another question about "advanced open water"

[ElectricZombie]

Many boats or Instructors will waive the requirement for Advanced certification if the diver in question can prove that he has the real world diving experience necessary.

I think the value of Advanced certification depends on how the coarse is run. Many Instructors really do a poor job running the class and afterwards, the students have no additional skills to show for it. If you can find a decent Instructor, it might be worth it.

If I had to do it all over again, I would probably just find a highly experienced buddy to dive with.

 

[Walter]

Greg,

Due to unusual circumstances, it will be a few days before I can give you an accurate answer.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I learned to dive in college in 1985 and paid the extra money for the PADI OW certification. I then took the PADI advanced open water class the following semester with deep diving, night/limited visibility diving, and underwater navigation specialties but saw no need to pay the additional money for the AOW card.

About a decade and a half later I completed an SSI AOW certification after about 500 logged dives as a follow up to nitrox certification but after than much time and that many dives, I learned virtually nothing in the process other than that some of the techniques in some of the specialties are a little too basic. It also did not help that I had purchased and read all of the SSI specialty course the books just for basic reading long before picking four of them for specialty courses. It did however get me an AOW card, the prerequisite merit badge for more advanced coursework.

SSI requires four specialties for the advanced open water, same as PADI.

One thing I noticed was the differences in the demands and breadth of coverage of an AOW course over a 15 year period.

The PADI AOW in 1985 had a dedicated AOW text and required extensive knowledge of gas laws and dive tables (Navy Tables at the time as the doppler tables were just being readied for release and the PADI "wheel" was being talked about as a cool solution to extending bottom time through multi level diving). This comprised the core of the course and then the four specialties were added to it. Deep diving included substantial coverage of decompression and contingency planning including the then standard procedures for omitted decompression. We also had a lot more diving and practical work in open water in addition to check dives at the end of the course. I am not sure if this was a PADI reqquirement or a university requirement to achieve the required hours for the college credit at that time.

The recent AOW course had no core curricuulum at all and consited only of 4 specialty courses. Deep diving required no knowledge of gas laws other than being able to use an SCR formula to plan air consumption on deeper dives. It also made no reference to decompression diving intentional or otherwise other than to say that it isn't recommended for recreational diving and should be considered technical diving.

I found the differences in the courses to be interesting. I think in part that it reflects the change in philosophy over time as to what an AOW course is supposed to accomplish. In 1985 I had the impression that it was designed to give you the skills and knowledge needed to continue to develop your skills and extend your diving range largely on your own. Now, it just signifies completion of four specialty courses and really does not prepare you to do anything oher than four specialties. In my opinion, the AOW diver of today has a serious handicap in terms of overall knowledge and ability compared to the AOW diver of 15-20 years ago.

Any one have any opinions or observations on this?

 

[JDostal]

That's interesting to hear about how the AOW classes used to be more intense - I wish it were that way today....

 

[Diversauras]

Omicron once bubbled...
That's interesting to hear about how the AOW classes used to be more intense - I wish it were that way today....

...If you find the right instructor.

 

[Charlie99]

MASS-Diver once bubbled...
Come to NE sometime. At least in MA, if the dive is a deeper than 60', a wreck, a drift dive, etc., none of the major charter boats are letting you step foot onbaord w/out an AOW card.

Next time, please ask if they accept a Rescue card instead and post the response?

My advice to the orignal poster that he just go directly to Rescue was in part based on my experiences in Florida where they told me to stop digging for my AOW card as soon as I found the Rescue card.

Thanks,

Charlie

 

[danielle]

i always am on diveboats were they ask to see my card ... there was only the one time in ft. lauderdale where they didnt care. And even then they still wanted to know what our level was out because we were going to be doing a 70 ft wreck