Question about Advanced Open Water

[tursiops]

It's been my experience having encouraged several OW divers through AOW training, that the core AOW courses of Deep, Nav and even PPB are quite useful. The other 2 are usually just filler material to justify the cost of the course and have nothing to do with skills including "boat diver" and "underwater naturalist" and "fish Id".

LOL! Maybe you need more experience! The material in (the latest PADI) Boat Diver is quite extensive, including knots, boating terminology, mooring techniques, diving from a boat, marine radios, safety equipment, etc. Underwater Naturalist and Fish ID are actually good introductions to the ecological side of diving...one of the reasons many people dive. The skills associated with Fish ID are extensive, and not easy. Yes, all three of these classes can be taught as throw-aways, but they need not be.

 

[KatieMac]

It's been my experience having encouraged several OW divers through AOW training, that the core AOW courses of Deep, Nav and even PPB are quite useful. The other 2 are usually just filler material to justify the cost of the course and have nothing to do with skills including "boat diver" and "underwater naturalist" and "fish Id".

PPB is quite useful but there really isn't much in AOW on this. I will take it separately.

 

[Bob DBF]

SSI is interesting, as their Advanced Adventurer is the AOW equivalent.

The SSI Advanced Open Water Diver is four specialties of your choice and gives an SSI Advanced Open Water Diver card, as well as the four specialty cards. I don't know its status as an AOW card as you do not need to take Navigation or Deep to receive the certification, and the fifth dive of another specialty is not taken, which are the accepted parameters of AOW.

I would assume they expect you have their Advanced Adventurer before taking this program on the way to their MSD card, but...


Bob

 

[Scubatude]

We do a PPB dive as our first dive for Advanced Open Water. This does several things for us. First, it allows the instructor to evaluate the student's skills and comfort before moving on, and it gives the student time to relax on work on some basic skills before task loading on other dives. It also gives the students a solid foundation and skills to use to work towards refining their buoyancy on each of the subsequent dives. Each of the five dives becomes an opportunity for the student to work on, and improve buoyancy, in addition to the skills required for each of the five dives.

 

[mi000ke]

I did my nitrox cert immediately before my AOW (like an hour before my first AOW dive), that way I was able to dive nitrox on all my AOW dives and not use a elective dive specifically for nitrox (although if i recall correctly there was no required nitrox dive - just the course plus demonstrating the use of the gas analyzer).

I wanted to do AOW to experience deep diving with an instructor, plus to improve my buoyancy, trim, and general diving skills. The cost was just about the same as paying for 5 regular dives, plus I got a private instructor.

I did PPB as my first AOW dive so I could apply that to all the remaining dives.

While it was required to do deep and nav, most of my AOW dives were deep anyway. The way I managed it was to talk with the instructor after my first (PPB) dive about the things we agreed I should be working on to improve my overall diving skills, and regardless of what we called the dive (I did wreck, ppb, deep, nav, and boat) we just worked on making me a better diver. All the dives were working on my buoyancy, the last 4 were deep, all were boat, all were nav (took the compass with me on all the dives), and we worked on all of that same stuff on my wreck dive. So it really didn't make a difference what electives I chose. And in the end I came out a better diver, and that's what I was looking for. If you take that approach you don't have to be too concerned with what electives you take. I figured that concentrating on a more focused set of skills was more useful that getting a brief intro to a few different things.

 

[Addicted2H2O]

Thus the very reason I try to stick with NAUI courses. They're fairly stringent and rigorous and by the end you feel like you've actually earned the certification.

Ang again I wouldn't want to take an EAN class coupled with AOW. I like that's it's a completely separate certification because there are quite a few things you need to know that would almost assuredly get lost amidst the content of an AOW class, regardless of certifying agency.

 

[Landau]

PPB is quite useful but there really isn't much in AOW on this. .

All depends on the instructor. I just finished assisting with a PADI AOW course where the Dives were in order PPB, Navigation, Night, Deep, Wreck - but we worked the students on buoyancy (and kick technique) every dive while covering the different skills for each dive as well.

Buoyancy was what the students needed most and that's what they got. Yon can practice hovering while looking at an octopus on the night dive or practice adjusting your buoyancy while going up to the deck of the wreck and back down the other side.

 

[mmerriman]

This is no longer true, at least for PADI. No more listing of Nitrox along with the certification level.
Also, the single Nitrox dive you'd do as part of the AOW will not provide the certification. If you are doing Nitrox dives, you need two for the certification. Better to do Nitrox as a separate class, using the no-dives option, and use the five AOW dives for topics that actually require skills in the water.

padi does not require ANY dives for nitrox. they are optional.

 

[KatieMac]

All depends on the instructor. I just finished assisting with a PADI AOW course where the Dives were in order PPB, Navigation, Night, Deep, Wreck - but we worked the students on buoyancy (and kick technique) every dive while covering the different skills for each dive as well.

Buoyancy was what the students needed most and that's what they got. Yon can practice hovering while looking at an octopus on the night dive or practice adjusting your buoyancy while going up to the deck of the wreck and back down the other side.

That's excellent that your shop did that. A lot of shops don't want to do the PPB dive in AOW. Perhaps I should have done mine with your shop

 

[tursiops]

padi does not require ANY dives for nitrox. they are optional.

Yes, but you can do one for AOW if you want, but then you have to do two to get the card.