PADI AOW Book -- what so bad?

[nineeightysix]

I'm a relatively new diver with a technical (as in technology not diving) background -- and I love to get deep into subjects I'm interested in. I thought the PADI OW manual was poor until I purchased the Adventures in Diving manual, which is a waste of money and time. I read the entire book in about 3.5 hours and learned nothing. I know experience is the real teacher though...

I recently purchased the NOAA Diving for Science and Technology manual and have finally found an in depth work on diving that give me the answers and knowledge I seek.

Are the NAUI and SSI programs/books as bad as PADI's?


Cheers

[spectrum]

Are the NAUI and SSI programs/books as bad as PADI's?

First you need to remember what AOW is all about. It is exposure to different aspects of diving in a safe and supervised setting, for instance.....

*A deep dive will take you past the 60 foot recomended OW limit. Perhaps check for narcosis and sharpen some buddy skills. Don't expect any real gas planing, deco procedures or technical stuff.

*A wreck dive will bring you down to a wreck or debris field with the intention of swimming down to it, viewing it without entanglement and hopefully not disturbing it. It's not about penetration.

In many ways AOW is merely an extension of the OW certification though I believe that any diver uncomfortable in making modest shore or boat dives with an OW card has been let down by his or her instrructor. By cutting the program in two they can get divers into an entry level status that other wise due to time and $$ constraints would not be diving.

I did AOW with NAUI and had the same reaction after reading the book. In fact it was blatantly obvious that they were spoon feeding just enough information to cover the AOW objective while setting you up to take a specialty to learn the meat of the topic. Even in the Rescue diver class it seemed like most things were capped and it was pointed out that the rest was covered in the Advanced Rescue class.

The other side of it is that you need to consider the population as a whole. I am also a technical person. I had a pretty good bookshelf of instructional dive books that I had read and was at well over 100 dives when I did AOW. On top of that I had been a ScubaBoard junkie for a few years and believe it or not I'd say I have read more than I have posted. If you went out and bought the NOAA manual you are cut from the same cloth.

Contrast folks like us with the average non tecnical person who just wants to dive occasionaly, perhaps only on a once a year dive vacation and their objective is to see some fish while reveling in warm weightlessness. (Man that sounds nice in the middle of a freezing rain storm!) Many would not be willing and some not capable of dealing with an in depth tecnical treatment. There is nothing wrong with any of this but there is a very real distribution of intersts and abilities out there.

Frankly I do think it's all about the money. Another book package sale for the agency, another class fee for the LDS. Heck if it weren't for classes some divers would not be logging dives. I think once you cross over to a tecnical realm this gets a lot better but in the recreational realm it's pretty much the reality as I have seen it.

Pete

[elmo6s]

The PADI DM required reading is pretty solid - The Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving has a lot of good info...

[Doc Intrepid]

PADI's texts are not bad at all in terms of presenting abstract concepts in bite-size pieces for new divers, and in fact when compared to the manuals and course materials from many other agencies the PADI/DSAT materials are comparitively well-written, technically edited, and well produced.

In terms of content, as Pete said above, books for beginning readers present concepts in short sentences using small words too. Its important that comprehension build one concept on top of the preceding foundation, and the NAUI and PADI OW manuals are a decent example of that approach (IMHO). There is a good reason why PADI's textbook for the AOW course used to be titled "Advanced Open Water" and now is "Adventures in Diving" - precisely because over time it was argued repeatedly that nothing in it is "advanced" by most commonly accepted definitions of the word. It mostly exposes the student to all the other activities and options out there...

The idea is to present material in a step-by-step sequence, rather than trying to insist that all students "drink from a firehose".

Remember too that there are a wide variety of readers out there, and students, and that course manuals need to be comprehensible to all of them.

The concept is to provide what is necessary for safety to those who need or desire only that much. For divers such as yourself who prefer to delve deeper into physics, oceanography, equipment and technology, history, or whatever, there are other manuals that go into much more detail (from a wide variety of agencies).

Welcome to diving and to ScubaBoard.

Doc

[frankc420]

I've been reading the AOW book myself and feel that it's a common sense guide to diving.

[rakkis]

I'd imagine that you'd like PADI's Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving. That is more like the book you seem to want.

You are misinformed when it comes to a recreational AOW class. It is not "Advanced" in the common sense. It is only exposure to new environments. Recreational agencies don't start teaching the kind of information that you seek until the pro level.

[markfm]

Depending on what you want to learn about, Clay Coleman's "The Certified Divers Handbook" is also good reading, on a wide variety of topics.
"Deeper Into Diving" is also good, again depending on what exactly you wish to learn about. (Be sure to get the newer edition.)

[shurite7]

As stated above many are misinformed about the "advanced" course. The term "advanced" is a misnomer. The whole purpose of the advanced class is to focus on what the o/w course does not allow (lack of time/dives) the instructor to do....diving.

Back to your inquire. There are several good references to material above so I will add another one. NAUI's [I]Mastering Scuba Diving[I] is fairly respectable. Both NAUI and PADI's rescue books are worth reading.

You may want to consider the U.S. Navy diving manual which can be found online. I too have read through NOAA's book. After reading both I came to the conclusion, diving physics, physiology and other similar aspecs are the same for military, commercial and recreational diving. The purpose or missions are what is different.

Salaam

Chris

[String]

I dont find the padi manuals THAT bad.

Although thats possibly because im used to the bsac notes which are absolutely terrible.

[mislav]

I thought the PADI OW manual was poor until I purchased the Adventures in Diving manual, which is a waste of money and time. I read the entire book in about 3.5 hours and learned nothing.

PADI can be accused of a lot of things, but this simply is not true.

If you're a relatively new diver, there are things you can learn from that book. Anyone claiming otherwise is a very poor diver and potentially a dangerous dive buddy.

If your level of knowledge surpasses what AOW book covers, then why would you expect to learn anything from PADI's second in line - beginner divers manual?