PADI AOW vs. Adventure Diver Certification

[kbpeterc]

All,
My husband and I have our Padi Open Water certification and few dives under our belts but what to gain more certifications to be as prepared, knowledgeable, and safe as possible. I'm wondering if we should get the Advanced Open Water or Adventure Diver certification. I'm thinking AOW but I just need some help understanding the difference and pros/cons of one over the other.

Thank you!

 

[CptTightPants21]

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sdi-tdi-erdi/495075-sdi-advanced-adventure-vs-advanced-scuba.html

This is a recent thread that applies to SDI (although we cover PADI plenty). Read this all the way through and if you have any other questions feel free to post them here.

 

[CT Sean]

Perhaps a simple answer is AOW will allow you to book a greater range of dives with shops - deeper dives, wreck (that are often deep depending where in the world you are) and perhaps freedom from a dive guide. Adventure specialty presumably gives you a a card for your collection with little to no additional benefit. I've only ever seen Dive ops care about OW vs. AOW for rec. dives. I'm sure they are out there, but I've never seen a dive advertised as "must have rescue or higher certification".

 

[kbpeterc]

Thank you! Based on what I've read on that thread, I'm going to do the PADI Advanced Open Water plus lots of dives with a dive master and then go about becoming further certified before doing anything without a DM!

---------- Post added November 14th, 2014 at 01:31 PM ----------

Maybe more information will be useful:
My husband and I were diving off of Charleston in July and there was a tragedy and an 18-YO boy died. We just started diving this year and I want to be as smart and safe as possible, and prepared for all kinds of situations. I'd like to be able to dive in any situation I'd like and to be prepared. I'm not planning on stopping with this next certification. I'd like to get another one, it's looking like Advanced Open Water, plus Enriched Air, and lots of dives under my belt and then continue on with more certifications.

 

[tursiops]

The simple answer for the OP is Adventure Diver is 3 dives, AOW is 5 dives, but AOW requires Deep and Nav; however, Adventure Diver could also include Deep and Nav. I highly recommend both Deep and Nav, plus Peak Performance Buoyancy. So if you did those three, you'd get lots of value, for less cost, and get the Adventure Diver card.

The bad news: some boat operators won't accept an Adventure Diver card because what they really want is to know you have some Deep training, and the card does not say what your three dives were. With an AOW card, they know you had the Deep dive.

More bad news: PADI standards do not allow the Deep dive to be done unless the instructor has some recent in-water dive experience with the student, and (although not a standard) it is a good idea for nitrogen management to do the Deep dive as the first dive of the day. So that means -- even though you can do 3 training dives in one day -- it is not always possible to include Deep as one of those dives. In other words, the dives in the morning might be PPB and Nav, then Deep in the afternoon. But logistics and nitrogen might make this difficult. So you end up using two days to get your Adventure Diver card. But in the same two days, you could do 5 dives and get the AOW card.

Punch line: just get AOW and be done with it....

 

[kbpeterc]

Perfect. Thank you!

 

[tursiops]

I'm going to do the PADI Advanced Open Water plus lots of dives with a dive master and then go about becoming further certified before doing anything without a DM!

Good choice! (our postings overlapped)
Get some good dives in post-AOW, then do Rescue. That will help a lot on expanding your DM-free comfort zone.

 

[TSandM]

Based on what I've read on that thread, I'm going to do the PADI Advanced Open Water plus lots of dives with a dive master and then go about becoming further certified before doing anything without a DM!

This is sad, in a way. In theory, when you finished your open water class, you were certified as being able to plan and conduct dives similar to the ones you did to get certified, and to do those dives ON YOUR OWN. I don't know where you got certified (lake, quarry or ocean) but I would hope that there are some beginner-suitable dives available to you that you could do by yourselves. Following a divemaster will give you more time in the water, but it won't develop you as an independent diver. You have to practice things like navigation, and learn how to get information about a site and plan a dive -- things a DM will have done for you.

I don't discourage more training, because I think education is a good thing. But to become a good diver, you have to become competent in a number of areas, and that doesn't happen if you don't have to take ownership of those skills for yourself.

 

[uncfnp]

kbpeterc. If you don't mind answering, what part of NC are you from and where do you plan to do most of your diving?

 

[kbpeterc]

UNCFNP,
Hey fellow North Carolinian! I'm in Raleigh and plan on doing most of my dives in warmer waters like Mexico and the Caribbean for now (going to Costa Rica in December and Cabo in May). I may be going to India and Japan next year and would like to dive while I'm there. I'd like to think that years and years down the road we'll be travelling more extensively and be able to go to more exotic places, but that's farther out than is worth thinking about right now.