Question Skipping AOW

[landlockeddivingdoc]

I'm a PADI OW diver with a few dozen additional dives under my belt. I am certain that I'm going to keep diving, and so I'm committed to learning skills to safely dive for the environments and goals of my diving (note: it'll be rec level, though at some point I can see myself as at least a DM semi-pro, and doing some light zone cavern or wreck diving).

I've been looking at my options, and in my area (far away from my original certifcation site) it's PADI versus SSI. I'm not married to PADI, and am familiar with the professional association reciprocity (I'd really like to do GUE or RAID, but there aren't any locations for several hundred miles). I've looked at AOW/Advanced Adventurer but my initial impression is that it would be redundant for what I want to do-- I don't want to do AOW/AA and then go out and hang myself with the just enough rope that they've given me in teaching the specialties. I'd much prefer to do the full specialty courses and have a broader foundation to continue learning and diving.

With SSI, I can enroll in what I feel to be the most appropriate speciality courses (Navigation, Night, Deep, Nitrox, Stress and Rescue) as an OW diver, whereas with PADI, some of the specialties (ie, Deep) require AOW/AA as a prerequisite.

I understand that AOW/AA dives can count towards specialty ratings, but with my classes around here, I'm going to be doing the full specialty dive schedule regardless of past dives if I enroll in a specialty course, and even though I will take any opportunity to dive that I can, I don't want to spend several hundreds of dollars on the AOW/AA course if I'm going to wind up taking the "full" courses anyway.

So my questions are:
1) Does the AOW/AA course provide any information that would not be related by taking the full courses listed above?

2) If I'm not AOW/AA rated but have appropriate SSI specialty ratings, would I have any difficulty booking dives "in the real world?" (specific instance: there are a couple of 70-80 foot dive sites I'd like to dive locally--would they give me grief about not having AOW/AA if I had SSI deep?)

3) If they would give me grief, is it possible to retroactively get AOW/AA if I have the specialty courses and associated dives under my belt?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[rick00001967]

i may be incorrect but i believe padi requires aow to move through the ranks to dm or instructor etc. so if you want to achieve a padi pro status i think you have no choice but to do the padi aow at some point.

if you want to pursue the ssi pro route then stick with them.

to answer your sepcific questions:
1 - no
2 - it may depend where you are and which shop you are diving with. there are some shops that require deep training to go on certain dive sites.
many dont, and only want to know you are capable of handling the conditions etc. that may require you to do a couple of shallower dives first so they can evaluate your skill level.
i would imagine having the ssi deep course under your belt would be acceptable for most shops, but some may still want to see you in the water first.
3 - with padi....no. the aow course is a course in itself. with ssi....yes. the aow is not a course with ssi. it is a level of recognition that you are given if you meet the requirements.

 

[Belzelbub]

With SSI, I can enroll in what I feel to be the most appropriate speciality courses (Navigation, Night, Deep, Nitrox, Stress and Rescue) as an OW diver, whereas with PADI, some of the specialties (ie, Deep) require AOW/AA as a prerequisite.

If you were to take these courses with SSI, you’d end up with 8 total cards. 5 would be the certs for the five specialties. Then you’d get 3 recognition certs. Specialty Diver (for completing 3 specialties), Advanced Open Water (for completing 4 specialties), and Master Diver (for completing 5 specialties including Stress & Rescue). The recognition certs cost nothing extra.

1) Does the AOW/AA course provide any information that would not be related by taking the full courses listed above?

Nope. The PADI AOW is a sampler platter, SSI AA is the same. What’s puzzling to me is that PADI has other courses where the sampler class is a prerequisite. I can’t wrap my head around that logic.

2) If I'm not AOW/AA rated but have appropriate SSI specialty ratings, would I have any difficulty booking dives "in the real world?" (specific instance: there are a couple of 70-80 foot dive sites I'd like to dive locally--would they give me grief about not having AOW/AA if I had SSI deep?)

They shouldn’t. If they do, the dive Op is clueless, and you might not want to dive with them. Deep would qualify you for dives with most ops that require additional certs for dives on the deeper side. Plus, as I said above, if you do Nitrox, Night, and Navigation (like you planned) you’re have AOW as well.

3) If they would give me grief, is it possible to retroactively get AOW/AA if I have the specialty courses and associated dives under my belt?

PADI might. SSI wouldn’t as doing the specialties is how you get AOW. I don’t know if PADI would recognize AOW from SSI as equivalent to PADI AOW though.

 

[tursiops]

SSI says this:

Here is what SDI says:

Note that the PADI AOW has a requirement that is not part of just ahving the first dive of five spcialties (including Nav and Deep). You must also complete the "Thinking Like a Diver" Knowledge Development section of the manual; this can be done with an instructor, but is in addition to the five required dives and other bookwork/quizzes.

If you want to have the PADI AOW cert by doing five full specialties (including Deep and Nav), then you must do several things:

• Work with a PADI instructor/shop to agree to a game plan
• Do three (or four; one of the four must be Navigation) specialties (not including Deep), to become an Adventure Diver
• Do the Deep specialty (Adventure Diver is a prereq)
• Do the Thinking Like a Diver Knowledge Development with the instructor

You will have done at least 13 dives (Deep=4; Nav=3; other three are at least 2 each) to get these five specialties, probably more.

 

[spc751]

According to the PADI/TDI dive shop that I use, the four dives in PADI AOW are the first dives in the speciality courses. For example, do the one Deep dive in AOW then do the last three deep dives in Deep speciality course. Do the one navigation dive in AOW then do the second navigation dive in the Navigation course. Keep going until you have completed at the courses that you want. However, I have never needed any card except nitrox and AOW on dive boats and dive shops, but I have taken additional dive training to be able to do the dives that I wanted to do with my dive buddies.

 

[Tom_Ivan]

When I did PADI AOW 7 years ago. It was fun, but a total waste of time if you expected to learn something you didn't already know. I suspect that it hasn't changed much.

If I was in your position, I'd do SSI Deep and Nitrox next. That'll open up 90% of the diving that you might want to do in the near future.

 

[scubadada]

It would be interesting to see how many operators accepted SSI Deep, or Padi deep for that matter, rather than Padi AOW or SSI Advanced Adventurer. I have never been asked for anything beyond Padi AOW and nitrox. Nobody has ever asked about my Padi deep diver (19 years ago)

 

[Bob DBF]

I look at it a bit differently, if you are planning to travel for diving in the near future, take PADI AOW (or SSI AA) or you may restricted in the dives you can make with an OW cert. These courses are more frequently taught because they are used as a gateway by dive ops. Otherwise individual courses are more comprehensive.

 

[Rob9876]

2) If I'm not AOW/AA rated but have appropriate SSI specialty ratings, would I have any difficulty booking dives "in the real world?" (specific instance: there are a couple of 70-80 foot dive sites I'd like to dive locally--would they give me grief about not having AOW/AA if I had SSI deep?)

I'll answer this first because to me it is the most important: Yes, there are some dive ops that require AOW for certain dives (even some that are pretty basic). Obviously this varies, but I've seen dive ops in the Carolinas, Florida, and even a cenote dive in Mexico that required AOW certification. AOW is also a pre-req for SDI Solo/PADI Self-Reliant Diver, which you may find that you want as your diving progresses. EDIT: as mentioned below, you also need at least Adventure Diver (basically a subset of AOW) as a prerequisite to take Deep Diver.

1) Does the AOW/AA course provide any information that would not be related by taking the full courses listed above?

To me this question is a bit backward, and should instead be: do the specialty classes add value beyond what I would get from the AOW course. I'll get in trouble for this, but in my opinion many of the specialty classes are bunk. For example: Night Diving -- it's not rocket science, and after covering the basics of it in AOW, I can't imagine wanting to pay for a full specialty class (and I love night dives) and I've never seen a dive op ask for that specialty card. I'd say the same about the the Deep specialty. And while Nitrox is a specialty that probably ought to be a few pages in OW or AOW, seems like every dive op requires a Nitrox card, so that specialty is worth taking for that reason..

So, I'd definitely take AOW, and do some diving before adding a bunch of specialties. You may or may not agree with my take on Night and Deep. You may also re-evaluate whether you feel you need to take a Navigation specialty after doing some dives applying what you learn about Nav in AOW.

You'll want to a Nitrox cert at some point, because that card is required to rent Nitrox tanks. Rescue Diver is a good class, and I believe it is a pre-req for DM.

 

[Belzelbub]

It would be interesting to see how many operators accepted SSI Deep, or Padi deep for that matter, rather than Padi AOW or SSI Advanced Adventurer. I have never been asked for anything beyond Padi AOW and nitrox. Nobody has ever asked about my Padi deep diver (19 years ago)

I wondered about that. It would be interesting to try if you have an upcoming dive trip. Present your PADI Deep Diver card instead. See what they say. They should accept it, but who knows. Their policy may be poorly written to specify AOW, in which case, I wonder If SSI AA would work. Policy should allow a suitable specialty to work as well, but who knows.

I look at it a bit differently, if you are planning to travel for diving in the near future, take PADI AOW (or SSI AA) or you may restricted in the dives you can make with an OW cert. These courses are more frequently taught because they are used as a gateway by dive ops. Otherwise individual courses are more comprehensive.

More or less agreed. Depends on the goal. If the goal is to take a course that checks the "Advanced" box, then the sampler course will suffice.