Training can you do too much too soon?

[kmarks]

If you plan to take the courses anyway, don't wait too long on them. Not many dive ops/boat charters are going to care that you have anything more than an OW certification and EANx if you request nitrox, but there is the rare trip that will say you have to have at least AOW to make a particular dive. I didn't want to do PADI AOW right way because I thought it was ridiculous that somebody with all of 9 dives would claim to be an advanced diver. I've been on a boat with several AOW divers who were terrible.

Five years after certifying OW with PADI, I had taken no additional training classes, but gained experience through diving in various places and conditions. Earlier this year, I got EANx certification with SSI because that's who my current shop works with, and I recently did deep, wreck, and perfect buoyancy with SSI. I needed to get an AOW certification because I'm planning a trip to the SoCal oil platforms this December where AOW is required. SSI's equivalent to PADI's AOW is Advanced Adventurer, which seemed pointless to me (one dive from each of five specialties, no full certifications), but after completing four specialty certifications and 24 total dives, SSI certifies you as Advanced Open Water (which is more advanced than PADI Advanced Open Water).

I didn't go nearly as deep in my Deep Diver certification as I have gone just in regular dives, so the value of the class was minimal beyond getting a card to show somebody that I can, in fact, not kill myself. I don't feel that I got a lot of the Perfect Buoyancy class, either, because I've pretty well worked that out on my own (how much can you learn in a two hour pool session anyway?), but I did get some value from Wreck Diver because I haven't already done a lot of wrecks, mostly just practice with running a reel and a semi controlled experience with a massive silt out during a penetration.

Had I done those three classes about 25 dives in, I probably would have felt that I got more of them.

 

[kmarks]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I agree. When my instructor said "We can combine your deep and wreck dives and just do three dives total," I disagreed. I paid for two wreck dives and three deep dives, and I better get five dives.

 

[sigxbill]

I never saw the benefit of counting a dive for two different certs. I wanted more diving not less. I viewed more dives with an instructor as more experience.

When I read this, what comes to mind is counting the first dive from some agency's AOW toward later specialties - like counting the AOW deep dive toward the Deep Diver Specialty at a later date! Counting AOW dives toward a specialty is losing out on a valuable additional training opportunity - just for the sake of getting a card faster! Secretly, it is part of that agency's model and culture of providing as little training as possible per card ...

Cheers

 

[USdiver1]

On the one hand, there are threads on the subject of "training being watered down", and here is a thread of the training "too much too soon" variety. Thought I'd throw in my two cents. OW and AOW are mostly concerned with the neophyte diver gaining awareness to the subaquatic environment, basic survival skills, equipment use. By no means is an AOW diver with 10 dives under his/her belt an advanced diver under any objective criteria, this person has only been exposed to some of the knowledge required to obtain an advanced skill set, but would lack the experience of having conducted 100 or more dives. And remember too, 100 dives in a tropical setting may make one skilled enough for that kind of diving to be considered somewhat advanced, but it by no means is to say that a diver so skilled is advanced in cold water or overhead diving, but I digress. In short, there is no substitute for diving experience, gained by diving. Dive as often and in as varied conditions as you can.
IMO, any diver seriously considering becoming a true advanced diver should take training at least through the Rescue Diver course. In RD, one is taught to look beyond one's self and at the entirety of the dive: the plan, the other divers, the natural and man-made obstacles and points of interest, what to do in an emergency, how to deal with stressors. I consider RD the minimal level of actually being an advanced diver. In addition, RD is the most fun course you will take.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I hesitate to repeat what is repeated so often on SB, but what a student gets out of a course sure can vary from one instructor to another. I had a very rigorous PADI Rescue course, but my wife took hers elsewhere and was disappointed after all my hyping of the course to find her instructor gave her the bare minimum. I was disappointed with my PADI Deep course, as it seemed to give an ambiguous message. But from reports I have read, others have had a better experience with the Deep course.

As part of AOW, I took the often-ridiculed Fish ID dive, but you know what--to this day I have a vivid memory of the species my instructor pointed out, because it was all so new to me and the instructor was good.

 

[Steve_C]

As part of AOW, I took the often-ridiculed Fish ID dive, but you know what--to this day I have a vivid memory of the species my instructor pointed out, because it was all so new to me and the instructor was good.

Sounds like your Fish ID course was a good one. I in no way want my earlier comments to make fun of Fish ID. I enjoy fish ID myself but in my case the shop owner knew that I can identify over 80 local NC species and do some study and discussion with REEF.

 

[EireDiver606]

IMHO, try to get at least 20 dives in between training course.

Many “vacation” divers hop from course to course and some, eventually to instructor level when they don’t have many “real” dives as most have been supervised.

I met a divemaster in an aquarium in Cape Town South Africa who had 80 dives including courses. At the time, I had 20 and had better buoyancy and trim. She was kneeling on the sand....

Please don’t be “that” diver. Get experience in between dives. It will make your courses much more valuable and practical.

 

[Diver0001]

Example: Diver really like fish watching and so on. they are starting to get some additional info on habitats etc and are starting to dive like marine bird-watchers. However, they need some assistance in learning to identify species and understand more of what they are seeing.

I never took a fish-id specialty because my uncle was a marine biologist and I did most of my diving over the first few years with him and didn't need it because he was a walking encyclopedia about such things.

That experience, however, DID confirm to me that pretty much everyone would benefit from a fish-id specialty.

Think about a hiker in the woods. If you're going to go hiking to look for a honey badger then it might be a good idea to know it's habitats, its diet, habits, whether or not it's dangerous to humans and maybe even if it's nocturnal. You might not even recognise one when you see it if you don't and if you don't know anything about it then you may search every square inch of the Appalachian Mountains and become very frustrated by your efforts, to the point of even thinking that they don't exist.

Something similar is true of fish identification. When you see something you want to be able to remember what it looked like well enough to look it up in a book after the fact and to at least -- based on habitat, diet, habits and so forth -- be sure of what it ISN'T. Likewise, if you want to go look for some animals, then you know you're going to need to dive at night... or during the day... or when the water temperature is at least 12C, etc etc.

Having this knowledge improves your chances of meeting your critter spotting goals if you have any and it vastly improves your chances of identifying what you do see. For me, diving with a marine biologist for the first years was an education but since most people don't have that, there is the fish-id specialty. It may not appeal to everyone but for some it will improve the quality of their diving by a good margin.

(BTW, diving with a marine biologist sounds more awesome than it is. They are rare and unusual people who easily become hypnotized by details in animal behaviour that -- for you, as their buddy -- means spending some dives doing nothing but hovering and waiting for something to happen that inevitably never happens... You get good buoyancy control from that but you also get cold, bored and wishing you had more friends who are not marine biologists.... Believe me, watching starfish mate is cool for the first 5 minutes but gets old fast when you're cold.)

R..

 

[Diver0001]

I agree. When my instructor said "We can combine your deep and wreck dives and just do three dives total," I disagreed. I paid for two wreck dives and three deep dives, and I better get five dives.

This isn't permitted in any system I know about. For example, in the PADI system you can dive nitrox on a wreck dive but it's either a wreck dive or a nitrox dive, not both.

I know some instructors do this kind of thing but standards do not permit it. If you were allowed to combine dives like this then some instructors would be doing a night dive at 25 meters on nitrox from a boat navigating a square search pattern by compass and certifying students for AOW with one dive. Believe me, some instructors would do that if it were allowed.

But it's not allowed and it's not allowed for this reason.

R..

 

[kmarks]

This isn't permitted in any system I know about.

Apparently it is allowed with SSI, which gives instructors a lot more leeway than PADI.