Unclear on PADI Adv. OW Reqs

[oddible]

Well, I think the point was to make sure you had a few dives under your belt before you tried Deep or Wreck specialty. So you'd have to do 3 specialties to get your Adventure diver cert before you were allowed to take the Deep or Wreck specialties. Now however you can just take Advanced Class (a misnomer if there ever was one since you can take the 'Advanced' class with a grand total of 4 OW dives) right after your OW cert and be in a Deep dive after only 7 total dives. Seems a bit shaky to me but I suppose that you have to be checked off by an instructor before moving on and if the instructor is worth their weight they won't let you go on the Deep dive until they're comfortable with your buoyancy control and stress level.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That should be the ideal but unfortunately it is not. I have seen dozens of AOW students while I was a DM be told to stop finning so they did not stir up the silt on the deep platform. Instead of doing a proper horizontal descent and eliminating the possibility of stirring things up at all. Too often it is treated as a tour and not an exercise in skills that it should be. I have seen one instructor conducting a PADI AOW course insist on good buoyancy control for all the dives as it should be done. (Not that there are not others I just have not worked with or seen them). He has a GUE background though so that MAY have something to do with it. A course should not be called advanced unless it actually includes skills that would normally be required on what could be termed "advanced dives".

 

[ScubaDocER]

Well, I think the point was to make sure you had a few dives under your belt before you tried Deep or Wreck specialty. So you'd have to do 3 specialties to get your Adventure diver cert before you were allowed to take the Deep or Wreck specialties. Now however you can just take Advanced Class (a misnomer if there ever was one since you can take the 'Advanced' class with a grand total of 4 OW dives) right after your OW cert and be in a Deep dive after only 7 total dives. Seems a bit shaky to me but I suppose that you have to be checked off by an instructor before moving on and if the instructor is worth their weight they won't let you go on the Deep dive until they're comfortable with your buoyancy control and stress level.

If that is indeed the reason then there is a better away to accomplish that goal, IMHO. Instead of creating courses between courses, just set the standards such that the diver that is created after OW is prepared to enter an AOW course. Or just require that divers dive between their OW and AOW certs. Have them then be evaluated by an Instructor who will determine if that are ready to enter an AOW course. What if they are not ready to be Adventure divers? What course do you send them to to be prepared for that?

 

[oddible]

There is no 'Adventure Diver' course. It is a certification level that allows you to go on to more advanced specialties which require more skill. If you have completed 3 specialty courses satisfactorily your instructor can certify you as an Adventure diver which would allow you to then participate in Deep and Wreck specialties which require an Adventure Diver cert. This seems a good system in terms of limiting divers without the skills for more risky endeavors.

The Advanced OW "course" seems odd to me - it is a flavor course where you get to taste a bunch of specialties rather than learn any one specialty in depth. This is great to give people a sense of what advanced diving is all about but it doesn't teach advanced diving.

(BTW, I'm no authority on PADI, as you'll see on the left I'm a newbie diver. I am however a university educator so I like to opine in such matters as skills and theory training).

 

[rstofer]

Richard,

True, your grandson cannot do the Deep Diver specialty, but he could do all of the other specialties, assuming that he is at least 12 y/o and the training was properly documented (in his log book, preferably) an instructor could do the Deep Dive of Jr AOW and complete this certification.

Although Deep Diver certification requires dives beyond the maximum depth PADI allows for training Jr divers, the first dive of the the Deep Diver specialty (the one required for Jr AOW) can be conducted at/above 70 feet, the limit for Jr diver training.

If he later desired, your grandson could return to take the Deep Diver specialty once he is of age to take the course (15 y/o) and he and his parents feel that he is developmentally ready for the course.

Thank you! This is exactly what I intended. I don't care much about Jr AOW or Deep but I would like him to have the specialties for the extra training involved in each. Jr AOW happens when it does...

Richard

 

[Pearldiver07]

There is no 'Adventure Diver' course. It is a certification level that allows you to go on to more advanced specialties which require more skill. If you have completed 3 specialty courses satisfactorily your instructor can certify you as an Adventure diver which would allow you to then participate in Deep and Wreck specialties which require an Adventure Diver cert. This seems a good system in terms of limiting divers without the skills for more risky endeavors.

The Advanced OW "course" seems odd to me - it is a flavor course where you get to taste a bunch of specialties rather than learn any one specialty in depth. This is great to give people a sense of what advanced diving is all about but it doesn't teach advanced diving.

(BTW, I'm no authority on PADI, as you'll see on the left I'm a newbie diver. I am however a university educator so I like to opine in such matters as skills and theory training).

Actually, there is an "Adventure Diver" course. It happens to be a sub set of the Advanced Open Water course, as Scuba Diver is to Open Water Diver in the PADI instructional model. For Adventurer Diver, three of the experience dives are all that are needed.

By the way, in regards to the second paragraph, try not to focus on the ADVANCED in the course title. It would be more accurately thought of as the Advanced OPEN WATER course, i.e., a follow-on to expand on the OW skills and experience (I explain it as OW 1 and OW 2). No one in their right mind would consider a diver with 10 or dives to be an ADVANCED diver (BTW I added caps for emphasis through this paragraph).

 

[Peter Guy]

I'm not at all sure there is either a PADI Adventure Diver "Course" OR a PADI Advanced Open Water "Course." There are, however, certifications for each as described above.

While it may well be semantics, I tend to think of a "course" as something with a defined curriculum (such as the PADI OW Course or PADI Rescue Course, not to mention all of the specialty courses) whereas the Adventure Diver and AOW are something else.

 

[oddible]

Well, whether it is PADI sanctioned or not, lots of dive shops are selling a PADI Advanced OW 'course' where you get a classroom skills review and 5 dives consisting of 1 each from 5 different specialties. After this you get your certification as Advanced Open Water. I haven't seen a dive shop offer an Adventure Course - but I assume if one did so it would consist of 3 x 1 dive specialties.

If it were the case that PADI or a dive shop were NOT willing to give an Advanced OW certification for someone who had taken 5 complete specialty courses until they took this taster Advanced OW 'course' then I would question their motives. From what I keep hearing the Advanced Open Water courses do not offer any additional skills or theory beyond what you get in the 5 specialty taster dives - just less of it than you would get if you took the 5 specialties separately.

 

[Indian Valley Scuba]

Keep in mind that there is certainly a lot more involved than just "doing the three or five dives". Each Adventure Dive has a specific chapter in the Adventures in Diving manual to read, a short Knowledge Review to complete and go over with your instructor, and ultimately some site-specific and dive-specific mentoring on the part of the instructor with the student to ensure that the intent, purpose and desired results of each dive are clear before the dive is executed, as well as a thorough debriefing after each dive is completed.

Hope that sheds a little light on the subject!

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I'm in the process of finishing up: Dry Suit, Underwater Navigation, Enriched Air. This should get me my Adventure cert.....

Other than giving money away, there is no reason to get an Adventure Diver cert after 3 or 4 Specialties; you are already past that diver level. This is kind of like the Assistant Instructor cert; the only two reasons for AI are Instructor Candidates that can't pass the Instructor course or IE and for an IDC assisting Instructor to get AI certs on the path to Instructor Trainer.

If you have those 3 or 4 Specialty certs, when you get the Deep Specialty there is similarly no reason to get AOW; you are already past that diver level so why pay for the lower cert? Get your Rescue and then if you want to PAY for a cert PAY for Master Scuba Diver.