Which class towards advanced?

[cflJason]

Also, keep in mind that the dives you do are the first dive of the respective specialty. These can be counted towards your specialty certification. So for example, if you want to go on to get your UW photography cert, then why not do it as part of your AOW course and have one less dive to do for the specialty cert? Keep this in mind when you're making your decision.

 

[Brewski]

Thing is, if your doing this advanced class with a group then you may have each individual wanting to do a different adventure dive. which is impossible to coordinate for the instructor. so in that case the instructor may select the dives for you. If its just you then no problem you should be able to choose what your interested in. I remember being disappointed when I took my AOW thinking I could just pick what I wanted but then found out that since we had a group class the dives were chosen for us buy the instructor. but now that I am an instructor I understand why.

In my opinion search and recovery reinforces what you learned in navigation. Peak performance buoyancy solidifies a necessary skill all divers should have. night diving will build confidence in low light limited visibility, Wreck will be interesting, but you won't get Reel or penetration training as its just dive one from the wreck diver course.

I just re read you original post. you say your diving a wreck on the deep dive. your instructor may have planned to make the next dive on that wreck your wreck dive. you should discuss this with your instructor.

 

[jdbmga]

If you plan on doing a lot of wreck dives in the future, especially in less than ideal conditions, I would make that my last one. Make sure the instructor can teach you how to use a reel. Yes this is something you could learn on your own but there is more than just that. Know the jist of the smb, reels, lift bags, stuff on that order. It would really depend on the quality of the instructor giving that portion. Just a thought.

I would also think the instructor will go over a few things about boat diving if you have never done any before. Port and starboard, galley, head, how to jump/roll off the boat, how to get back on, lines going to the anchor line, drift lines and all that. You should kinda get that and the wreck kinda all rolled into one.

Good luck, my vote is Wreck and ask for reel experience.

Yeah, we may choose the wreck dive. I am not real interested in wrecks. I prefer reefs, but maybe knowing more about wrecks would help that.

DH and I have dove off a boat already in Cozumel and Grand Cayman. The kids have not but we did learn the giant stride and how to take your fins off on the ladder etc in OW training.

 

[jdbmga]

Also, keep in mind that the dives you do are the first dive of the respective specialty. These can be counted towards your specialty certification. So for example, if you want to go on to get your UW photography cert, then why not do it as part of your AOW course and have one less dive to do for the specialty cert? Keep this in mind when you're making your decision.

Yes, we are trying to choose well. DH wants to go on to Rescue Diver cert so that is why we chose search & recovery.

 

[jdbmga]

Thing is, if your doing this advanced class with a group then you may have each individual wanting to do a different adventure dive. which is impossible to coordinate for the instructor. so in that case the instructor may select the dives for you. If its just you then no problem you should be able to choose what your interested in. I remember being disappointed when I took my AOW thinking I could just pick what I wanted but then found out that since we had a group class the dives were chosen for us buy the instructor. but now that I am an instructor I understand why.

In my opinion search and recovery reinforces what you learned in navigation. Peak performance buoyancy solidifies a necessary skill all divers should have. night diving will build confidence in low light limited visibility, Wreck will be interesting, but you won't get Reel or penetration training as its just dive one from the wreck diver course.

I just re read you original post. you say your diving a wreck on the deep dive. your instructor may have planned to make the next dive on that wreck your wreck dive. you should discuss this with your instructor.

The way they made it sound the four of us would have our own instructor so we would be able to choose the 3 other dives. The four of us would all have to agree on the same ones though. I will double check to be sure though, as one of the main reasons I want AOW is for Peak performance buoyancy.

 

[Papa Steve]

They do night dives on Tuesdays & Saturdays and we will be there Wed thru Friday. We are getting on a cruise ship on Saturday morning. We could arrive early and get there on Tuesday but we don't want this to be one of our first dives in almost a year.

If you haven't already, you may want to contact them, explain your situation, and tell them you want to do a night dive, but on a different night.
If they understand the level of commitment you have to your choices they may be accomodating . . especially if you're assigned your own instructor.

 

[don Francisco]

You're right to focus on skill building dives, Peak Performance Bouyancy and Search and Recovery.
I suggest you continue in that vein and take Navigation, rather than either Fish ID or Photography.

My reason is that navigation is a core skill that you'll appreciate on all your future dives.

You can later take a fish ID and/or Photo course with an instructor who is an expert in the field. Doing it my way will both get you more critical core skill and, later on, a better course in the side skills.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I'm a little confused. I start my Rescue Diver tomorrow, and there was no mention of Search and Recovery being a pre-requisite. IIRC, I did Deep and Nav (required), PP buoyancy (a waste of time as it turned out), Drift (in the St. Lawrence, required for those doing AOW there), and Wreck (we just dove one).

The Deep and Nav both had real activities to do, and in my case the drift as well, we had to practice deploying an SMB and keeping close to a wall and not drifting into a shipping lane. The w/e was well structured, with the drift being the last dive: after watching others do all the skills, another student and I did a wall dive in the river with the instructor observing at a distance, we had to execute the dive and do our safety stop using the SMB on our own.

PPB was a waste, I don't think fin pivots next to a wreck are helpful. I think that one is really up to the instructor, some might give you a lot of value.

 

[cflJason]

You're right to focus on skill building dives, Peak Performance Bouyancy and Search and Recovery.
I suggest you continue in that vein and take Navigation, rather than either Fish ID or Photography.

My reason is that navigation is a core skill that you'll appreciate on all your future dives.

You can later take a fish ID and/or Photo course with an instructor who is an expert in the field. Doing it my way will both get you more critical core skill and, later on, a better course in the side skills.

don Francisco, the navigation dive is one of the two required dives for AOW. The other being the deep dive.

 

[cflJason]

I'm a little confused. I start my Rescue Diver tomorrow, and there was no mention of Search and Recovery being a pre-requisite. IIRC, I did Deep and Nav (required), PP buoyancy (a waste of time as it turned out), Drift (in the St. Lawrence, required for those doing AOW there), and Wreck (we just dove one).

The Deep and Nav both had real activities to do, and in my case the drift as well, we had to practice deploying an SMB and keeping close to a wall and not drifting into a shipping lane. The w/e was well structured, with the drift being the last dive: after watching others do all the skills, another student and I did a wall dive in the river with the instructor observing at a distance, we had to execute the dive and do our safety stop using the SMB on our own.

PPB was a waste, I don't think fin pivots next to a wreck are helpful. I think that one is really up to the instructor, some might give you a lot of value.

Search and recovery is not a prerequisite for the rescue diver course. However, you will learn some search patterns as part of your rescue course that you would already have been familiar with had you done a search and recovery dive as part of your AOW.