Which class towards advanced?

My family of 4 wants to get the advanced certification this summer.

We have decided on Peak Performace Buoyancy, search & recovery and can't decide between underwater photography or fish aware id for the other dive. We will be getting a wreck dive in while doing the required deep dive as well.

Which one would you recommend and why? Which one teaches you more about the subject addressed?

I think that classes in underwater photography and Fish ID are cool and have their place but I personally believe that classes towards an advanced certification should be the type that help you improve your diving skills . . .classes that will make you a safer and more self-sufficient diver. Along with the other classes you mentioned, Navigation and Night/Limited Visibility should be classes you may consider.

Papa Steve, we agree that we want to take the most classes that improve our diving skills, that is why we are carefully selecting these dives and not trying to kill a lot of birds with one stone. We COULD get 3 of the 5 dives out of the way because we are doing a deep dive (required) to a wreck off a boat but we a will only count it as the deep dive.

The navigation dive is another required dive that is why I didn't include it. The deep dive and navigation are required. We need to choose three others. We chose PPB & Search and recovery for our other 2 and are just trying to chose a 3rd.

I don't think night diving will be an option as they only go out at night 2 days/week.

Around here we don't get a choice: Boat, Deep, Search and Recovery, Underwater Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy. One of the dives is a night dive so I'm not sure how the 5 dives are allocated.

At the discretion of the instructor, these dives can be applied as the first dive of the related specialty course. Completion of 5 specialties, AOW and Rescue will allow you to get the Master Scuba Diver recognition level. The MSD is just what is says, a recognition for completing the programs. For MSD, there are no dives.

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time on specialties that didn't improve my diving skills. I could always learn about fish, equipment specialist and Nitrox at my leisure.

BTW, Nitrox is incorporated into the AOW program around here. At additional cost, of course. There are no dives required for Nitrox certification. Since the deep dive isn't all that deep, this is a good time to use the new Nitrox cert. Just for giggles...

I would highly recommend the courses I listed above and would plan on OW, AOW, Nitrox, Rescue and 5 specialties in about that order. My wife and son-in-law are working their way through the sequence right now. If all goes well, both will be certified to the Rescue level by the end of January. Specialties can come along in due course. They don't seem to be scheduled very often. We may have to contract separately for those.

And, yes, I have completed a similar sequence many years ago ('88).

Richard

Yes, search and recovery was recommended to us b/c my DH wants to go on to Rescue Diver

jdbmga:

Papa Steve, we agree that we want to take the most classes that improve our diving skills, that is why we are carefully selecting these dives and not trying to kill a lot of birds with one stone. We COULD get 3 of the 5 dives out of the way because we are doing a deep dive (required) to a wreck off a boat but we a will only count it as the deep dive.

The navigation dive is another required dive that is why I didn't include it. The deep dive and navigation are required. We need to choose three others. We chose PPB & Search and recovery for our other 2 and are just trying to chose a 3rd.

I don't think night diving will be an option as they only go out at night 2 days/week.

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Why can't you go out on one of those 2 days? I would pick a night dive. You're not really going to learn much about UW photography in AOW and there are better ways to learn about marine life as well. I can't imagine doing AOW without a night dive.

These are the dives we have to choose from:

Elective Dives:
Night Diver
Underwater Navigator
Search & Recovery
Wreck Diver
Underwater Naturalist
Deep Diver
AWARE Fish I.D.
Boat Diver
Drift Diver
Underwater Photographer
Peak Performance Buoyancy
Underwater Videographer

Like I said, the deep and navigation dives are required

gcbryan:

Why can't you go out on one of those 2 days? I would pick at night dive. Your not really going to learn much about UW photography in AOW and there are better ways to learn about marine life as well. I can't imagine doing AOW without a night dive.

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They do night dives on Tuesdays & Saturdays and we will be there Wed thru Friday. We are getting on a cruise ship on Saturday morning. We could arrive early and get there on Tuesday but we don't want this to be one of our first dives in almost a year.

If you plan on doing a lot of wreck dives in the future, especially in less than ideal conditions, I would make that my last one. Make sure the instructor can teach you how to use a reel. Yes this is something you could learn on your own but there is more than just that. Know the jist of the smb, reels, lift bags, stuff on that order. It would really depend on the quality of the instructor giving that portion. Just a thought.

I would also think the instructor will go over a few things about boat diving if you have never done any before. Port and starboard, galley, head, how to jump/roll off the boat, how to get back on, lines going to the anchor line, drift lines and all that. You should kinda get that and the wreck kinda all rolled into one.

Good luck, my vote is Wreck and ask for reel experience.

jdbmga:

My family of 4 wants to get the advanced certification this summer.

We have decided on Peak Performace Buoyancy, search & recovery and can't decide between underwater photography or fish aware id for the other dive. We will be getting a wreck dive in while doing the required deep dive as well.

Which one would you recommend and why? Which one teaches you more about the subject addressed?

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Nobody has mentioned yet that you can't do a deep dive on a wreck and count it as both a wreck dive and a deep dive. In any case, with the above and the required navigation dive, you'll have enough dives for the AOW cert.