Advanced diver vs. Advanced training

[Stu S.]

Decades ago there was only one certification: Diver. It took us nine weeks to get certified. Some folks balked at the amount of time required, especially if they had a trip coming up. To make more customers, the course was (kind of) split in half and called Open Water I and Open Water II.

If you could dive as an OW I, why take the second course? To make it more attractive, it was renamed "Advanced". I believe a person can become an Advanced Open Water diver with only 10 or 20 dives. Although it probably makes for an improved diver, OW II may be a more appropriate name for it.

 

[Uncle Ernie]

1. Proper weighting and bouyancy control should be down pat. Ditto for the basic skills taught in OW.
2. Gas planning, at least the bare basics. Do a search on the term "Rock Bottom" on this board.
3. Dive planning skills, and the ability to dive the plan. Can you go to a new dive site, plan and lead a dive?
4. And mainly, the ability to dive independantly! No DM's should be needed for planning, air checking, depth checking, etc., etc.

Best wishes.

Cheers

I did check scriptkiddie's Rock Bottom and Gas Management for Recreational Divers the other day and we definitely did not see that in class. Lots to learn indeed.

 

[300bar]

Decades ago there was only one certification: Diver. It took us nine weeks to get certified. Some folks balked at the amount of time required, especially if they had a trip coming up. To make more customers, the course was (kind of) split in half and called Open Water I and Open Water II.

If you could dive as an OW I, why take the second course? To make it more attractive, it was renamed "Advanced". I believe a person can become an Advanced Open Water diver with only 10 or 20 dives. Although it probably makes for an improved diver, OW II may be a more appropriate name for it.

NINE weeks.

The CMAS 1* took me the better part of a year in the early 80's
So that must have been WAY before my time.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My AOW course requires the 5 dives but also 6-8 hours of classroom covering gas management, effects of narcosis, hazards of deep, night/low vis, and hazards to UW Navigation and Search and recovery. I also discuss overhead environs such as wrecks. I do not have any cave certs so do not feel qualified to cover cave and cavern. My AOW dives are deep, night, UW Nav, Search and Recovery, and a new Advanced Skills dive. I will offer wreck if the student is willing to pay for boat fees since we don't have any wrecks around here.

I do not accept anyone with less than 10 dives post OW cert and will reject someone with that if I don't feel they are ready to do AOW. Buoyancy and trim are not a seperate dive. We work on those on every dive. Beginning with the skills dive where they will practice anti-silting kicks, all basic skills while swimming and hovering HORIZONTALLY with MINOR deviations in position( 2 feet or less), and shooting a bag. If they cannot keep horizontal trim I may elect to postpone the other dives to work on that since if they can't swim horizontally and control their buoyancy they will be unable to successfully execute the other dives. We'll also get their SAC rate from this dive if they do not already know it and use it to plan the subsequent dives.

This is the first dive and all others are built on that. Next is UW Nav( compass and natural and a combination of both) where they will end the dive by shooting the bag again followed by Night/ Low vis. Then the next day is the deep dive(min 80 feet, max 100) during which we will observe effects of narcosis by some task, swim a short compass course at depth and ascend using deep stops. Ideally they will also shoot the bag on this dive from the first stop to aid in their ascent conditions permitting.They will also sling a pony(min 19 cu ft) unless they have their own redundant air source( NO SPARE AIR).

After a proper surface interval we will do the Search and Recovery where we'll locate an object using the best method to suit conditions( covered in class) and raise it to the surface using a lift bag. Then comes the debrief and my talk about how they may have an advanced card but they are not advanced divers. That will only come by taking the skills they have learned and gradually build on them by diving as often as possible. I will not accept a student or pass them if I don't feel they have the proper respect for the dives this card will let them do. And they need to have at least 3 tanks. One for the deep alone. The depths we'll do the others at should be ok for 1/2 tank each but if they are a hoover we'll adjust.

 

[Stu S.]

Hey, 300. What is CMAS 1? My training was typical for 1977. We had one classroom session and one pool session each week for eight weeks. There was some sort of pond diving in-between. The last week was a 150 question written exam. It ended with the quarry dive for check outs.

That got me an NASDS Safe Scuba Diver Card, that I still have. We were certified to 132 feet and were taught decompression diving, but did not do one. The training took nine weeks, but was not nine times the training of a one week course these days. The pool sessions were fairly short, as much time was consumed toting around gear, setting it up and packing up.

Eventually, this course was recognized as "not AOW". I had to get an AOW card last year so I could dive several places with my friends.

 

[1_T_Submariner]

I would think a Intro dive would be a far better indicator of skill level for you as an instructor working at a resort than either the card or the log book. I am not an instructor but dive with people that I have never dove with frequently. I have found not to really pay attention to what they say unless they say hey this is my 3 dive since OW. Just dive in a fairly controlled enviroment the first dive or two then increase the dive difficulty if applicable.

 

[H2Andy]

unfortunately, PADI's AOW is really a misnomer

generally speaking, unless a diver has at least 100 dives, they are not anywhere near being an advanced OW diver. no card or cert can give that sort of experience and muscle memory

Rescue and Advanced Rescue go a long way. the skills needed for Cavern and Intro Cave are also a plus. DIR-F is pretty much right on target as to the skills needed to be an advanced OW diver (we're not talking tech)

 

[diver 85]

With 10 dives(or whatever the minimum is to get an AOW) what do you expect.......This topic has been the subject of many a thread here.....

Trust me when I tell you in '86 when I got my advance, it meant almost nothing--except a few bucks in my instructors pocket..........So, not everything was lost-----------lol

 

[Walter]

Hello,

As an instructor I have to put this up.

Advanced Open Water Course verses an Advanced Diver.

I have had many divers turn up on boats or at resorts that I have have worked at with "Advanced Diver" cards and have found many to not even have the skills I would like to see in a Basic diver.

What should we do about this, should we make the "Advanced "card hard to get? Should we remove it all together and just use log books?

Please share your thoughts.

Explain why this is a problem for you and perhaps we can work toward a solution. Is it a problem with them not having the skills necessary to begin a particular class you teach? Is it a problem with them not having the skills necessary to safely complete a particular dive? What exactly is the problem?

 

[rstofer]

Hello,

As an instructor I have to put this up.

Advanced Open Water Course verses an Advanced Diver.

I have had many divers turn up on boats or at resorts that I have have worked at with "Advanced Diver" cards and have found many to not even have the skills I would like to see in a Basic diver.

What should we do about this, should we make the "Advanced "card hard to get? Should we remove it all together and just use log books?

Please share your thoughts.

You have no possible way to influence the training agencies. Why bring it up? Divers are what they are when they show up. Deal...

Log books are meaningless. It's one thing to have a hundred or so dives in different settings. It's quite another to do the same dive 100 times.

Richard