It does depend on what the course content was in that longer course. My OW class is 6-8 weeks once a week with half the session in the classroom and half in the pool. The student ends up with somewhere between 12 and 14 hours in each. In the first session they don't even put a SCUBA unit on. It's all swimming, snorkeling, and breath-hold diving skills. That is also where they learn mask clear, fin techniques, and the fundamentals of buoyancy and trim using proper weighting and lung volume control.
Some people do get it quickly. Many don't. I want to see at least a dozen mask remove and replacements while swimming and doing other tasks. Along with reg recovery, weight adjustment and remove/replace, etc.
We do a complete gear remove and replace and exchange in the OW class. There are also rescue skills included. Panicked diver at the surface, non-responsive diver from depth, rescue tow while stripping gear, and supporting a diver at the surface and helping them achieve positive buoyancy.
All skills are done neutral and horizontal. No kneeling.
We cover emergency decompression tables using the US Navy air dive tables and I spend one classroom session solely on gas management.
Since we are in an area where vis can get bad on checkout dives, one pool session is spent on skills with eyes closed or using a blacked-out mask.
I don't take my OW students on checkouts unless I am 100% certain that if I have a problem, they can safely assist me and end the dive.
At the end of checkouts before I give them their card there are two questions I need to answer.
Would I dive with them and be certain they would be a good buddy and be able to help me if I had a problem, and would I allow my kids, wife, girlfriend, or anyone else I care about to dive with them without me or another dive professional present? Knowing they will be ok. Only then will I give them a card.
If they meet all the standards, do great on checkouts, and then say to me something that makes me think they would not be safe or be a danger to others, they don't get a card and the agency will back me up on this. In fact, it's in the standards that we have to be satisfied they will be a safe diver and good buddy.
It's called the "loved one principle" and it has seen some of my students have to do additional checkouts because the comfort level in the pool doesn't always transfer to OW with limited vis, cooler temps, and marine life.
I don't have time limits on my class and people need to meet my standards as well as the agency ones.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your post. I enjoyed reading it.
The problem is that so many do the bare minimum and the public calls them all the same. By public I mean scuba operators. My thing would be that If Jims class was taught they should leave it with a AOW card.
Good point KWS, which was the dilema I was in.
Of the 3 instructors I had through this process, 2 were excellent, and 1 was a joke.
My OW instructor instructed like Jim teaches; but not to that extent. He was a former saturation commercial diver. No "zero-to-hero" was he. My other great instructor was not commercial, but had every credential that PADI and SDI/TDI offered with worldwide experience and full cave diving also. A pro's pro whose instruction techniques made the cert-mill tolerable.
Their CVs and teaching techniques did not do me any good when it came to flying (or driving) to different parts of the world to dive, either by myself, or with a group of people I did not know.
I wanted to go on a dive and was told that I needed AOW. So I got AOW from a yahoo. It was all redundant because Barry (OW) had taught me everything in AOW already.
So, I show up on the boat with my AOW and am told that I need to do a check-out dive before diving to 90 fsw to see this particular u/w feature. The next day another DM, and another check-out dive. The third day and my mentor DM is on the boat, and says: "Oh yeah, we will take you there because you follow instructions and you maintain the same position from me so I always know where you are."
Here is my point: My OW and AOW were worthless. Those cards proved nothing to dive operators except that I was another loser who was stuck in the cert card-mill.
Until I got tech 40 and solo, my cards were viewed as nothing more than learners permits. I now carry my tech 40 and solo exclusively as the rest are useless. I am still treated skeptically by staff, when I am a new face on a boat-load of divers.
I would not have minded if I was issued a learner's permit instead of OW, at least I would have known what I payed for when I received my OW cert. I dived with a mentor DM anyway. So having him sign-off slots on my learners permit would have been OK.
I agree with KWS that a "command card" or diver-experience-card signed-off by DMs or instructors would be a great idea. Performing 27 iterations of skill-drills would have been OK with me
Taking an open water student below 60 ft?. At the end of the process I would have received a cert that said I was a proven diver at similar sites/conditions that were listed on my learners permit.
The current system sucked for me. I feel I was roped into a dog'n'pony show. They had me by the balls.
cheers,
markm