Got my OW, and AOW, what's next ?

[beaverdivers]

What is "next" in the training ? or what would you all reccomend ? I would like to increase my skills, the more knowledge I have the safer I will be, I feel.

Nitrox would increase your knowledge plus increase your bottom time and/or lower your risk of DCS.

 

[Scubagolf]

Dive. Dive.
Nitrox is a single class with no dives. Piece of cake. Take it when you have the time and $.
After 50 or so dives take Rescue.
Dive. Dive.

 

[TMHeimer]

I pretty much agree with all that's been said. Dive a lot. Nitrox is good if your type of dives makes it beneficial regarding depth. Nitrox tank fills are often twice the cost of Air. Rescue is eventually the best idea after you are comfortable with dive basics. There is a recent thread on Rescue, and many others in the past.

 

[diversteve]

Somebody has as their sig line something to the effect of:

After 25 dives I thought I knew it all. After 100 dives I knew that I still didn't...

go dive...

 

[FinnMom]

EAN is a good idea but otherwise go out and dive for at least 50 dives. Stop paying money for class after class until you have a little more experience. Our dive club won't let students take "continuing education" (CMAS**) until they have at least 20 dives after completing the basic certification; until then they can dive to 20m and that's plenty deep for such a green diver.

With more experience under your belt you will get much more out of classes and have a much better perspective of what classes you really wish to take and what skills reasonably do & do not require a class.

 

[DENLASCUBA]

Keep diving as much as you can but don't limit yourself to just one type or place if you can afford to travel do it. It's best to gain experience diving in different conditions, i.e strong currents, extremely low viz, great viz, this will allow you to become a better diver. I have had divers that only had the chance to dive in lakes in Europe with just over 200 dives which I though was strange but to each is own and when it came to strong currents in the Similan Islands off the coast of Thailand here they panicked the first 2 dives, then had short dives due to air consumption. They did great in low viz low currents tho . Work on your buoyancy and air consumption as much as possible especially if you want to pick up under water photography you will need it.

It is best to ask and pay attention don't act like you know everything, once you have a number of dives you will find yourself giving some advice to new divers with your experiences. Of course you have to be able to filter out good advice from not so good advice as you will have some that do believe they know everything about diving. This will also help you if you decide to continue your dive training.

 

[Oldbear]

Dive as much as possible. Create dive goals and objectives to meet those goals every time you dive. Example:

Goal: fine tune my trim so I can hover for 2 minutes focusing on 1 square foot of a coral head (a goal is measureable and achievable)

Objectives:
(1) Breath with a nice slow and steady rate
(2) Stabilize my buoyance with minimal air in my BC
(3) Utilize breath control for small vertical movements
(4) Stabilize my horizontal trim with different weight location placements

I am sure you can think of more goals and accompany objectives. Right now in your dive career you have learned the basics to build a solid foundation. Now you need to re-enforce what you have learned thru diving. There is no substitute for actual diving; you cannot gain dive experience online or from a book.

 

[Steve_C]

The more diving is clear

I will disagree with going to Key Largo and do guided dives. I would say go to Key Largo and do unguided dives. If you have a guide you are not doing dive planning, you are not learning navigation and getting to the boat on time, you are not developing self reliance, your focus is on following the guide. Do a couple guided dives if you want on the reefs, take a guide for a dive that is outside your comfort zone. But you need to do a bunch of unguided dives and the reefs of Key Largo are as nice a place as any to do that.

Also, just because you have done the 5 dives as part of AOW does not mean you have done everything in the specialty course. Over the years I have gone back and for fun retaken the specialty courses for every one of the dives I did for AOW. For most of them like DPV, drysuit, search & recovery, I learned a lot more in the specialty course. Deep not so much but I did my Deep specialty after over 200 dives because I needed the card for DM. We did 5 dives for specialty search over two days which was much more intensive than one dive with AOW. Same with DPV. With the specialty we got to work with several DPVs and much more intensive training.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Plus one for just going diving. As you find areas of interest that lend themselves to further training, take those specialties: photography, dpv, whatever. Rescue is the next logical step and a predicate to professional qualifications if you choose to go that route in the future. Otherwise, do what is of interest to you.
DivemasterDennis

 

[TMHeimer]

The more diving is clear

I will disagree with going to Key Largo and do guided dives. I would say go to Key Largo and do unguided dives. If you have a guide you are not doing dive planning, you are not learning navigation and getting to the boat on time, you are not developing self reliance, your focus is on following the guide. Do a couple guided dives if you want on the reefs, take a guide for a dive that is outside your comfort zone. But you need to do a bunch of unguided dives and the reefs of Key Largo are as nice a place as any to do that.

Also, just because you have done the 5 dives as part of AOW does not mean you have done everything in the specialty course. Over the years I have gone back and for fun retaken the specialty courses for every one of the dives I did for AOW. For most of them like DPV, drysuit, search & recovery, I learned a lot more in the specialty course. Deep not so much but I did my Deep specialty after over 200 dives because I needed the card for DM. We did 5 dives for specialty search over two days which was much more intensive than one dive with AOW. Same with DPV. With the specialty we got to work with several DPVs and much more intensive training.

On a tangent, but was it a shop requirement that you get Deep Cert. to do DM? I know there is some deep component in the "new" PADI DM course.