Worth it to get AOW before going to Cozumel?

[pjones]

You may want to look at what your insurance covers, If you think you are going to go beyond you're training for whatever reason than your primary insurance may not cover you during that dive. If you get the preferred membership with dan then (I believe) that would cover you but they are only secondary insurance and still require you to have a primary insurer. I got my AOW just to be safe. It turned out to be a fun course in the end and now I've got one more card I can present if there are any questions. I should say that I've never been to coz before. I mainly wanted to voice my concerns with the insurance.

 

[mjatkins]

I believe the rescue course is a worthwhile and in order to take that course you must have AOW.

Just to clarify, that is no longer true. The prerequisite (aside from CPR/first aid) is to have an adventure diver certification, including the navigation adventure dive. You gain this rating in the same way you gain the "advanced" rating, however it only requires 3 adventure dives rather the the 5 that are needed for the advanced card.

 

[fishi]

You may want to look at what your insurance covers, If you think you are going to go beyond you're training for whatever reason than your primary insurance may not cover you during that dive. If you get the preferred membership with dan then (I believe) that would cover you but they are only secondary insurance and still require you to have a primary insurer. I got my AOW just to be safe. It turned out to be a fun course in the end and now I've got one more card I can present if there are any questions. I should say that I've never been to coz before. I mainly wanted to voice my concerns with the insurance.

I think we need DandyDon now.

 

[Christi]

Just to clarify, that is no longer true. The prerequisite (aside from CPR/first aid) is to have an adventure diver certification, including the navigation adventure dive. You gain this rating in the same way you gain the "advanced" rating, however it only requires 3 adventure dives rather the the 5 that are needed for the advanced card.

Yeh - so NOW with PADI you can become a "Rescue" diver with even LESS dives...sorry, buit I really disagree with the way PADI keeps lowering the requirements.

I still think 60 dives for a DM and 100 for OWSI are ridiculously low!

 

[ggunn]

That seems like some expensive insurance. Why not just call the dive op ahead of time and ask? If they say they do then dive another op. Almost all locations have multiple dive shops and most trust divers to make responsible choices.

It's not necessary on Cozumel. The policy of personally evaluating divers' skills rather than depending on what card(s) they have is, as far as I know, and Christi will set me straight if I am incorrect, ubiquitous on the island.

 

[scubafanatic]

Yeh - so NOW with PADI you can become a "Rescue" diver with even LESS dives...sorry, buit I really disagree with the way PADI keeps lowering the requirements.

I still think 60 dives for a DM and 100 for OWSI are ridiculously low!

I quite agree, those 'standards' are hilarious...and scary!

 

[mjatkins]

Yeh - so NOW with PADI you can become a "Rescue" diver with even LESS dives...sorry, buit I really disagree with the way PADI keeps lowering the requirements.

I still think 60 dives for a DM and 100 for OWSI are ridiculously low!

I agree with the you about the 60 and 100 dives for DM and OWSI, however I agree with their rationale for the adventure diver prerequisite for rescue. As I understand it, they were finding that a significant enough portion of shops in various places around the world, didn't have access to a "deep" site suitable to do the deep dive for the advanced. Also, so much of the rescue course takes place at the surface, and in shallow water, it seemed unnecessary to stop people from being trained to help, just because they hadn't completed the deep adventure dive.

They kept the navigation dive as a requirement so that people will have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to make a pattern, however I personally would like to see the 1st search and recovery dive be a prerequisite. That would make a real difference in how well the scenarios went.

When I look around at all of the people who are doing deep dives without having taken an advanced course, and how few divers I see who could create a simple expanding square underwater, it seems (to me) that the changes are in line with the reality of the current situation.

my $0.02

p.s. nice to finally meet you the other day.

 

[Christi]

I personally would like to see the 1st search and recovery dive be a prerequisite.
p.s. nice to finally meet you the other day.

I agree with you 1000% on this!

Nice to meet you too

 

[DandyDon]

I think we need DandyDon now.

Huh?

If you get the preferred membership with dan then (I believe) that would cover you but they are only secondary insurance and still require you to have a primary insurer.

Yeah, DAN dive insurance is secondary vs Dive Assure is primary, but that's a confused view. They're both going to split expenses with your primary if you have one; how they split is no real concern as long as they pay. If you don't have primary, then they both pay anyway.

I don't see any need in the AOW card for a diver who already has 120 dives logged. Taking the alternate route mentioned to Rescue diver is a good idea tho.

 

[pelagic_by_nature]

I don't see any need in the AOW card for a diver who already has 120 dives logged.

Yeah, but remember what happened to Hitler? :lol2:

(anybody that hasn't seen the video, PM me)