AOW Aug 26-27 at Lake Pleasant

We'll be teaching an AOW course the last weekend of August at Lake Pleasant. Our course is not just another PADI cert. It will help you become a better diver. We'll sit by the water discussing some of the different concepts and conditions of diving, and then we'll apply them during actual dives. AOW is a 5-dive course. PADI requires a Deep dive and an Underwater Navigation dive. The other 3 dives we choose to do are Altitude, Buoyancy, and Night. Here's a quick breakdown of the 5 areas:

Altitude - learn what you need to take into consideration when diving at altitude. Lake Pleasant may only be at 1700 feet above sea level, but this does affect the ATA pressure you experience and your off gassing. In other words, you need to calculate your depths at a theoretical depth that is deeper than your actual depth. Some computers compensate for this, many do not. And if you ever decide to dive in another area of Arizona or in New Mexico, the altitude is even higher. Come learn more about this!

Buoyancy - Okay, so you think you have your buoyancy down? Think again. We're instructors and cave divers and we still go to the lake on a regular basis to practice buoyancy. This is one skill you never master. You just keep improving it. Learn some techniques to use and practice during your dives!

Night - Afraid of the dark? Don't be! There's a lot to be seen on night dives. That's when the fish come out of their holes to feed in the lake. Why do you think people who fish get up so early in the morning? See what it's like to be in the water in the dark (well, we will have lights). It's like diving a whole new site!

Underwater navigation - It can be enough trouble just trying to navigate the streets of Phoenix or Tucson, never mind 30 feet underwater! In open water you learned how to swim a straight line, get your reciprocal and swim back. For this dive, we'll teach you how to truly use the compass and underwater topography so that you can swim around looking at things and make it back to your entry point.

Deep - Okay, so you've been deep before, but did you stop to think about the effects the pressure was having on you? Did you stop to enjoy the narcosis? You'll actually perform some skills at a depth below 60 feet and take a moment to enjoy the narcosis. After all, that's what it's there for!

In addition to learning more about these specialty areas of diving, you'll also earn a certification that will open up some of the locations you can dive. True, lots of dive ops don't care what your level of certification is, but some do. And the ones that do won't let you dive on their boats or property without an AOW cert or higher. So come on out and dive with us!

For more details, visit the SouthwestScuba Services page, then contact me here, through e-mail, or by phone. Come dive with us!

I'd very much like to take this with you Rob, but it's my son's B-Day weekend, so I'll have to see how things are shaking out before I commit. Please provide info on obtaining course materials, either here or by PM.

Garrett

Yeah, I would be interested too. The course material would be nice to buy it in advance in order to read it a couple of times before the actual course to get familiarized, Let us know where to get it from.
Keep diving!!!
Andres

All you need for this course is the Adventures in Diving book or CD-ROM. You have a few options on picking one of these up. You can go to your LDS. You can order it from an online entity and have it shipped. Or you can order it from me and I'll hand deliver it on the 30th.

The product number for the book crew-pak with nav finder is 60325 and for the cd-rom crew-pak with nav finder is 60307. Or you can get the book alone, 70014, or the cd-rom alone, 70176, for a little over $20 less. The nav finder isn't required. There may also be some older crew-paks available without the nav finder for a little less, but I don't think PADI is selling those any more so it depends on the supply out there. All you need is the book or cd-rom. If there's more than one diver in your family, I recommend the cd-rom. PADI allows up to 4 users on that while if you use the book, each diver needs a book.

If you buy from me, I charge you my cost. I'm not in this to sell materials. But I'll warn you that my cost isn't all that great. There are 8 different levels of pricing from PADI and independent instructors get the lowest level. I've only seen one place price materials less than my cost, but once you add shipping costs my cost is still a couple of bucks less. It makes no difference to me. All I need to do is make a phone call and place an order with my area rep. I prefer not to post the price out in the open, but PM me if you're interested and I'll give you an estimate (I haven't ordered one of these in some time and there have been changes in products and pricing, so I'll have to call my rep Monday to get actual prices).

Once you have the book or cd-rom, all you have to do is read the sections corresponding to the dives listed in my original post and complete the knowledge reviews for those sections. We'll review the knowledge reviews before each dive, brief the dive, and then go diving! Let me know if you have any more questions.


Garrett, didn't you mention your son dives?

BTW, this is just a weekend we've scheduled to do an AOW class. We've got a couple more divers working on it that weekend and thought I'd post it here for anyone else interested. If anyone is interested in AOW at anytime, let me know. We will schedule these any time, even during the week. Even if we're at the lake just diving, we can do this. AOW is an easy course for an instructor to do at the last minute as long as you've read the material and completed the knowledge reviews. There are minimal skills you need to do (no mask removal, air share, reg recovery, etc). There is very little, if any, time at all that you'll be on the bottom doing a skill. AOW is about expanding your knowledge and applying it to your dives. And it doesn't have to be done in one weekend.

Dive-aholic:

Garrett, didn't you mention your son dives?

Click to expand...

Yes I did, he's SSI JOW, as we had talked about at the beginning of summer I want to take rescue because of this and AOW is a prerequisite right? I'd like for him to take these classes too, but that is completely his decision. It may be he takes them seperately from me to avoid the teenager/father dynamic we seem to be having issue with. Give him a little diving independance if you will, he takes guidance, suggestions and instruction far better from a stranger than from his parents.

Garrett

Ahhh. I don't have kids, but I'm around them enough to know what you're talking about. He can always do a private or semi-private (we'll just split the class and separate the 2 of you ) with me or my wife while the other one of us conducts the other half. We'll even stagger the dives so you're not in the water at the same time. It might be difficult to do that for the Rescue course, but it's definitely possible for AOW - one step at a time. Just an idea. We're very flexible. Afterall, it's your course.

Thanks for the suggestions/ideas.

Like I said it's completely up to him; I'll gauge his interest after we dive in Catalina next Saturday, we have a long drive home

It sounds right up his alley; No classroom! He hated that part of OW. Hmmm...I found the book fairly cheap [$25+], maybe I should find the DVD instead JIK.

I just thought that if he wanted to do it, perhaps a class without me there might peak his interest more, make him feel a little more independant, he's never dove without me, his sister [10] and I were at every OW class he had and I was his pool buddy. My daughter could have passed the OW written exam no problem , she's "wicked smart", as they say in Good Will Hunting. We, the instructor and I, often thought if we could merge the two, his no fear/water skills with her intellect, I'd have a bad azz little buddy! She doesn't want to dive [or do Rangers/Seals] right now, maybe when she's 16 she says. [Yeah right, she won't want anything to do with me when she's 16]

There isn't a problem with him being JOW is there? I mean his JOW turns to OW in a year+ automatically [@15], he'll get the credit & cards right? [if requirements met]

-Garrett

No problem with him being JOW or Junior AOW. When he turns 15 we can submit an upgrade request with no extra training needed.

Rob, I will confirm If Im going to be attending the class, probably in the first week of August, I need to make sure that the dates will fit my schedule before I fully commit, I will know for sure closer to the date.
Thanks
Andres