How do experienced divers define "What is Advanced Diving?"

[Jax]

:lol:

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I'll give to the OP a direct answer to his simple question: An advanced diver is one who has the equipment knowledge, dive skills, and the experience to independently plan and carry out a safe recreational dive without professional supervision or coaching. That definition does not refer to a certain class or experience level- it is tied to competence. There are divers who choose to limit their diving to escorted dives, or independent diving under very controlled conditions, and that's just fine. Other divers race from one certification course to another without any "real diving" experience, and have a certification that is not always descriptive of their competence level. I'll stick with my definition. The skills that an advanced diver has mastered include buoyancy control, of course, AND navigation.
DivemasterDennis

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I'll give to the OP a direct answer to his simple question: An advanced diver is one who has the equipment knowledge, dive skills, and the experience to independently plan and carry out a safe recreational dive without professional supervision or coaching. That definition does not refer to a certain class or experience level- it is tied to competence. There are divers who choose to limit their diving to escorted dives, or independent diving under very controlled conditions, and that's just fine. Other divers race from one certification course to another without any "real diving" experience, and have a certification that is not always descriptive of their competence level. I'll stick with my definition. The skills that an advanced diver has mastered include buoyancy control, of course, AND navigation.
DivemasterDennis

I think the problem here is that I thought participants would read the OP.

I am still learning how to word thread titles.

The current title of this thread is a Moderator's attempt to help me with my lacking original title.

DivemasterDennis seems to me to be just answering the title of the thread and not the actual questions in the OP.

OK you advanced scuba divers; looking into your past, when did you think you had earned the title "advanced diver?" If you have ~1,000 or more dives, when do you now think you were "advanced?"

 

[freewillie]

To answer the question, I felt like an advanced diver (for the reasons I previously mentioned) during my deep dive/wreck dive certification.

I was a little nervous just before the deep dive. We were going to the HMS Yukon in San Diego which is at 100 ft on the bottom. We did locks and alphabetical sorting letters in the parking lot before boarding the dive boat. At the dive site I was able to control my buoyancy all the way down. At 100 ft on bottom did my lock, was handing it back to my instructor before he could get the letters and slate out of his bag. Took few deep breaths, we checked our SPG's to see how much faster air consumption is at depth. After completing tasks then swam around the wreck until time to surface. Original dive plan was for me to come up holding the guide line, hold safety stop, then surface. Due to crowding on the line I elected to free ascend using the line as visual reference. I apologized to my instructor for not following our plan, but he told me no worries, my buoyancy was fine during the dive.

We then did another dive on the Yukon as the wreck dive. I found it was more like a 'free' dive even though was technically part of checkout dive for AOW certification. I remember feeling completely relaxed even on deeper portions of the dive. My biggest concern was more adjusting for a little extra Weight I added to compensate for new vest. Turned out felt just little heavy with extra 2 lbs.

Third dive of the trip was just for fun, no skills. Different dive site at the Ruby E at 85 ft. Shed the 2lbs felt better with the weights. We just enjoyed the dive, saw lots of colorful nudibranchs. I remember thinking I could totally do this if I returned without my instructor.

Having officially completed AOW training on that trip, I actually felt like an advanced diver. Here on SB we keep saying that despite being a complete noob, if you just complete basic OW training you should still be able to plan your dive and dive your plan. If we took you out to an appropriate dive site you should be able to dive without anyone else holding your hand. Why not the same for an advanced diver who just completed AOW training?

OK, I know, I'm really just a basic OW diver with AOW skills. So now the real fun begins. To get more dives so instead of an "advanced" diver I'll be an "experienced" diver with AOW training!

 

[Jill from Phoenix]

I like this game - I wanna play...

I felt I was an advanced diver after 50-60 dives, I had been a few places, had a few buddies, had a few adventures and I was like the ambassador of scuba to all my friends trying to talk them into scuba.

I'm not sure if my diving progressed after the first 50 dives ... jk. Of course the milestones don't stop, but when I was guiding divers on vacation I always felt they were going to be pretty advanced even before diving with them if they had at least 50-100 dives and had been diving for a number years or had a cert past basic level. Sometimes, divers had much less than that with an unexplainable comfort in the water and problem solving instinct and sometimes they had 500 dives and I was like who let you get away with a kick like that....oh god, kick further over there. jk

 

[Rhone Man]

I dived from a very early age, and I never really gave much thought to it in the early days. I think I was actually doing the AOW course (probably had about 100 dives by this time - I used to haul tanks in exchange for free diving), and my instructor said to me half way through the course: "Don't let it go to your head, but you're a hell of a good diver." That was the first time I had ever really thought about whether I was any good or not rather than just having fun.

That said, I did let it go to my head, combined with the usual rashness that 15 year olds are known for meant that I started to get into some sticky spots after that.

 

[ozzydamo]

The simplified PADI answer is below 18m, but not deeper then 30m unless you've done the "deep" specialty.

 

[Rhone Man]

You go out on a liveaboard and find that you are more competent than most of your fellow divers, so you figure you're "advanced."

It's funny. I usually think of myself as an advanced diver. But I remember when I was on a liveaboard in Truk Lagoon admiring some of the skills of the divers around me and thinking: "Damn, some of these guys (and girls) are really good!"

 

[Searcaigh]

I considered myself advanced when I had become a Rescue Diver with around 180 dives, which also included prior to PADI courses some commercial diving experience in the UK.

In retrospect having experience in many more dive locations, varied dive conditions etc., the reality is probably more like when I had between 500-600 dives.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Fair enough. I'll finish answering the question. I considered myself an advanced diver when I could do what I wrote in my post above: plan and carry out a recreational dive safely, and have fun, with no other supervision or monitoring other than by me and my similarly credentialed buddy. I hit that point after about 50 open water dives not including any certification training dives. That was after I did my advanced open water class. It took applying what had been learned there, and in other experiences, for a bit before I felt like I was truly "advanced." Now many hundreds of dives later, I have better skills, greater competence, and higher credentials, but the benchmark is the same- when could I just "go diving" safely and have fun without needing (or wanting) some other leader or planner along.
DivemasterDennis