Need Advice: AOW and the Maldives

[KnowledgeIsPower]

Hi guys! I have been following these forums for quite a few months but just registered as I finally need some advice.

My wife and I booked a trip to the Maldives in November, and we wanted to make the most of it by getting certified and learning how to dive before we went. We completed our Open Water training in June and did a Nitrox course in July. Our plan was to do the AOW in August, not so we would "collect C-Cards" but rather we felt it would be good to have more training with a guided instructor. Particularly we felt that the current dive training would help us a little in the Maldives plus of course having more dives with an instructor wouldn't hurt!

After finishing our OW, our instructor told us he wanted us to do more dives before we registered for the AOW. We agreed with him and did 5 more dives on our own before the class. Of course with 5 dives after OW that is no where near perfection, but we felt confident enough to take the course (we went as deep as 55 ft and practiced buoyancy/slow ascents). Given many people take AOW right after OW we felt ready for the course.

Unfortunately after our first navigation dive, our instructor felt our buoyancy needed more practice and would not let us continue the course. I agree that we are no where near having perfect buoyancy, but I did not know we needed perfect buoyancy for this course? He wouldn't let us continue because he felt he could not take us on the deep dive if we didn't have our buoyancy under control. I personally disagreed with him because we felt pretty comfortable at 55 ft on our own and did not feel we were out of control, but who am I to argue with an instructor who has been diving for 30 years?

He was able to convince the dive shop to refund us most of our money, but they still charged us for rental for that day (this is fair I guess) and a small bit to cover the instructor's costs for that 1 dive. Clearly we are upset, but there is not much we can do about that. Personally we are putting it behind us and just moving on.

Right now we have 10 dives scheduled for the Maldives. We were considering maybe doing the AOW over there, but the problem with that is it would take away from our 10 dives, allowing us maybe only 5 or 6 dives instead of the 10 we paid for. What are people's opinion on this? We don't want the AOW just to get the card, but we feel doing it there will help us enjoy our vacation more, and plus it would probably be more fun to do it there than here in our freshwater lake...

And our dive operator told us that without the AOW he will not take us below 60 ft (which I know is fine for most diving anyways) but I can't help but feel that there will be some dives we won't be able to go on because we don't have the card.

 

[CptTightPants21]

I think that you need to slow down.

What exactly did the instructor say about your buoyancy? Did he offer any helpful hints? Do some searching on this site and there are a lot of topics that cover ways to improve buoyancy and how to correct individual problems.

Buoyancy is something that is learned with a lot of dives. Perhaps you have a very strict instructor, but for beginner level advanced courses such as navigation, being called out for poor buoyancy is a huge red flag in my book. Has any other instructor mentioned buoyancy to you, how would you describe your buoyancy?

You shouldn't be worried about "cutting into" those 10 dives and more focuses on getting a better handle on buoyancy. As for you dive trip, tropic water is usually easier for divers as they don't need as much air in the BC and don't have to wear gloves. Also, I am pretty confident that your dive operator will see your skills in the water with the first few dives and determine if you have enough control to go past 60ft. If he is confident in your abilities he will take you past 60 without the AOW.

There a lot of resources on this site. youtube, and on the internet to help people with buoyancy, use them and maybe take some more dives/pool time to work on your skills--check out your buoyancy while just floating or doing some simple task loading like using a compass.

 

[Imla]

I am slightly surprised that an instructor would say that after a nav dive. My gut response would have been, why not do the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive next and see if that helped the matter. You could do the deep dive last, and a lot can happen in 4 dives...

 

[KnowledgeIsPower]

The way our course works is the instructor picked the electives not the students (because it was a class of 7 people). And I am not sure if NAUI offers a Buoyancy dive? Also we were diving with people who were very well trained (one guy had 190 dives under his belt) and I feel that we stuck out as the two inexperienced divers.

I think the issue is that we were doing our navigation dive in 10 feet and it is really hard to maintain neutral buoyancy in such shallow waters. While I was not shooting to the surface, there were some small mistakes that I think discouraged him. My wife made a mistake as she was ascending she added air to her BC instead of taking air out (we both know that we can't do that) and that was a red flag to him. As for me, I was slightly landing on the surface instead of hovering neutrally buoyant while descending but did put enough air in my BC to allow me to continue with the dive. The other thing that may also have been a negative was I was having Sinus trouble that day and did not properly equalize so I had to come up a few times to get my ears to equalize properly.

I kind of felt that a lot of our mistakes were not typical for us and he just did not feel comfortable training us. This is the last course our shop offers for AOW for the season as it gets very cold fast up here so I don't think we will have another opportunity in the year before the Maldives.

 

[supergaijin]

After finishing our OW, our instructor told us he wanted us to do more dives before we registered for the AOW.

Unfortunately after our first navigation dive, our instructor felt our buoyancy needed more practice and would not let us continue the course. I agree that we are no where near having perfect buoyancy, but I did not know we needed perfect buoyancy for this course? He wouldn't let us continue because he felt he could not take us on the deep dive if we didn't have our buoyancy under control

He was able to convince the dive shop to refund us most of our money

Keep the details of this instructor as he/she sounds like one of the few instructors that put safety before profit. Excellent buoyancy control is critical after deep dives where you load with more Nitrogen. Repetitive dives make it even more important. to be able to hold stops in the ocean.

 

[Centrals]

1. If a instructor is willing to offer you refund because of your ability then you should really sit up and take notice. He/she is a responsible person.
2. Go to Maldives as scheduled and forget about th AOW. Be careful as some of the sites are deep and current can be strong.
3. Go home and talk with that instructor again.

 

[kafkaland]

I can only echo what was said above: listen to the instructor and get good at buoyancy control. And if it means limiting your dives in the Maldives to 60ft, so be it.
Chances are, you'll get the hang of the finer points of buoyancy control just by doing those dives.

We had a somewhat similar situation when I took my drysuit course: there were three of us when we started, but after the pool session the instructor told one of the student that he would not be comfortable taking him into open water at that point, but will help him getting his buoyancy sorted out, without a drysuit, first. He got there, eventually, after additional work.

As to buoyancy control being critical to deep dives, apart from the obvious physiological and safety considerations, I found it to give me much peace of mind. I am still fairly new to this, and have been pushed past my comfort zone on deep cold-water dives by my buddies (shame on me, I guess). Two things made a big difference for me: carrying a pony bottle for backup air, independently of my buddies, and the knowledge of being able to hold my deep and safety stops, and any deco should I accidentally get into it (so far, it hasn't happened, but it's been close enough to be on my mind), no matter what. Mooring line or blue water, I know that I can handle it. In the worst case, I can always give them the finger and surface safely. That has been the more valuable aspect of buoyancy control to me than being able to hold still in front of a pretty fish.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

And I am not sure if NAUI offers a Buoyancy dive?

... in my NAUI AOW class, ALL of the dives are buoyancy dives. You will also be doing other cool stuff while you're working on your buoyancy control ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[chillyinCanada]

Frankly, while others of you have applauded the instructor, I've got a problem with the overall situation. Shall I find fault with the dive shop that signed up newbie divers for a class full of more advanced divers? I'm making an assumption that the dive op knew the students' agenda, trip timing and most certainly should have known the local dive season. At best, the dive op either didn't give good advice or gave poor advice. At worst, the dive op knowingly put these students' into a bad situation. Where was the instructor before day one at the dive site? I'm not an instructor of diving so I'm asking, don't instructors know students' dive resumes prior?

 

[DuboisP]

OWD, 5 dives, AOWD, then Maldives ?
Even with 350 dives, i won't be confident to dive Maldives.
The instructor is right.