Confused about different PADI certifications

I'm a little confused by all the scuba classes offered by PADI. I just got my open water and would like further training. Do I have to take Advanced OW before I move on to the specialty classes? What is an Adventure Diver? Am I allowed to do deep diving just by getting my AOW certification or do I have to complete the Deep Water class too? I've been getting different answers from my local dive shops, so I'm not really sure what to believe. Thanks!

sunshinecat:

I'm a little confused by all the scuba classes offered by PADI. I just got my open water and would like further training. Do I have to take Advanced OW before I move on to the specialty classes? What is an Adventure Diver? Am I allowed to do deep diving just by getting my AOW certification or do I have to complete the Deep Water class too? I've been getting different answers from my local dive shops, so I'm not really sure what to believe. Thanks!

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Adventure diever is really just a certification for young divers who are not allowed to do the deep dive requirement for AOW. Don't even think about it.

As for deep diving, in general there is no one enforcing that. It is a very strong recommendation because of the dangers involved. Some places will require AOW before they will allow you to go to a certain dive, such as the Speigal Grove in Key Largo, but generally it is up to you to determine when you have sufficient training and experience needed to dive deeper than the recommended OW limits. Don't underestimate this! It is, ironically, easier to dive deep than shallow, which can lull you into a false sense of complacency and get you into a situation you are not prepared to handle. The deep diver specialty is not required anywhere that I know of.

You can take specialty classes without taking AOW. Nitrox is an example of a class taken by many before they go AOW.

The flow charts that explain the training ladder for PADI can be seen at PADI.com.

Due to the recent economic downturn the Scuba Police are greatly underfunded and so there is no one to monitor depth limits. Some dive operations may ask you to provide a certain certification level or have a dive log showing sufficient dives and dives of a certain type (nite or deep) before taking you to select sites.

sunshinecat:

I'm a little confused by all the scuba classes offered by PADI. I just got my open water and would like further training. Do I have to take Advanced OW before I move on to the specialty classes? What is an Adventure Diver? Am I allowed to do deep diving just by getting my AOW certification or do I have to complete the Deep Water class too? I've been getting different answers from my local dive shops, so I'm not really sure what to believe. Thanks!

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After Open Water there are a variety of Adventure Dives available to you. They cover subjects such as deep diving, navigation, naturalist, photography, etc. and if you take any three of these you can be certified as an "adventure diver"

To become Advanced Open Water certified you need 5 Adventure Dives under your belt - which must include the deep and navigation dives.

The PADI AOW program comes in for criticism (please discuss elsewhere) because of it's name rather than anything else. Consider the adventure dives as broadening your diving experience, rather than turn you into an 'advanced' diver.

Some specialties you can do as an Open Water diver, some you need already to be AOW certified. Each adventure dive counts as the first dive of the associated specialty course. So, for example, you want to take the Wreck Specialty course - this involves 4 dives, however if you do the Wreck Adventure Dive as part of your AOW certification, you will only have to do the remaining three.

Many dive shops will stick to the limits of a particular diver's certification, regardless of experience. Getting your AOW therefore makes sense if you wish to dive in a location where there are interesting things to see below 60ft/18m.

Safe Diving

C.

Hi sunshinecat, and welcome to Scubaboard!! Congtratulations on completing your Open Water Certification and also for looking to further your training and experience.

I'll try to break down the certification levels for you:

Adventure Dive: a dive with an Instructor that introduces you to something new, such as Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Photographer or Night Dive.

3 Adventure Dives= Adventure Diver

3 Adventure Dives + 2 additional dives (deep and navigation are required) = Advanced Open Water Diver

Many Specialties can be completed with your existing Open Water Certification. Some others, such as Deep Diver and Wreck Diver, can only be completed with an Adventure Diver rating. Still others, such as Ice Diver and Search and Recovery Diver, can only be completed with an Advanced Open Water rating.

The first dives of most Specialties can, at the Instructor's discretion, be counted as Adventure dives towards an Advanced Open Water rating.

PADI gives a lot of ways to increase your training. AOW is a great next step where you will be introduced to new ways to explore underwater. Specialties provide you with in-depth training in areas that you find interesting. Dives can, in many cases, be counted different ways that fit where you want to go.

If this doesn't help clear things up for you then there is a lot of info on the PADI website as well as being able to contact PADI with specific questions.

Enjoy your new adventures and keep exploring the options that are out there as to what interests you.

Hope this all helps,

Hank

You also have options other than PADI and the approaches in different agencies are also a bit different.

PADI's apporach is one where you complete a classroom portion of the AOW class - or an e-learning version and then as stated above complete 2 required specialties and 3 adventure dives of your choice. They used to just call them specialties like everyone else. "Adventure Dives" does sound a bit juvenile and makes you want to wear a power range suit or something. From the perspective of a Full Cave diver, it really sounds a bit silly.

SSI uses a slightly different approach. There is no formal AOW classroom course work but rather you complete 4 specialty courses that all have their own course book with written exams. Finally, ou must have completed a total of 24 dives (including your OW dives and any experience in between) before being awarded the certification. Most specialties have at least 2 checkout dives, so getting your OW and speciality dives will get you about half way to the 24 required.

So roughly speaking, PADI is perhpas a bit heavier on academics depending on how intensive they get in their "adventure dive" manuals while SSI is definitely heavier on experience and holds the line fairly well in their specialty course work.

I AOW courses from both agencies in an odd sort of route. I completed PADI OW and AOW in college in 1985 but elected not to pay for the AOW cert card as there was no real need for card collecting then. At the time the course was a bit more rigourous and included extensive work on gas laws and decompression diving - with tables that included stops of "unintentional" deco that, along with a deco dive, most of us took as an invitation to deco diving. Different times and different divers.

I then took the SSI AOW course by taking 4 specialties about 10 years later when I got into techncial diving and needed an AOW card to get into techical diving classes. It was a pro forma affair needed to get the card, but the specialty course were well taught (meaning they were not inconsistent with anything I had encountered or learned in the 1000 or so dives I had at that time. My wife who was a recently minted diver took the same course, and personally, I placed a lot more value on the experience that the PADI route offered than the classroom academics that PADI stressed.

Course work and 5 specialties aside, you are just not going to be "advanced" in any meaningful sense of the word with the few number of dives it takes to get there via the PADI route. And frankly the 24 dive requirement from SSI is also inadequate. By either standard, a DM or boat captain of any merit is not going to make any grand assumptions about your ability with only 25 dives under your belt, advanced or not.

At best any AOW course by today's standards needs to be viewed as just a license to continue learning until you get a few hundred dives under your belt and really come to realize how little you really know about diving.

sunshinecat:

I'm a little confused by all the scuba classes offered by PADI. I just got my open water and would like further training. Do I have to take Advanced OW before I move on to the specialty classes? What is an Adventure Diver? Am I allowed to do deep diving just by getting my AOW certification or do I have to complete the Deep Water class too? I've been getting different answers from my local dive shops, so I'm not really sure what to believe. Thanks!

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I read the other responses and I found some of them confusing so I'll try to add something to it.

In the PADI system the basic flow of "continuing education" (further training) is this:

* Open Water
* Advanced Open Water
* Rescue diver

In that order.

There are also a lot of specialties. The specialties are geared toward personal interest and you can see this a cafeteria model (pick and choose what suits your own interests).

The advanced course is a special case. It consists of 5 subjects. Learning "Navigation" and "Deep" diving is required. the other 3 "slots" you can fill in yourself from the list of specialties.

PADI also makes a distinction between doing an "adventure" dive and "specialty". An adventure dive you can see as a "try" dive, which doesn't result in you getting a card. If you take an extra dive or two on the same subject then you get the "specialty" which is generally more expensive but results in you getting a card.

Hope that helps.

R..

sunshinecat:

I'm a little confused by all the scuba classes offered by PADI. I just got my open water and would like further training.

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Keep in mind there are other options, PADI is not the only possibility.

sunshinecat:

Do I have to take Advanced OW before I move on to the specialty classes?

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No. PADI does require AOW prior to Rescue. Other agencies allow Rescue without AOW.

sunshinecat:

Am I allowed to do deep diving just by getting my AOW certification or do I have to complete the Deep Water class too?

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Many charters allow you to choose how deep you feel qualified to dive. Others want an AOW or better. Still other will accept either AOW or evidence of recent deep diving experience. When you dive on your own, it's your call. Keep in mind, AOW does not automatically qualifiy you to make deep dives.

sunshinecat:

I've been getting different answers from my local dive shops, so I'm not really sure what to believe. Thanks!

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I'm not surprised.

DA Aquamaster:

SSI uses a slightly different approach. There is no formal AOW classroom course work but rather you complete 4 specialty courses that all have their own course book with written exams. Finally, ou must have completed a total of 24 dives (including your OW dives and any experience in between) before being awarded the certification. Most specialties have at least 2 checkout dives, so getting your OW and speciality dives will get you about half way to the 24 required.

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Technically this is incorrect... because you are not comparing like with like.

The PADI AOW cert corresponds (almost identically) to the SSI 'Adventure Diver' certification. Both include 5x dives with different themes.

The SSI Advanced Diver course corresponds much more closely to the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating (rescue plus specialities and min dive requirement).

When did Adventure Diver become a prerec for Deep Diver or Wreck Diver specialties?