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

[ScubaSteve1962]

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.

I would suggest the guided dives because as a new diver, he may have enough to think about with bouyancy, and air consumption, then once he feels more comfortable with that, venture out on his own. Don't need task overload this soon.

 

[Steve_C]

he may have enough to think about with bouyancy, and air consumption, then once he feels more comfortable with that, venture out on his own. Don't need task overload this soon.

Understand.

If he has any trouble with bouyancy he should take a good bouyancy course. I did not have trouble with bouyancy almost from the beginning in the sense I did not worry about it, but I took the bouyancy course early on and it improved on my ok by not great bouyancy. For that matter he could take the bouyancy course in the Keys and take the Navigation course in the Keys.

But assuming a reasonable learning curve and doing say 10 dives in the Keys I would think that he could do a few at the end without a guide. The OP after all has his AOW.

 

[chris_the_brit]

I would vote for some simple unguided dives. I have PADI AOW and about 80 dives but for one reason or another there has always been a guide/DM present. So last weekend my buddy and I went and did 2 shore dives by ourselves. They were fairly easy and shallow, with simple navigation, but having no guide made a huge difference. We had to plan, stick to the plan or communicate a change of plan while underwater, deal with little problems - and everything felt harder than usual.

But we had a great time and probably learned more in those 2 dives than in about a dozen guided dives.

 

[Scott]

I did my night dive, navigation, deep dive. wreck drive to 80 feet so far. I also have my Nitrox

Were those dives listed done as part of your AOW or are those specialties that you have completed?
There is a lot to be said about just diving and then more diving. You have the ability to hone those skills that you were taught your courses and to actually have some fun. After all , isn't that why we take up the sport, is for fun.
There is a lot to be said about moving directly into a rescue course also. There are a couple recent threads about rescue courses, so I won't bog this down with reasons for or against. Go read those and make a decision that you feel comfortable with.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

Understand.

If he has any trouble with bouyancy he should take a good bouyancy course. I did not have trouble with bouyancy almost from the beginning in the sense I did not worry about it, but I took the bouyancy course early on and it improved on my ok by not great bouyancy. For that matter he could take the bouyancy course in the Keys and take the Navigation course in the Keys.

But assuming a reasonable learning curve and doing say 10 dives in the Keys I would think that he could do a few at the end without a guide. The OP after all has his AOW.

That's reasonable. I had planned on getting the PPB cert, got the manual, did the knowledge base, went to a pool and practiced. never got the cert just put what I learned and practiced in action.

 

[BackBite]

I did my AOW two months (and two dives) after my OW. My husband and I both discussed taking the Rescue course this year, but honestly, I'm glad we're waiting and just diving and honing our skills. A few months ago we were diving with some DM friends and my dive sister gave me some great buoyancy tips. Our last dive of the day, we're doing a hard bottom and the viz was quite low. Lost my buddy but found the instructor's AOW student. We had the hand signal discussion, "Where is your buddy? I don't know. Where is your husband? I don't know. We are now buddies and we are going up to do our safety stop. OK" We did our ascent and I was able to absolutely stick at 15 feet with very little effort or adjusting. It was like an epiphany had gone off in my head...I suddenly just "got" everything my AOW explained again and again. Since then, I'm much more aware of my buoyancy and require little in the way of adjusting outside of breathing.

Honestly, I don't even know that we'll attempt the Rescue course until I'm at over 100 dives. Right now, I just want to get better and better.

 

[mick allein III]

I liked Oldbears idea. I set goals for myself on each dive. Often times I work on navigation. I too think you should dive awhile. The more experience you; the more you will bring to the speciality courses. At the end of each dive while doing your safety stop, I would practice your basic OW skills reg retrievals, mask clearing, and reaching for cottoning devices.

 

[TMHeimer]

I would vote for some simple unguided dives. I have PADI AOW and about 80 dives but for one reason or another there has always been a guide/DM present. So last weekend my buddy and I went and did 2 shore dives by ourselves. They were fairly easy and shallow, with simple navigation, but having no guide made a huge difference. We had to plan, stick to the plan or communicate a change of plan while underwater, deal with little problems - and everything felt harder than usual.


***********************************************************

Absolutely. I have now "shadowed' two "mini dives" --part of the revised PADI OW course (for OW checkout dive #4, following which they are certified). The students did an excellent job planning the dives without any help. I do believe they are ready to dive without a DM/guide. I went right out with only another newbie buddy and did OK, but I do think this mini dive idea is really good.

 

[Subcooled]

What is "next" in the training ?

Where do you want to go? What do you want to do with your life? Reefs, wrecks, archaeology, commercial diving, caves, acrobatics, uw modeling? You need to get the training that gives you the skills you need. Everything else is a waste of money.

the more knowledge I have the safer I will be, I feel.

Oh, there we have it! You want to feel safer.

Rescue skills do not make YOU feel safer. It makes your buddy feel safer. The PADI Rescue Diver course teaches you buddy rescue and risk awareness and provides the skills that I would expect from any buddy. If I would ever NEED help (and I did) then the buddy must be able to perform. I would thus wholeheartedly recommed the PADI rescue diver course. And then I would doubleheartedly recommend the NAUI rescue diver course (or at least purchase and read their course book).

But YOU want to feel safer. There are a few things you can do:
1) minimize your weights - diving gets easier. The PADI perfect buoyancy class may help or you may just experiment in waist deep water with near empty tanks.
2) dive without a mask. Dive without a fin, two fins, mask and fins... If you ever loose one/two/three it will feel familiar and annoying but OK.
3) learn to swim: forward, backwards (easy with hands, harder with reverse frog kick), sideways, turn around. Hand sculling for micro-adjustments. You have four limbs. Use one hand and one foot for sideways movement.
4) learn freediving. First you will feel pressure around your throat (air naturally wants to escape). Then the pelvic thrusts come trying to get you to breathe. One, two, three, many. You still dive. Then your muscles turn to lactic acid as an energy source. That feels strange. You can still perform, right? As time goes by your feelings will change (some are uncomfortable) and your ability to think slowly fades but you will have a minute or two to correct any problems with SCUBA-equipment. This makes you a lot more relaxed. In a case of trouble, you will have a minute or two to sort it out. Stay close to your buddy, and yes, you can do a successfull free ascent from 30m as a freediver...

 

[Storker]

I would vote for some simple unguided dives. I have PADI AOW and about 80 dives but for one reason or another there has always been a guide/DM present. So last weekend my buddy and I went and did 2 shore dives by ourselves. They were fairly easy and shallow, with simple navigation, but having no guide made a huge difference. We had to plan, stick to the plan or communicate a change of plan while underwater, deal with little problems - and everything felt harder than usual.

But we had a great time and probably learned more in those 2 dives than in about a dozen guided dives.

Good job!

My first post-OW dive was just me and my buddy, since dive guides who accompany you underwater are about as common as hen's teeth around here. I was pretty apprehensive, but being able to plan and execute a dive - albeit a very simple and easy one - without supervision by a guide, DM or instructor boosted my self-confidence a lot. Except for my vacation diving abroad, I haven't had a single dive with a guide, and I believe that diving independently gave me the competence and self-confidence to, on my first warm-water vacation dives, not follow the guide like a sheep, but actually evaluate the dive practice, set and adhere to my own limits rather than what the guide told me was "OK".

I have now "shadowed' two "mini dives" --part of the revised PADI OW course (for OW checkout dive #4, following which they are certified).

That's great! Around here we have national guidelines requiring six OW dives, of which the last two should be planned and performed by the students as a buddy couple and just overseen by the instructor/DMs. I believe that this is an almost necessary requisite to qualify the divers to dive without being hand-held by a guide or DM.