PADI Advanced Open Water Question

[USMC CPL.]

I see alot of Divers have hit the nail on the head. I asked my instructor about the speciality courses and he told me that you can learn the same skills from a seasoned diver who is willing to share his or her's wealth of knowledge. And not have to pay for them.

 

[scubadada]

Sorry if this has been covered. Your AOW dives will count towards your specialty course and give you a discount on same. Discuss this with your instructor.

 

[Random Dude]

Thanks all, gotten some very valuable information regarding my question.

Seems like there is a general consensus that certain courses such as EANx and Night might not be as worth it when taken as specialties.
Will inquire with my LDSs to as to their syllabuses and also to see whether other more interesting specialties such as Multilevel Diving, DPV etc are available.
Hopefully they will be able to give me a package discount and also a viable schedule

Will also take the advantages of the AOW course into consideration as well when considering which route to pursue.

Lastly, wanna ask whether the AOW certification would be automatic once I acquire the 5 specialties, or if I have to pay an additional processing fee to PADI to get the certification?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Thanks all, gotten some very valuable information regarding my question.

Seems like there is a general consensus that certain courses such as EANx and Night might not be as worth it when taken as specialties.
Will inquire with my LDSs to as to their syllabuses and also to see whether other more interesting specialties such as Multilevel Diving, DPV etc are available.
Hopefully they will be able to give me a package discount and also a viable schedule

Will also take the advantages of the AOW course into consideration as well when considering which route to pursue.

Lastly, wanna ask whether the AOW certification would be automatic once I acquire the 5 specialties, or if I have to pay an additional processing fee to PADI to get the certification?

You definitely want nitrox. Unfortunately search and recovery requires AOW (if anyone know why, I’d like to know as it makes no sense to me). DPV can be good though is better taken from a DIR agency. Wreck is woefully inadequate. I don’t think multilevel is worth it as that information should be covered in open waters.

Considering the pic is less than $25, the shop should just throw that in.

 

[boulderjohn]

Seems like there is a general consensus that certain courses such as EANx and Night might not be as worth it when taken as specialties.

EAN should be taken as a separate course that gives you EAN certification. No dives are required for this.

DO talk about choices with your instructor--you may find something interesting in terms of the instructor's preferences. For example, I like to include altitude diving as a choice. I teach the altitude issues, which makes sense since we are diving at altitude here. The dive itself has NOTHING in it, so I make it into whatever I want to make it. I see what skills the diver needs most and work on them throughout the dive.

Lastly, wanna ask whether the AOW certification would be automatic once I acquire the 5 specialties, or if I have to pay an additional processing fee to PADI to get the certification?

It won't be automatic. PADI has no real way of knowing what you did. The instructor has to send that in. If you have worked out a package deal, it should be included.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

It won't be automatic. PADI has no real way of knowing what you did. The instructor has to send that in. If you have worked out a package deal, it should be included.

John,

What do you mean PADI has no way of knowing? While. It exactly the same thing, when I qualified for MSD with SSI, I believe the card and recognition was initiated by SSI, not the shop.

It’s just software. It would be pretty sad if the software used by PADI couldn’t notify them that someone qualifies for AOW via classes. We are talking about maybe 10 lines of code max that is executed everytime a certification is processed.

 

[Rhyno]

John,

What do you mean PADI has no way of knowing? While. It exactly the same thing, when I qualified for MSD with SSI, I believe the card and recognition was initiated by SSI, not the shop.

It’s just software. It would be pretty sad if the software used by PADI couldn’t notify them that someone qualifies for AOW via classes. We are talking about maybe 10 lines of code max that is executed everytime a certification is processed.

I believe what he's saying is that the customer contacts a shop and/or the instructor. PADI isn't in the initial communication. After the student has completed the course to the instructor's liking, and to the PADI standard, the instructor then notifies PADI of the outcome. They had no prior knowledge that the student was interested or working on the course.

As a Staff Instructor you'd likely know better than myself; but I wasn't aware that you could get the AOW by completing 5 specialties. The only situation I can think of including 5 specialties would be "Master Diver". Even in that scenario PADI can not know if you qualify because there's also the 100 dive requirement. The only situation where they could auto generate the cert would be if you also used scuba earth for all your dive logs.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I believe what he's saying is that the customer contacts a shop and/or the instructor. PADI isn't in the initial communication. After the student has completed the course to the instructor's liking, and to the PADI standard, the instructor then notifies PADI of the outcome. They had no prior knowledge that the student was interested or working on the course.

As a Staff Instructor you'd likely know better than myself; but I wasn't aware that you could get the AOW by completing 5 specialties. The only situation I can think of including 5 specialties would be "Master Diver". Even in that scenario PADI can not know if you qualify because there's also the 100 dive requirement. The only situation where they could auto generate the cert would be if you also used scuba earth for all your dive logs.

Hey, thanks for pointing out the dive count (50 for MSD). That’s easily solved. At the time of any certification, an instructor could enter the number of dives up to that date for that diver. Again, just software. It isn’t hard.

To get AOW via classes (5 adventure dives including nav and deep), you first need 3 adventure dives to qualify as adventure diver, the prerequisite for the deep specialty. Since the first dive of each specialty course qualifies as an adventure dive, if you choose good specialties with a good instructor, you have a more meaningful AOW certification.

It just isn’t done this way very often.

 

[Marie13]

I'm happy to see someone interested in a specialty-based AOW over the sampler platter.

 

[shurite7]

Hey, thanks for pointing out the dive count (50 for MSD). That’s easily solved.

Master Diver also requires one to be certified in rescue. See 2017 PADI Instructor Manual p. 104.