What really is an "Advanced Open Water" diver?

[azstinger11]

My LA County card from 1970 certified me from a 30 hour course for Basic Skin and Scuba Diving. @Azstinger took a 100 hour course and was certified in Advanced Skin and Scuba Diving. LA County is not much like most training these days. It is really too bad that LA County no longer teaches the basic course .

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They do teach it, well sort of. Any active UICC instructor can teach it and certify students to it. They just don't the big formal classes like for ADP/UICC.

 

[Zonicles7]

My two dive buddies and I have been diving for 18 years and have about 400 dives apiece. We were trained to be quiet in the water and we have excellent bouyancy skills and air consumption. The only certifications we hold are Open Water and Nitrox (EAN). And we would have been completely happy with those forever.

That was until our last trip. We were the only divers that didn't have AOW certs and so were segregated into a group by ourselves (fine with that) but restricted to above 60 feet, were assigned to the clueless divemaster/boat driver, and required to snorkel during the one deep dive to the Blue Hole (Belize).

None of this is terrible. It was nice not being with the AOW divers (some of whom were flailers) and we did pretty well at finding our own pipefish (but regretted not seeing some things the other group with the skilled divemaster saw). But it is concerning that we might find future restrictions on our dives for lack of an AOW card.

Is requiring AOW going to be the way of the future? Or was this a one off?
I would dislike wasting vacation time and money getting an AOW if it isn't necessary especially since we already possess the skills it would purport to teach. But will if I must.

 

[TMHeimer]

My two dive buddies and I have been diving for 18 years and have about 400 dives apiece. We were trained to be quiet in the water and we have excellent bouyancy skills and air consumption. The only certifications we hold are Open Water and Nitrox (EAN). And we would have been completely happy with those forever.

That was until our last trip. We were the only divers that didn't have AOW certs and so were segregated into a group by ourselves (fine with that) but restricted to above 60 feet, were assigned to the clueless divemaster/boat driver, and required to snorkel during the one deep dive to the Blue Hole (Belize).

None of this is terrible. It was nice not being with the AOW divers (some of whom were flailers) and we did pretty well at finding our own pipefish (but regretted not seeing some things the other group with the skilled divemaster saw). But it is concerning that we might find future restrictions on our dives for lack of an AOW card.

Is requiring AOW going to be the way of the future? Or was this a one off?
I would dislike wasting vacation time and money getting an AOW if it isn't necessary especially since we already possess the skills it would purport to teach. But will if I must.

The topic of experienced divers getting AOW simply because some charters require it for below 60' has been discussed on SB for years.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Is requiring AOW going to be the way of the future? Or was this a one off?
I would dislike wasting vacation time and money getting an AOW if it isn't necessary especially since we already possess the skills it would purport to teach. But will if I must.

You are probably going to have to buy the certification to avoid future incidents like this unless you book with dive ops that do checkout dives. That's the reality. Like many con ed classes, the value/cost ratio is pretty close to zero most of the time, but that's just how things are.

 

[tursiops]

we already possess the skills it would purport to teach

I guess you already can navigate by compass or natural navigation, have been to 100 ft multiple times and are OK with SAC and narcosis, can mange lift bags safely and perform successful searches for small and large objects, can ID various fish, use your light well at night, etc? There are LOTS of possible AOW skills that you may not have yet encountered...

 

[TMHeimer]

I guess you already can navigate by compass or natural navigation, have been to 100 ft multiple times and are OK with SAC and narcosis, can mange lift bags safely and perform successful searches for small and large objects, can ID various fish, use your light well at night, etc? There are LOTS of possible AOW skills that you may not have yet encountered...

Agree for sure. Some of those things you mentioned are a must for deep diving, others not really at all. Regarding multiple times to 100' and narcosis, there are countless OW divers who have experienced this many times but don't have AOW.

 

[Bazzathemammoth]

Yes. I just did my AOW in the weekend for this reason, having previously done open water, nitrox and an estimated 100+ dives. I wanted to dive the Canterbury wreck while on holiday last summer but they wouldn't let me because of ow only.

We did the compulsory ones and fish id, search and recovery, and boat. I hadn't used a lift bag before so that was interesting to play with.

Fish id was my favorite because i always like learning more about the ocean. I managed to find a fish that we had to google so i thought that was a win. It turned out that it was a juvenile version of a very common fish. I don't know how none of us knew what it was!

The rest were pretty meh but it was nice to be in the water. The other divers were ok and the instructor thought the group was quite good, so we blitzed through the dives.

The course curriculum is quite basic and really just an intro to a bunch of scuba skills. I think they should call it intermediate open water as there is no way that it produces advanced divers. In hindsight i wish i had done it much earlier in my scuba life as i didn't really get much from it.

My two dive buddies and I have been diving for 18 years and have about 400 dives apiece. We were trained to be quiet in the water and we have excellent bouyancy skills and air consumption. The only certifications we hold are Open Water and Nitrox (EAN). And we would have been completely happy with those forever.

That was until our last trip. We were the only divers that didn't have AOW certs and so were segregated into a group by ourselves (fine with that) but restricted to above 60 feet, were assigned to the clueless divemaster/boat driver, and required to snorkel during the one deep dive to the Blue Hole (Belize).

None of this is terrible. It was nice not being with the AOW divers (some of whom were flailers) and we did pretty well at finding our own pipefish (but regretted not seeing some things the other group with the skilled divemaster saw). But it is concerning that we might find future restrictions on our dives for lack of an AOW card.

Is requiring AOW going to be the way of the future? Or was this a one off?
I would dislike wasting vacation time and money getting an AOW if it isn't necessary especially since we already possess the skills it would purport to teach. But will if I must.

 

[tursiops]

there is no way that it produces advanced divers

Did someone tell you it did?

 

[Bazzathemammoth]

No but the name hints at it in my opinion, hence the suggestion for it to be called intermediate open water. I'm fairly sure that there would be at least one or 2 people who finish this course and think they are now advanced divers.

 

[tursiops]

No but the name hints at it in my opinion, hence the suggestion for it to be called intermediate open water. I'm fairly sure that there would be at least one or 2 people who finish this course and think they are now advanced divers.

I do not disagree that the name can be misinterpreted, or that some who take it feel they are now advanced.
But the marketing for the class, and the training material, and the training, make it clear that the class only advances one beyond OW by providing a sampler of each five specialties, to help the OW diver find something that they might want to follow up on to extend their skills and knowledge. You seemed to like Fish ID, for example; now go take the more complete training from a REEF.org trainer.