Erich S
Contributor
It’s kinda a no brainer, why not get it?
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AOW is a crossroads between training courses which has nothing good about it, and should be scratched off the list IMHO.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but it's a bit irresponsible to make such an extreme claim in response to a newish diver asking for useful advice.
All of my AOW students found many good things in their AOW course. Not only did I always make sure we had a great time diving together, but I also:
Introduced my students to night diving and deep diving. They learned that neither of these were difficult, but did require some caution and preparation beyond shallow daytime diving.
Took them to a wreck, which is always fun for new divers.
Taught them about search and recovery, including tying knots and using a lift bag.
Put them through navigation exercises, which helped to increase their confidence for later dives when managing their own dives.
Are these things my students could have learned without the AOW class? Probably. But without the class it likely would have taken them much longer, would have involved more "trial and error" (which is not a good way to learn anything in scuba diving!), and would possibly never happened because new divers do not have the perspective to understand which new experiences are relatively simple (e.g. night diving) and which require intensive training (e.g. cave diving.)
Oh come on, AOW is a money maker that provides very little value in itself. It makes far more sense to take the complete courses with good instructors and circuitously reach the AOW rating.
Well you’re obviously a decent instructor who cares about his students. Kudos to you. Many are extremely relaxed about the course standards and I’ve not heard good things as I’ve previously said from instructors that actually teach it and they’re good instructors.
Honestly the AOW seems a bit of a money scam by PADI. Out of the 5 dives the PPB was actually useful,
the navigation a little useful (all the dives I do I follow the guide anyway)
and the other 3 no better than a fun dive.
Yes. Also regarding money-- I took 7 specialties way back when--when I had tons of money! I learned quite a lot of stuff doing that, though in my every day diving use very little of it. Same may be said for all the physics in the "old" PADI DM course. And like my music degrees. However, with AOW, you can do OK money-wise if you get at least 2 boat dives--considering what a charter by itself would cost anyway (including tip). If you got all 5 dives from a boat you're probably ahead of the game, plus now you have the card.Ohhhh... so AOW is the secret to making money teaching scuba!!
You have to admit, using "money maker" to describe anything related to scuba instruction is pretty amusing.
Nitrox was mentioned in an earlier post. Before taking the nitrox course make sure you can exceed NDL with the tank you use. If you can't exceed NDL with your tank on air then nitrox is a waste. Nitrox is used to gain more bottom time by increasing the NDL for a given depth and shorten SIs.
Some older divers believe that by using nitrox and air NDL they will be less prone to DCS. I've used air for 51 years, I am unable to even get close to NDL with any tank I own so for me nitrox is a non-starter. IMO using nitrox and air NDL is a waste of money, others will disagree.