What is exact outcome of AOW courses?

[bradlw]

10,78x

mine is 9801
I still have my book too
Only 1 day of classroom?!?.... I must have really been traumatized to add in extra days like that!
Seriously though I'm confident that mine was more...but as I recall they were evenings so maybe yours was a longer one-day session and mine were multiple but shorter evenings

 

[Blackcrusader]

I live in a country where (rightly) no-one ever gets asked for a certification for anything so stupidly I had to base my post on PADI's actual website instead of reading 5 pages of bollocks.

In an article on certification restrictions: and in the OW FAQs:

That aside, it doesn't really change that AOW is fairly worthless as a pre-requisite to learning to do deco dives. It's fairly worthless altogether.

Firstly one can go from Padi OW to Deco trained course. I did so when I went from PADI OW to BSAC Sports Diving which are all DECO courses. You still can. So we can see from your posts you do not understand what a diver with OW can do. You keep misrepresenting that OW is limited to 18m when it is not.

When I did my PADI OW exam one of the questions was the allowed maximum depths. The answer was 40m for recreational diving and 42m for emegency incident.

No where does PADI state that a certified OW diver is limited to 18m depth. PADI is a private company and has no legal authority of how deep one dives. From the PADI blog, no 18m dpeth limit on OW cert.

 

[Blackcrusader]

This is what I'd like my kids to take if they want to continue with their training (yes, DECO, even if they don't have aspirations of doing DECO dives. I think it's a shame that they aren't taught basics of this stuff in OW class)

If you want to be DECO trained from early on then do the BSAC diving courses where DECO is a normal part of dive training.

Qualified PADI (or other agency) diver?

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Sports Diver

www.bsac.com

 

[NothingClever]

In my mind, this is what SCUBA training should look like:

Basic OW = Basic Dive Skills + Nitrox + Navigation + DSMB + Boat + Shore Entry + Night + Wreck + Rescue

Advanced OW = Twinset + Advanced Nitrox + Deco Procedures + Advanced Wreck + DAN Diving Emergency Management Provider

Technical 1 = Normoxic 21/35 to 16/55 - 35m to 75m

Technical 2 = Hypoxic 15/55 to10/70 - 76m to 130m

Specialty courses available after Basic OW:

- DPV​

- Gas Blending​

- Survey​

- Photogrammetry​

- Sea Life Identification (taught only by marine biologists)​

- Scientific​

- DS​

- Ice diving​

​

I know some hearts are going to wilt and cry out in anguish over taking diving back to the 1960s and 1970s but I think the above training rubric would put a lot of meaning back into becoming a SCUBA diver and serious clout in earning an Advanced SCUBA certification. Also, I acknowledge the above rubric would probably force portions of the SCUBA industry in its current condition to go into convulsions but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

 

[tursiops]

In my mind, this is what SCUBA training should look like:

Basic OW = Basic Dive Skills + Nitrox + Navigation + DSMB + Boat + Shore Entry + Night + Wreck + Rescue

Advanced OW = Twinset + Advanced Nitrox + Deco Procedures + Advanced Wreck + DAN Diving Emergency Management Provider

Technical 1 = Normoxic 21/35 to 16/55 - 35m to 75m

Technical 2 = Hypoxic 15/55 to10/70 - 76m to 130m

Specialty courses available after Basic OW:

- DPV​

- Gas Blending​

- Survey​

- Photogrammetry​

- Sea Life Identification (taught only by marine biologists)​

- Scientific​

- DS​

- Ice diving​

​

I know some hearts are going to wilt and cry out in anguish over taking diving back to the 1960s and 1970s but I think the above training rubric would put a lot of meaning back into becoming a SCUBA diver and serious clout in earning an Advanced SCUBA certification. Also, I acknowledge the above rubric would probably force portions of the SCUBA industry in its current condition to go into convulsions but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

All you've done is give things different names. Current training is more bite-size.....several courses added together to make the whole. This is actuakky demanded by the consumers, who do not want to devote the large amount of time and money to long, extensive training, all at once. If they wanted to do it yoru way.....combine mutiple courses into one massive package, they can, but they do not.

Also, your structure misses the opportuntity to actually go diving and enjoy it,,,learning and improving with each dive. Instead, it is a huge meal, all at once. People want to snack and learn it in pieces.

 

[happy-diver]

Shore Entry

Dude

For beach entry I was told to don fins and walk in backwards, arm in arm with my buddy and watching the ocean

Who would listen to that?
People that want to pass
Courses are still the same

Do they still teach on the knees arm sweep, recover your second, what is the reg or the diver doing there anyway

Gas Blending

Buy some stuff and hi-ho, the derry-o a blending we will go


Here it is read at your own pace pluck out what you want and dive into knowledge

https://diveraid.com/free-learning/

 

[lizardland]

You are cherry-picking the available info. Yes, immediately post-OW certification PADI says you are trained to 60 ft. The "rest of the story" is that you may go deeper with additional training and experience....no additional certification is needed. What AOW does is proves you've had some additional training and experience, so "allows" you to go to 100 ft. But your recreational certification to 130 ft has not changed.

I'm not cherry picking anything, I'm going by the answer I got on PADI's website by googling OW certification limits.

The point I was making is that an agency undertaking deco training has to have a set of objective pre-requisites because they want to protect themselves. "Additional training and experience" that doesn't result in a piece of plastic that says "I have been trained to this standard" is not objective. It varies from diver to diver and environment to environment and someone, either the instructor or at HQ, has to prove compliance with a subjective standard. When I did my technical training there was the allowance for "or equivalent experience", I'm sure it's still the same now, but I totally understand why agencies ask for a minimum AOW in the first instance.

I totally agree that additional experience can make an OW-certified diver capable of diving well beyond 18m. I had a year long gap between OW & AOW and I was more experienced than the divemasters on my AOW were. But if your concern, like an agency providing deco diving certs, is proving that you checked that divers are appropriately trained to be accepted then life gets a hell of a lot easier if you just ask for a second tier training cert.

As I said, I think AOW is bollocks as a formal certification. But it's that 2nd tier of certification and, rightly or wrongly, businesses and agencies use that as a proxy for someone who is not a novice.

 

[lizardland]

10,78x
book work, still have the book, 1 day of classroom and I think 2 checkout dives whan I took it.

The old photocopied book with the plastic ring binding? I've still got mine somewhere. I think my number is in the early 900's off the top of my head so must've been round the same time. Same thing, about 4-5 hours in the classroom, two dives the next day. We had to use a meeting room in a shop next door to the dive centre because the owner panicked at the last minute and refused to let an IANTD instructor teach something as dangerous as nitrox on the premises. Ah... the happy days of when nitrox was seen as something that would kill you.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I'm not cherry picking anything, I'm going by the answer I got on PADI's website by googling OW certification limits.

Yes you are cherry picking and you are also WRONG.
Do you know why DAN basic insurance covers an any certified diver to 40m depth?
I emailed them and asked. They replied because the certified recreational depth limit for any certification is 40m depth. There is a thread on this already. You can also buy DAN insurance to deeper depths.

Padi's website does not state a certified OW diver is limited to 18m. Padi cannot limit the depth for any diver as it Padi has no legal authority over divers.

Thread 'Dive Accident Insurance Limitations'

Mar 1, 2025

In a recent thread, a poster related a story about having to correct someone's misinformation about dive accident insurance. That misinformation has been repeated often in ScubaBoard threads. The correction is well buried in a long thread, so I thought I would create a dedicated thread that makes it clear and which can easily be linked in future threads. This one specifically refers to DAN accident insurance, but I think it would be good if other companies had their policies clarified here as well.

The misinformed person had stated that dive accident insurance only covers you if you are...

• boulderjohn
• Replies: 80
• Forum: Basic Scuba

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[ofg-1]

In my mind, this is what SCUBA training should look like:

In my mind, I look like a young George Clooney, or Andy Rooney, I get those two confused. When you are willing to stop mentally masturbating and go start an agency, let us know.

All you've done is give things different names. Current training is more bite-size.....several courses added together to make the whole. This is actuakky demanded by the consumers, who do not want to devote the large amount of time and money to long, extensive training, all at once. If they wanted to do it yoru way.....combine mutiple courses into one massive package, they can, but they do not.

This. ^^.

It amazes me when people that claim to have hundreds or thousands of dives, tell someone like the OP who claims to have <24, all the reasons that a course he is contemplating is bad. Anyone that wants to be exposed to a few new skills, under the supervision of an instructor, and add a few more dives to his experience level, should be encouraged.

To @pelagic_one, Don't fall into the trap of getting anal over a certification card or any real or perceived depth limit. The card may get you on a boat, but its not going to do a damn thing for you at 130', its going to be your comfort levels and experience that helps you the most.

To quote the Hitchhiker's Guide, "Don't Panic"