Wait to take advanced open water? Or not?

[halocline]

For what it's worth, AOW (at least the PADI version) is sort of designed to immediately follow OW. Think of the two as one longer certification class. The moniker "advanced" is misleading. So there's nothing wrong at all with taking it immediately.

As to it's value in making you a better diver, that of course depends on the quality of instruction, how seriously you take the skill development, and how much experience and practice you can get. One decent way to jump start your development would be to go on a week or two week trip to a good dive destination, take the class with a good instructor, and then immediately practice what you've learned for the rest of the trip. That could help you develop some good basic habits.

The idea of taking a class from one of the technical agencies might be a bit premature. Those classes are far more demanding and rigorous. That's a good thing IF you are ready to take them. But in all skill-based learning, the best approach is to start with the easiest and most comfortable environment and build confidence gradually. The key really is to find a good instructor (regardless of agency) that understands to how accurately evaluate your diving and can offer instruction that's based on what YOU need at this time in your diving development, not what someone else might think is ultimately a better way to dive.

Have fun!

 

[CuzzA]

Here's my thoughts... I did AOW shortly after OW for a few reasons.

1. Many shops will package Nitrox into the deal. This will save you money and of course allow you to use Nitrox in the future.

2. As mentioned the card will give you access to charters that require it.

3. Choose the right dives for you. Some of the dives they offer are silly. I chose Deep, Navigation, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night and Wreck. While I agree the course as a whole wasn't all that advanced. It was good to experience the deep, night and the wreck dives.

4. I paid a total of $300 for this whole deal (I own all my equipment). In terms of value, I think I got a lot of bang for my buck. 3 hours of class time on Nitrox, 5 dives over 2 days, plus 2 certifications that open up doors.

5. Now I can advance to Deep Diver and Advanced Recreational Trimix.​

I see no problem with doing it. Like I said, even if you didn't learn a thing, you did 5 dives for pretty cheap and it opens doors to advance your diving in other directions if you choose to do so. Personally I would buy my own equipment first (BC and Reg set). If you know you're going to be a diver, especially in Florida, I wouldn't want to rent. For me I want to become familiar with my gear.

 

[archer1960]

Having been in your position a little over a year ago, here's my perspective. I took AOW right after OW, but it was on a dive trip so I was getting lots of dives in (at least two per day for 5 days). I think you would get more out of AOW if you get a few (5 - 10) OW dives under your belt before taking it. If you wait too long, you may find yourself reinforcing bad habits that are then harder to break when you get into class. If you do it immediately after OW, you're likely still not very comfortable in the water, and won't get as much out of the course because you'll still be messing with your buoyancy, breathing, etc, rather than working on the new stuff.

 

[fjpatrum]

Dive dive dive. Get some mentors. When you need AOW either because you need to work on your skills with an instructor or you have a specific diving goal that requires it, then take it. If you feel like you need the help from an instructor now, take it.

Plenty of people take it directly after OW and find it valuable. Plenty more think it's a waste of time (no matter when you take it). Your truth is applicable to your goals, current skills, confidence level, risk assessment capability, and lots of other factors.

Bottom line, it's not a requirement for most diving but it makes a lot of people feel more comfortable. The choice is yours.

 

[chrisch]

AOW is an experiential course designed to give you more supervised experience rather than loads of new skills. The longer you wait the less useful it is. You need it to do Rescue which should be your goal. Go do it!

 

[fjpatrum]

AOW is not a requirement for PADI Rescue or any of the other agencies. A lot of shops for some reason have it as a prerequisite but according to the parent agencies it is not.

https://www.padi.com/scuba-diving/padi-courses/course-catalog/rescue-diver/
https://www.tdisdi.com/sdi/get-certified/rescue-diver-course/
https://www.naui.org/specialty_courses.aspx#040

 

[seeker242]

you have to look backwards from your end goal of diving to figure out what makes sense because that will determine the route that you take to go forward with both training and gear choices. AOW is a waste of money for most people actually wanting to learn how to dive better, it is a necessary evil that you have to give someone money for to allow you on most dive boats and as a whole, you will not actually learn anything new about diving by taking PADI's AOW through a normal shop, I can almost guarantee that.

Now, there are better ways to go about this but only you can determine what it is that you want to do with your diving and when you figure that out, you will have to go backwards from there. I.e. if you want to stay in backmount and have any interest in cave or technical diving, instead of AOW, I would recommend that you drive up to cave country and take Fundamentals with a GUE instructor.

I think my end goal would be deep decompression diving. Like wrecks at 250' or something like that. I find deep diving very appealing! I doubt I'll ever venture into caves. They just don't appeal to me. I like the ocean! I was thinking of doing both PADI AOW and GUE fundmentals eventually, PADI rescue diver, and I'll probably do some TDI or SDI courses too for solo diving. Or maybe PADI tech training and then GUE tech training and the TDI tech training. Not necessarily in that order. Money is not really an issue, I have a large scuba budget. I figure why not just take ALL the classes?!

I haven't seen you dive, how many dives do the people who are telling you to wait have and have they seen you dive? It may be that you don't have the control and skill that would make a class that involves shooting lift bags, running line, and doing navigation worthwhile (yet). A fundies class is fundamentally focused on buoyancy, trim, kicks, creating control in the water.

Maybe 150 or so and no they've never seen me dive. All they know is my logbook that says "17 dives". I've read about the GUE classes and plan on doing them one day. Although, I want get myself into a BP/W first and become comfortable with that gear first. Looking into those now. I figure in the mean time I can do PADI AOW because that's 1 mile from my house and it seems GUE clasess are mostly up in the springs areas, and of course require different gear configurations than PADI does.

 

[CptTightPants21]

I think my end goal would be deep decompression diving. Like wrecks at 250' or something like that. I find deep diving very appealing! I doubt I'll ever venture into caves. They just don't appeal to me. I like the ocean! I was thinking of doing both PADI AOW and GUE fundmentals eventually, PADI rescue diver, and I'll probably do some TDI or SDI courses too for solo diving. Or maybe PADI tech training and then GUE tech training and the TDI tech training. Not necessarily in that order. Money is not really an issue, I have a large scuba budget. I figure why not just take ALL the classes?!

Maybe 150 or so and no they've never seen me dive. All they know is my logbook that says "17 dives". I've read about the GUE classes and plan on doing them one day. Although, I want get myself into a BP/W first and become comfortable with that gear first. Looking into those now. I figure in the mean time I can do PADI AOW because that's 1 mile from my house and it seems GUE clasess are mostly up in the springs areas, and of course require different gear configurations than PADI does.

First thing you need to realize is that the classes and their names mean nothing, the instructor and what the course actually teaches is what is important. If your goal is tech/deeper diving, then you might as well get into a bp/w set up now. Collect experience and skill, not cards.

I recommend you contact the Pompano Dive Center. They have an affiliation with GUE so at least even if you get a PADI card, you will still be receiving the right kind of instruction. Tell them what your goals are and see what they recommend.

Generally people with that amount of dives can take PADI AOW or GUE fundies. It is more a confidence, natural skills, and initial dive training question than a dive count question. Some guys pass OW and they can barely breathe underwater let alone actually dive. I have seen people who were ready for AOW right out of OW and guys with 20 dives who probably should hold off just because they lack basic control. Simple question like--do you look like a starfish underwater, do you bounce around the water column a lot (+/-5ft, when you turn around is there a silt cloud behind you--if the answer is yes, then I would recommend you try to get some more basic control in order to maximize the class experience.

 

[tbone1004]

why not take all of the classes? Because very few are actually worth the money.... If you have any interest in technical diving, which it sounds like you do, you basically have to get out of PADI's OW mentality ASAP and the fastest way to do that is GUE Fundies. It trumps AOW. Rescue is useless because very few practice rescue tows enough to make it useful, better to just get them to the boat ASAP and the DAN DEMP course is much more useful.

For what you want there are a few mandatory classes, and you can choose one of two routes.
GUE completely, where you'd go fundies, likely get a rec pass and have to go back when you're ready to do deco with a tec pass and go thru their tec progression. Tech 1 and Tech 2 will get you to 250ft.
You could also go thru TDI where I would still recommend taking Fundies, even if you don't pass on the first course, then go through their training progression. After fundies, you'd go through AN/DP or AN/ART, I'd go the ART route personally, then when you want to go deeper, you'll need trimix 1 and trimix 2 to go hypoxic. I wouldn't waste any more money with PADI. There are good instructors out there, but they are hard to find....

 

[CptTightPants21]

why not take all of the classes? Because very few are actually worth the money.... If you have any interest in technical diving, which it sounds like you do, you basically have to get out of PADI's OW mentality ASAP and the fastest way to do that is GUE Fundies. It trumps AOW. Rescue is useless because very few practice rescue tows enough to make it useful, better to just get them to the boat ASAP and the DAN DEMP course is much more useful.

For what you want there are a few mandatory classes, and you can choose one of two routes.
GUE completely, where you'd go fundies, likely get a rec pass and have to go back when you're ready to do deco with a tec pass and go thru their tec progression. Tech 1 and Tech 2 will get you to 250ft.
You could also go thru TDI where I would still recommend taking Fundies, even if you don't pass on the first course, then go through their training progression. After fundies, you'd go through AN/DP or AN/ART, I'd go the ART route personally, then when you want to go deeper, you'll need trimix 1 and trimix 2 to go hypoxic. I wouldn't waste any more money with PADI. There are good instructors out there, but they are hard to find....

Just to highlight Tbone's main point. Every GUE instructor is excellent (there are only 22 in the USA) and will teach you the correct way to dive. It is a lot harder to find and know you are getting the quality instruction from a PADI shop, but they do exist. Ed Hayes is GUE and teaches PADI in CT, Wayne Fisch in NJ is another guy who is very tech oriented and skilled, but does OW with PADI.

I don't know anything about the Pompano Dive Center, but the fact that they have a GUE affiliation means that they probably do their PADI courses the "correct way"--but call and speak with you.