safety practices so that if and when you are ready for some serious wreck diving, you can enjoy it.
DivemasterDennis

 

[Subcooled]

Yes, more dives are needed for the actual specialties, as the answers above told. Those courses can be great fun. Have you considered taking the rescue diver course?