PADI Advanced Open Water: Did you learn anything new?

[TerryC]

I will always do a thorough workup on Buoyancy, Breathing and Body position, the aim being to improve your general diving skills, finning techniques etc, for some students this is all remedial training, for other students its just "fine polishing"
Navigation involves compass and natural nav, much more detail than in OW.
Computer use, surface safety sausage, surface safety in choppy conditions, how to dive from a boat from a boat safely, lots of other safety stuff as conditions dictate.
Deep dive covers Sac rate (calculated on earlier dives), gas planning, the concept of "rock bottom" gas and the use of a 40 cu ft pony. I also insist on "in water" buddy check / bubble check at shallow depth on every dive.
We will also discuss in detail Narcosis, DCS, computer algorithms and everything pertaining to going deep.
Everything else, depends on what dives you elect to do.
If you felt the you didn't learn anything, then you are either a very experienced diver OR you had an (inexperienced) instructor who did the minimum to "tick the boxes"

 

[tursiops]

It has been invented for the business... anything you "learn" as AOWD should be already know as "diver".
Unfortunately the card is required by OP's to have access to many dive sites and live aboard, so you "must" pay the bribe.

Not really. This is a one-sided, pessimistic, grumpy, uninformed view of the AOW.

 

[Bert van den Berg]

Amongst other things, I learned that you can be narced and not know it.

 

[scubadada]

I did AOW at 80 dives in 2004. I learned some about navigation, picked up some useful hints in peak performance buoyancy, and drove a DPV for the first time. I believe it was a prerequisite for Rescue, appears the prerequisite may be less now. The card allowed me to access some dives requiring either the cert or proof of recent experience.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

First off I apologize if I’m uploading in wrong forum or something that’s been discussed in the past. I searched the forums but didn’t find anything that answered my questions... Still new to ScubaBoard...

I’m in middle of aow certification. Just finished deep dive, navigation and a night dive. My concern/question is whether I’m supposed to learn anything (new skills) from these dives? Are these 5-dives supposed to be just basically an experience in new dive situation under instructor supervision?

I don’t think I learned anything I didn’t already learn through experience of diving more often. The more often you dive, it seems you naturally learn by trial and error yourself (ie buoyancy control on deep dives and ascents, natural navigation) and common sense and logic (ie flashlights and backups in the dark).

Compass navigation was new to me, so that was a new skill. But for most divers I think they learn it in ow certification? And others could easily learn it from an experienced diver friend. It was like a 5-minute review of what I read in the aow manual, but to actually use it to find that coral, rock, and ascent line was a bit of challenge and quite fun!

Am I supposed to go through any classroom time learning any kind of scuba science or whatever like I did in ow certification (ie Boyle’s Law)?

I’m wondering if mine is similar experience as others in aow certification or am I missing out on anything?

Thank you in advance.

The only thing I learnt in Advanced Open Water was what a scam this whole thing was and that I need to see what other types of training exist. I was quite shocked to see a certification card giving me the certification to dive to 100 when I did not feel ready for it in the least sense.

 

[tursiops]

I was quite shocked to see a certification card giving me the certification to dive to 100 when I did not feel ready for it in the least sense.

LOL. Most of the silly complaints on SB about AOW are that they already feel ready to dive to 100 ft and so don't need any stinkin' card to prove it.

 

[jonhall]

My concern/question is whether I’m supposed to learn anything (new skills) from these dives?

I think it depends on what skills you really learned/mastered in OW and learned/mastered up to the point before doing the AOW. Everyone is different. In my own personal experience (as with many divers) I would say I didn't learn MUCH of anything new. The reading material was more of a refresher but the skills came easy. I had already experienced everything and more than I did in the AOW course (deep, night, wreck, drift dives, carrying a camera has allowed me a concentrated effort on practicing buoyancy control as well as identifying everything I've taken pictures of), although the navigation (compass) was more extensive than anything I had done underwater to that point.

Am I supposed to go through any classroom time learning any kind of scuba science or whatever like I did in ow certification (ie Boyle’s Law)?

Think it depends on where you take it. Did mine at a resort's onsite dive shop. Only classroom was reviewing questions at the end of a specialty section in the manual. So one might learn some scuba science from reading in the manual.

 

[npole]

Not really. This is a one-sided, pessimistic, grumpy, uninformed view of the AOW.

It is a complete scam, especially the PADI one (forcing you to do stupid "dive experience" from their list that includes: fish recognition, boat diver, dog saver, hamburger eater, harry potter trivia).
The most stupid part is when they want to teach you about narcosis at 35 meters (!!) and the DCS without talking to you about the decompressione (because it's a taboo argument.. unless you pay for: deep cert, then tec 40, tec 41, tec78, tec87, tec100, tec101.22..).
If you want to have expand your knowledge with a supervisor, you have to do that: book some dives with a good instructor.
Unfortunately this scam is used everywhere, so a AOWD card is mandatory, and it only useful for the OP to cover their arse if something bad happen.. because the guy had only 30 dives, but hey he was a certified ADVANCED divers!
This scheme is defended only by whoever is associated by this agency (PADI for first) .. are you a PADI instructor by any chance?

 

[tursiops]

It is a complete scam, especially the PADI one (forcing you to do stupid "dive experience" from their list that includes: fish recognition, boat diver, dog saver, hamburger eater, harry potter trivia).
The most stupid part is when they want to teach you about narcosis at 35 meters (!!) and the DCS without talking to you about the decompressione (because it's a taboo argument.. unless you pay for: deep cert, then tec 40, tec 41, tec78, tec87, tec100, tec101.22..).
If you want to have expand your knowledge with a supervisor, you have to do that: book some dives with a good instructor.
Unfortunately this scam is used everywhere, so a AOWD card is mandatory, and it only useful for the OP to cover their arse if something bad happen.. because the guy had only 30 dives, but hey he was a certified ADVANCED divers!
This scheme is defended only by whoever is associated by this agency (PADI for first) .. are you a PADI instructor by any chance?

LOL. Now that your rant is over, do you have any factual complaints?

 

[Kareemovitch]

On my AOW I told the instructor to help me with my buoyancy.

We did a proper weight check and he helped me a lot with my trim by moving the weights around. Then he also gave me a few tips for breathing and corrected a bit my finning and trim underwater.

This made a massive difference for me as I was going through air really fast as I kept finning to compensate for bad buoyancy control.

I spent one week diving with the same shop afterwards, twice a day and made more progress everyday because of the advice the instructor gave me.

So my advice would be to tell the instructor what you would like to get of the dives aside from doing the drills.

Need to know tips of excellect breath techniques in deep dives beside trim & buoyant...if you dont mind