100' vs 130'??

[scubadada]

Your insurance may have an issue should you have a diving accident and have been deeper than your certification recommends. This is not an issue with DAN insurance, however.

Thanks, I have carried a premium DAN policy for more than 20 years

 

[chillyinCanada]

Thanks, I have carried a premium DAN policy for more than 20 years

My post was intended for our new diver OP.

 

[Wibble]

There’s quite a difference between 100' and 130'. Messing up deep is way more dangerous than shallow. Your skills and experience need to be up to the task.

 

[lowwall]

My first dive after OW certification was to 117'. My instructor was the DM, so I guess it was OK

I will note that these were ideal conditions off Cayman Brach.

 

[lowwall]

unless you are planning on going pro with padi, the aow cert means nothing.

I've been on 2 liveaboards in Thailand where OW divers were limited to 18m (60'). To go deeper you all you needed was AOW.

 

[Diverlady13]

Ok, probably a newbie question. I've got my open water certification and plan on getting my advanced open water this coming February. Looking at AOW training, the certification gets you access to 100' depths vs my current 60' OW limitation. Yet, most sources say that recreational divers are limited to 130'. So, why would AOW not certify me for 130' instead of 100'? Is this just to maintain a safety buffer or is there some other knowledge to be had diving between 100' and 130' or is this just another way for the agencies to sell another specialty course?

Just curious

When I did my PADI AOW, the e-learning made a big point about depths. So first, I want to reiterate that there are no diving police and that you don't get "certified to" a certain depth. As an OW diver, you can certainly dive below 60 feet, but you will likely find that certain dive shops/boats won't let you dive deeper with them without AOW (or a deep diver cert). I'm not telling you to exceed your limits, but slowly becoming accustomed to diving below 60 ft is a natural progression. Anyway, what PADI talks about in the AOW course is that the recreational diving "limit" is 130 feet, but they recommend that divers stay above 100 ft. to avoid narcosis. Now, of course you can get narc'd above 100 ft, but the chances are reduced.

Also, what you really need to be careful about when diving deep are your NDLs and air consumption. Once you get below 100 and certainly when you get near the 130 ft mark, your air is going to go a lot faster....at least for most people. Also, your NDL will be a lot shorter. These are things you'll be taught to manage in the deep diver course (IIRC), but also in the AOW to some extent. I do recommend AOW because you have the opportunity to get a taste of a variety of available options for specialties if you want to also go that direction. However, if you really want to do a lot of deep diving, then you might want to look into the deep diver certificate instead or in addition to AOW. I like having the AOW certificate because there's never a question about depths once the shop sees that card.

 

[OnTheMark]

Things change. When I received my 'Basic Scuba Diver' card in 1972 after a few weeks of nightly training it indicated I was qualified to dive to 140 FSW. The course even included regulator maintenance and tuning. As basic dive training has been cheapened and abbreviated, greater restrictions have been strongly suggested, if not imposed. I've seen newly certified divers unable to properly set up their gear. I had to do it underwater, starting with a breath hold at the deep end of the pool. The 'yank the regulator out of your mouth' school of dive training was far from ideal, but depth restrictions make sense in light of current training practices.

Oh wow, you just answered a second question I was going to post. I was originally certified in 1984 in college with IDEA. I remember the dive tables etc. and did not remember there being a 60' depth restriction. A few years later, I got married (to a non diver) and my diving dried up. However, in 2020, I got re-certified with my two sons (21 & 23) with PADI, no judgment please , and was puzzled to learn of the restrictions and was wondering if I originally had them and simply forgot about it. Regardless, I do not plan on having any deep dives any time soon; simply curious about the different levels. For now, I'm still getting my fins wet. I've done a couple of shallow reef dives in Key West, we are going to Key Largo in a couple of week for some more shallow reef dives. We have a Ginnie Springs trip in the works. And, I'll probably try to squeeze in a few more trips and then get my AOW in February before considering anything deepish. Thanks for answering my question even before I had a chance to ask!

 

[OnTheMark]

When I did my PADI AOW, the e-learning made a big point about depths. So first, I want to reiterate that there are no diving police and that you don't get "certified to" a certain depth. As an OW diver, you can certainly dive below 60 feet, but you will likely find that certain dive shops/boats won't let you dive deeper with them without AOW (or a deep diver cert). I'm not telling you to exceed your limits, but slowly becoming accustomed to diving below 60 ft is a natural progression. Anyway, what PADI talks about in the AOW course is that the recreational diving "limit" is 130 feet, but they recommend that divers stay above 100 ft. to avoid narcosis. Now, of course you can get narc'd above 100 ft, but the chances are reduced.

Also, what you really need to be careful about when diving deep are your NDLs and air consumption. Once you get below 100 and certainly when you get near the 130 ft mark, your air is going to go a lot faster....at least for most people. Also, your NDL will be a lot shorter. These are things you'll be taught to manage in the deep diver course (IIRC), but also in the AOW to some extent. I do recommend AOW because you have the opportunity to get a taste of a variety of available options for specialties if you want to also go that direction. However, if you really want to do a lot of deep diving, then you might want to look into the deep diver certificate instead or in addition to AOW. I like having the AOW certificate because there's never a question about depths once the shop sees that card.

Thanks! That's sound advice and my plan as well!

 

[Wibble]

When starting out with diving, there's a bit of a mystery as to why deep is almost kept back from you. It's only with more experience and dives that you realise there is method in the madness.

It's summed up as when diving to 50' you can almost swim to the surface without breathing. There's no issues with decompression and as long as you don't hold your breath, you will probably be OK.

When diving to 100' you can't do this as it'll take a too long to get to the surface; as long as your equipment is functioning, a bolt to the surface could 'hurt' you but you'd probably get away with it.

A dive to 130' where you bolt to the surface would probably result in an injury, you might get away with it, but no guarantees. You'd also be well into the narcosis zone (three pints of proper beer), you'd be guzzling gas at an alarming rate. You should have redundancy in gas and buddies around who can help; you absolutely must monitor your gas, depth and times as you have very limited time at that depth. You must be able to do effective ascents and you must be able to hold a safety stop (also known as a decompression stop).

Thus the agencies will generally require more training and better skills for the deeper dives.

 

[boulderjohn]

First Jim Blay's post is absolutely correct. I just want to emphasize the big idea. The specific depths are actually training requirements to which the instructors must adhere. Your OW instructor cannot take you deeper than 60 feet. Your AOW instructor cannot take you past 100 feet. A deep dive instructor cannot take you past 130 feet. Outside of training, your agency has no power whatsoever to set any rules governing your diving. The 60-100-130 depths they mention are recommendations that are intended to guide you as you gain the necessary training and/or experience needed to go deeper. (Yes, it is any combination of training and experience that works for you.)

i would add that if we are talking about padi, i would skip the aow and take nitrox and the deep diver course with a good instructor. preferrably one with technical training. or perhaps consider the tech 40 course. i am not that familiar with padi requirements. you may need deep diver before you can take any tech training.

Unlike dive agencies, dive operators can make rules governing the dives they will allow you to do with them. Many of them will not allow you to do deeper dives without the equivalent of an AOW certification from some agency. I was once signing up for my dive to a 100 foot wreck in a South Florida dive shop when a diver who believed (foolishly, IMO) that you should only show your lowest certification level showed up with only an OW card. They wouldn't let him do the dive. He insisted he was actually an assistant instructor, but they could not confirm it because their Internet was down. They finally allowed him to do the dive if accompanied by a divemaster.

Additionally, advanced training almost always requires at least an AOW certification before you can begin the class. That includes other advanced classes, including Tec 40, from PADI.

The bugaboo about the AOW is the word "Advanced." People get all in a snit about it because by today's standards, it is not advanced at all. When it was created, though, it was the only training available beyond basic OW training, so the name made sense then. It does not make sense now. It was originally intended to introduce certified divers to different kinds of diving in the hope that something would pique their interest and keep them diving. That is really all it is even today. The people who get the snottiest about it are the people who find out that they need it for some reason after they have had 300 dives and are well beyond the skills it teaches.