PADI certification question

[Jidherrer]

hi,
My wife and I just returned from a sandals resort in Grenada and got certified as adventure divers. We loved the experience and want to get open water certified. Any idea what to do next?

 

[stuartv]

Find a shop you like. If you want to stick with PADI, then find a PADI shop. Shop around. You may find a shop that wants you to do the full OW course and another that will give you just an incremental course to build on what you already did.

 

[Diver0001]

Be aware when you are shopping around that there are huge variations in the quality of instruction between shops that are offering the same card. The standard is the same for all the shops but just like teachers at school there are good ones and bad ones who both teach the same subject.

Some scuba instructors interpret the standards loosely and teach only the bare minimum (or worse) and others are very conscientious and will prepare you well. Check local sources and/or facebook/google/forums and people you know who are already divers etc. for honest reviews and then pick a good instructor and go to whatever shop they work for.

R..

 

[Jidherrer]

Thanks for all the input. Was more trying to find out if needed to do one more pool dive, and open water dive, sit another test etc.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Thanks for all the input. Was more trying to find out if needed to do one more pool dive, and open water dive, sit another test etc.

You say adventure diver, but I think you mean PADI scuba diver. Assuming standards were kept, you would need to finish CW-4, CW-5, OW-3, and OW-4. I'd have to go over the instructor guide to look at academics.

Honestly, I'd suggest just signing up for a complete course.

 

[JamesBon92007]

By "Adventure Diver" do you mean Discover Scuba? My girlfriend did a Discover Scuba course in Playa del Carmen and they would have applied her open water dives toward her OW certification if she had chosen to do so at the time, however (she didn't) when she took the PADI OW Course recently in Puerto Vallarta the instructor started over from scratch. He did not count the previous dives but did four open water dives with her. To me this demonstrated his complete dedication to teaching his students, making sure that she had the full training and not taking anyone else's word for it.

From what I have seen while taking her from place to place and trying to find good quality instruction for her this can vary quite a bit even though the course name and certification is the same.

My suggestion would (also) be to find the best instructor and take the complete course.

 

[boulderjohn]

The confusion you see in the responses is because you are evidently confused about the name of what you did. "Adventure Diver" is actually a certification beyond the beginning open water diver, so if you are not already certified, you did not get that certification. There are two possibilities for what actually happened.

1. You did a Discover Scuba class, which the place you did it may have given their own "adventure" name to it. If that is the case, then you really have to start from the beginning in your local area. It is technically possible in some cases to apply what you did to that certification, but those cases will not apply to you, they won't help all that much if they did, and there is really no point in doing anything other than starting from the beginning.
2. You did roughly half of the standard open water diver class, which gives you a scuba diver rating. This would be very unusual, so that is not where my money lies. If that is what happened, though, you just need to show your credentials to a shop and get the second half taken care of.

 

[Jidherrer]

The confusion you see in the responses is because you are evidently confused about the name of what you did. "Adventure Diver" is actually a certification beyond the beginning open water diver, so if you are not already certified, you did not get that certification. There are two possibilities for what actually happened.

1. You did a Discover Scuba class, which the place you did it may have given their own "adventure" name to it. If that is the case, then you really have to start from the beginning in your local area. It is technically possible in some cases to apply what you did to that certification, but those cases will not apply to you, they won't help all that much if they did, and there is really no point in doing anything other than starting from the beginning.
2. You did roughly half of the standard open water diver class, which gives you a scuba diver rating. This would be very unusual, so that is not where my money lies. If that is what happened, though, you just need to show your credentials to a shop and get the second half taken care of.

Thanks for the response. I know for sure that we got certified. Have a temporary card now till the official one arrives in the mail. We did the first 3 chapters of the advanced open water manual and sat a test. That qualified us to dive up to 40ft. Just wanted to do the next step that would qualify us to go to 60ft.

 

[UFOrb]

Thanks for the response. I know for sure that we got certified. Have a temporary card now till the official one arrives in the mail. We did the first 3 chapters of the advanced open water manual and sat a test. That qualified us to dive up to 40ft. Just wanted to do the next step that would qualify us to go to 60ft.

You must be referring to the PADi Scuba Diver course, which allows you to go to 12m (40ft).
Excerpt from the PADI website:

The PADI Scuba Diver course is a subset of the PADI Open Water Diver course. If you’re short on time but really want to become a diver, the PADI Scuba Diver rating might be right for you ̶ particularly if you expect to go scuba diving primarily with a dive guide. This course is an intermediate step for earning an Open Water Diver certification, if that’s your ultimate goal.
PADI Scuba Divers are qualified to:

• Dive under the direct supervision of a PADI Professional to a maximum depth of 12 metres/40 feet.

Etc...

The next step up to 18m / 60ft is the full PADI Open Water cert. This is a pre-requisite for the 'Adventure' dives (eg deep diver, wreck etc). You can also go on to Advanced Open Water cert, which allows to dive up to 40m/130ft. You need 5 adventure / speciality dives to get AOW certified.

PADI Adventure Diver requires Open Water cert plus 3 'Adventure Dives' with an instructor.

 

[stuartv]

You can also go on to Advanced Open Water cert, which allows to dive up to 40m/130ft.

I'm no PADI Pro, but it is my understanding that AOW only certifies you to 100' and that you need the full Deep specialty to be certified to 130'.

If AOW certifies you to 130', then what is the point of the full Deep specialty?