AOW too soon??

[firechuk]

git-r-dun diver,
I'm not familiar enough with the NAUI system to speak about the requirements for AOW, but SSI has a training and/or minimum logged dive requirement for each level or specialty. The feeling is that a diver needs to dive to get better and more comfortable with the skills he/she learned at one level before proceeding to the next. As far as swapping between agencies (or holding multiple agency certs.) - SSI will allow it as long as you have met the prerequisite training and diving requirements that students under the SSI system must meet. Check out www.ssiusa.com for the course requirements and descriptions. Lastly, don't let what others say scare you away from a class. Go to the shop, talk to the instructors and ask questions. There is no substitute for face-to-face conversations about diving instruction.
Good luck!

 

[amascuba]

I'm not familiar with SSI's AOW course. There are several SSI instructors that are members of scubaboard--maybe they could describe the program to you.

The SSI AOW course requires a minimum of four specialty courses and a minimum of 24 logged dives before you can recieve your open water card.

The four specialties can be any four specialties. Most of the specialty course require that you read a book, do the knowledge reviews, take a test, and do at least two dives.

For example if I did EANx, Deep Diving, Night and Limited Visibility, and Drysuit Diving I would have to do the following:

EANx:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the EANx test
4. Analyze a tank of EANx

There are no dives required for EANx

Deep Diving:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Deep Diving test
4. Do two dives between 60 - 130 ft within NDL limits and have a divemster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Night and Limited Visibility:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Night and Limited Visibility test
4. Do two dives with limited visibility or night dives and have a divemaster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Drysuit Diving:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Drysuit Diving test
4. Do two dives with a drysuit in open water and have a divemaster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Because the nature of drysuits most instructors will also make the student do one or two pool dives with the drysuit so that the student can get used to the suit in confined water.

After that the student would have to wait until they accumilated 24 logged dives before they could recieve their AOW card.

Did you notice that I said that the AOW student can do any four specialty courses? Unlike PADI, SSI doesn't require navigation or deep dives. A potential SSI AOW student could something like altitude, computer, fish id, and night and never really be challenged as a diver. I don't really agree to that, but to each his own.

 

[TSandM]

jbd, I agree with you wholeheartedly that that's the period where mentoring is ideal. No point in paying for a class which will have to be watered down because you really aren't ready to take it. Bob's AOW class, for example, is something I'd get a lot more out of today than I would have if I'd tried to take it a year ago.

 

[K Mejean]

.

I don't know what he had to do in the water that he never had to think of before so I can't clarify that.

Now let me say that he could have been Bull*****ing me but I doubt it. He told me that he had to remove and replace his gear underwater while blinddfolded. He told me that he had to dive to the bottom of the pool remove his gear and then swim to the top. Take a couple of breaths and dive down to put the gear back on. He said they had to assemble the gear blindfolded before they ever got in the pool. And last but not least they had to jump in the pool with their tank between their legs and their reg in hand. When they hit the water they had to turn the tank on and put the reg in their mouth to breath. Now that is stuff he never had to think about in OW. I know I did OW with him.

 

[Rob9000]

I got my OW in 1998 and just did the AOW in August of this year with just under 50 dives going in to the class. The class helped a little in revisiting how to determine proper weighting, as well as the UW navigation section. I think the AOW course would have been more of a benefit to me if I had taken it right after the OW course. I agree that there is nothing 'advanced' about AOW; I see AOW as 'Open Water, Part two'. I think the content of AOW isn't advanced enough for dive experience to help make the course content more meaningful.

 

[EvilSlumLord]

After observing a couple PADI AOW classes and skimming through the standards it seems to me that the PADI AOW class is nothing more than some dives with an instructor and/or a divemaster/assistant instructor with varying experience in deep, navigation, etc.

....

I think that is a fair assessment based on the experience I had in my PADI AOW class recently. We did the Boat, Deep, Drift, UW Navigation and Night dives in my class and, except for the navigation dive, I don't think there was really even a way to fail. Worst case with nav (unless we ended up swimming to Bogata from the WA coast ), they might make you swim the course again until you could demonstrate you could navigate reasonably.

Honestly sometimes I felt like this was just an opp for the instructor to go out and do some dives (and make a little $$$ along the way). At one point I started ascending out of control (still working on my basic buoyancy/weighting at that point) and he didn't even *KNOW* it had happened until after the dive when I told him (and the instructor was my BUDDY! :11. By way of comparison the DMs on the ocean dives I took in Tahiti a couple of weeks ago were very on top of things and keeping an eye on everyone. Felt like I learned a LOT more about diving there than I did in AOW.

Also no intent to bash PADI as I think it all hinges on the instructor you get but I could see some value in having the AOW training have some skills you had to demonstrate or some other accomplishment so that there was a bit more accountability for the instructor. The fact that no one freaked out or didn't return from the night dive doesn't seem like enough for a pass/fail criteria to me...

YMMV.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

This is probably one of the biggest peeves we have with the AOW course. It goes without much argument that a diver with 4-5 OW dives simply is not capable of safely doing a deep dive etc, which as far as Padi is concerned is by the book as far as standards go. Sure they suggest you do a few more prior, so lets call it the students 8-9-10th dive then.

Same story anyway.

I don't know how it is elsewhere, but our way it is the defacto standard to shove people into 60-100ft of water within their first 10 dives, regardless of their skill or lack thereof.

Padi is quite aware of this practice, that goes without saying, since in our neck of the woods we have had many accidents, close calls and a few deaths during the AOW course. We see the samething all the time, which is simply that the students have no skill what-so-ever, and yet Instructors, with the backing of the agency I would assume, are shoving them forward, guiding most of them around by the yoke-screw most of the time so they don't get lost or in trouble, and then signing them off. They don't learn a damn thing really.

We've been down that route a time or two and it ain't happening anymore.

I have also had several students tell me they had zero in-class work, and some didn't even hand in any knowledge reviews, nor take them up even verbally.

It's quiet clear to me, regardless of what is being said, that this has become the unwritten rule with respect to the AOW class. Get them in early, try your best to make 5 dives without killing them, and then send them off.

We find it difficult to satisfy not only the student, but also keep our standard than we will not certify an AOW diver who WE feel, regardless of what the standard says, that is not capable of safely making a dive to 100ft (because let's face it, we're about the last people to stop them in doing so once they get the card) with a measured amount of skill.

Thank goodness for the Adventure diver card.

We've had occassion to tell a student that there's no way in hell we're taking them deeper than 40ft, that they simply need to get out and practice what we've taught them to that point, and then come back when they get some skills ironed out and we'll take another look. This gets the card collectors a card, and us out of having to do anything as dangerous as sticking them where they really don't belong, which we wouldn't anyway, but this eases the let-down when all they're used to seeing are cards being handed out like that came from a bubble-gum machine.

Other than divers with a dozen or two dives out of OW, this is basically the SOP anymore since it is quite obvious to us that there's no-one really capable, to our standards, to be in the water @ 60ft or greater within the minimum time frame that the agency allows.

I find that the people that get the most out of an AOW are the ones that have been doing enough diving after their OW class to at least be comfortable in the water prior to enrolling.

The way I see most AOW courses being run they are more along the lines of an "Oh yeah, go for a dive with us and we'll sign ya off because we have an open spot on the boat we need to fill". There's nothing about learning at all, and it's merely a paid guide for 5 dives.....heck I'd do that for half that price! I can hold onto your yoke-screw and guide you around for 15 minutes at a time! lol

regards

 

[fire_diver]

.

I don't know what he had to do in the water that he never had to think of before so I can't clarify that.

Now let me say that he could have been Bull*****ing me but I doubt it. He told me that he had to remove and replace his gear underwater while blinddfolded. He told me that he had to dive to the bottom of the pool remove his gear and then swim to the top. Take a couple of breaths and dive down to put the gear back on. He said they had to assemble the gear blindfolded before they ever got in the pool. And last but not least they had to jump in the pool with their tank between their legs and their reg in hand. When they hit the water they had to turn the tank on and put the reg in their mouth to breath. Now that is stuff he never had to think about in OW. I know I did OW with him.

These stunts do nothing in my view. How did he improve his bouyancy? how did me learn to gas plan a dive? How did he learn to do the things a person needs to be a good diver?

Fd

 

[serrada]

SSI is the way to go.

 

[amascuba]

Bob's AOW class, for example, is something I'd get a lot more out of today than I would have if I'd tried to take it a year ago.

Bob's workbook is excellent! I enjoyed reading it.