AOW Programme

I was wondering how much 'academic' work is involved in the AOW course. I am thinking of doing it when I go on vacation in the summer. I know it requires 5 dives but not how much reading, reviewing knowledge is required. The reason I ask is that my husband doesn't dive and I don't want to leave him alone too much on vacation! 5 dives spread over a week is fine but if there is a lot of time on other stuff, I may defer the course and do it another time somewhere else. Thanks in advance

brizzolatti once bubbled...
I was wondering how much 'academic' work is involved in the AOW course. I am thinking of doing it when I go on vacation in the summer. I know it requires 5 dives but not how much reading, reviewing knowledge is required. The reason I ask is that my husband doesn't dive and I don't want to leave him alone too much on vacation! 5 dives spread over a week is fine but if there is a lot of time on other stuff, I may defer the course and do it another time somewhere else. Thanks in advance

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I did my AOW with SSI. We did 8 checkout dives (2 at the quarry on 10/13/01, three more at the quarry on 10/20/01, and then 3 at a lake on 10/21/01). We also did (I think) four classes, each about 3 hours. Our class did the Deep, Night/Lim Vis, Search and Recovery, and Wreck specialties.

At the time, it was great to be able to do some more dives with instruction once we had been diving and had an idea of what was going on. We got to learn and play with lift bags, a bit more about buddies, do a night dive with an instructor in a familiar place, etc.

So I don't know how much classroom is required, or how much you'd see, but mine was fairly significant. However, I'd say it's definitely worth the investment.

The PADI AOW certification requires 5 total dives--2 are required: Navigation and Deep Diving; and 3 are elective dives: either Altitude, Boat, Drift, Dry Suit, Multilevel, Night, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Search & Recovery, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Photography, or Wreck Diving.

In my experience, there was very little classroom instruction other than the pre-dive and post-dive briefings. Suggest contacting your instructor ahead of time and find out how much academic time is required.

In my humble opinion, the "theory" part of the AOW course is practically nothing, if you're interested in it, and if you have more than 20 dives under your belt. It's vey simple, like "What precautions to take when doing a drift/night/recovery dive ?"

That's abou it. Nothing to worry about, you'll have plenty of time to spend with your husband

If you don't mind, How many dives have you done?
You asked a rather odd question about regulators in another post and it made me wonder.
You should get 30+ dives under your weightbelt before going on to AOW, IMHO.
If you are expierenced just regard this as meaning to be helpful.

Don

nt

As has already been stated, the PADI Adventures in Diving course consists of 2 core dives (Deep and Nav) and 3 Elective dives of your choice. Frankly, there are something like 24 Specialties to choose from, so it all depends on which ones you and your Instructor agree upon. (Not all Instructors are certified to teach all Specialties.)

In addition to the dives, you will be required to read the appropriate sections of the Adventures in Diving student manual, as well as fill out the Knowledge Reviews. You then go over the Knowledge Reviews with your Instructor, who will prescriptively teach any areas that you are weak in. Ultimately, you hand in the KR for the Instructor to keep in your student folder.

Of course, the best part is DIVING!

BTW, Adventures in Diving is a SAMPLE of different types of dives under the direction of an Instructor. It is NOT, nor has it EVER BEEN, a certification that makes one an "Advanced" Diver.

Have fun!

~SubMariner~

Thanks for all the helpful replies (as ever on this board), I now have a much clearer idea of what to expect which will help me plan things.

Seadog, your assumption that I am an inexperienced newbie is correct. I have 11 dives logged so far. I respect your opinion that you think people should have 25-30 dives before doing AOW but I have read the debates on this point on the board and feel that I am at a place where I could do this in a few months time. My view is that for some people 25-30 dives beforehand would be appropriate but that it isn't necessarily required for others. DEpends on the individual.

PS just cos i asked an odd (or, as I preferred it, dumb!) question doesn't necessarily mean lack of competence relative to my experience! (You know, I'm as incompetent as would be expected for only 11 dives in the bag!!) I asked about the regs because none of the pics of regs on online stores show hoses! Simple as that. I suspected this was so that we could better see the regs themselves and that hoses were part of what was sold but just wanted to check. I don't live anywhere near a LDS so I have to do everything online. And the best way of finding out something you don't know is to ask no matter how dumb it sounds!! Like in all sectors/professions etc, there is a whole lot of assumed knowledge which newbies need to bumble their way through.

the only dumb questions are the ones that go unasked!

but when we teach an AOW, we usually schedule it to coincide with morning two tank dives on two days, and either a night dive or an afternoon one tank for the fifth dive.

Only doing it one dive per day would increase our cost for instructor time and thus the price we would charge.