Why Ever take Advanced Open Water...

[supergibbs]

I took the AOW from my local dive shop but it was all inclusive. It's home study then a Q&A session/written tests and then the dives. My shop lets you borrow the books for free as long as you don't write in them and the AOW card was included. I didn't ask if I could get a discount if I waived the new card and waited for Divemaster but it was a pretty good deal. $279 which included a boat trip and rental tank/weights.

 

[Gr8LakesWreckDvr]

aha... ok that makes sense... , the way its being packaged/sold at my LDS made it seem as if they were courses in and of themselves that were taken in sequence.

I'm in Toledo too. Just out of curiosity, which LDS do you use?

 

[PerroneFord]

I need to get one of those AOW cards one day... Probably be fun.

 

[ErikH]

Past sport dive limits, definately is the territory of specialty training and gear. I see the Europeans doing it all the time, but not my interests and so I am not concerned with the restrictions that go with that kind of diving.

Just out of curiosity, what do you see 'those Europeans' do all the time and where? As far as I know, most technical diving is either cave diving in Florida and Mexico or deep diving in some deep blue waters you won't find in Europe. I got to admit there are plenty of technical divers here in Holland and across Europe, but I would expect a lot more of them in those regions where you can actually do those kind of dives.

 

[Web Monkey]

Just out of curiosity, what do you see 'those Europeans' do all the time and where?

They sneak in while I'm sleeping and drink all my beer and eat all my leftover pizza!

No, wait. I think I did that. Sorry.

Terry

 

[Paco II]

I see that this thread was started a bit ago, but thought it worth adding that in some countries, where diving is highly regulated, ops will only allow you to go down a certain depth depending on the card you carry. in my own experience, this has been 20m max with OW card, anything deeper requiring an AOW or better card. I agree with earlier posts that say experience is of greater importance, but once you have some degree of that, getting an AOW or better card will allow you to do any dive around the world with fewer possible limitations.

 

[mir]

In all honesty you should not have to pay for the cards since they are a symbol of your accomplishments in paying for their courses and logging all of your dives. they just gave me mine at 22 dives knowing good and well I was going to complete the remaining 2 qualifying dives needed for AOW and after your stress and rescue course and 26 more dives I'd be asking them to go ahead and give the Masters certification.

 

[ErikH]

In all honesty you should not have to pay for the cards since they are a symbol of your accomplishments in paying for their courses and logging all of your dives. [...] after your stress and rescue course and 26 more dives I'd be asking them to go ahead and give the Masters certification.

You can always ask But seriously, those C-cards do cost your dive center money. You paid for your S&R course, so you'll get a C-card for that specialty. But you never paid for the Master Diver card. That card is just showing that you have 50 or more dives, AOW and S&R. You can prove all that with your divelog and the AOW and S&R C-cards. No need for an extra Master Diver card I would say.

If you do want to have that card, every SSI Facility can order it for you, as long as you are willing to pay for the costs