I just got done with my advanced open waters this weekend I wanted to share my thoughts. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much going into it but I wanted to get a few more training dives in before a trip coming up. I didn't really do the class for the card, I was hoping to just work on my skills some.
It wasn't off to a great start when I go there for our 5pm start but we didn't actually get started until closer to 6. We got into the classroom and there was some paperworked laid out for us. As we filled it out, the instructor announced to the class that this was his first advanced open water class he's taught. This wouldn't have bothered me normally, I think there are plenty of people that could be great instructors on thier first class. The issue was the attitue was more that we shouldn't expect much because it was his first.
Then he made a comment about "hoping" that nobody checked yes to the medical issues because we'd need a doctor to sign off. I felt there were two issues with this. One - Why not send these forms ahead of time so they can be filled out without wasting class time. Second - I felt like he was issuing a warning or even advising people to check no even if maybe they should check yes.
Once we had started all the classroom work it became pretty obvious that I wasn't going to get much out of it. He didn't even have the current course materials in front of him. Several times throughout the discussion he made comments about how his book (from when he was advanced certified in the 90s I think he said) was out of date. He basically ran through the section titles in each chapter then had us take turns reading and sharing our answers for the knowlege review. That would have been fine but he didn't have the answers anywhere. He just let us give the answers and would try and correct them if a student said the wrong ones. That said, there were several questions that the agreed upon answers weren't correct. Many of my classmates would change the answers they wrote down to what I'm almost certain were incorrect answers.
Once we wrapped up with the classroom work we headed to the dive site to do our first 3 dives: peak performance, navigation, and night. Again, right away I realized this wasn't going to be super helpful. On the peak performance he decided that we wouldn't do a weight check since it was our first dive and all of our tanks were full. We decended to the platform and all hovered for 60 seconds. Then we spent about 10 minutes swimming through hoops. Honestly that would have been fine if we would have gotten any advice or guidance during it. Any kind of take away, but we didn't.
Then after a short "surface interval" of us floating at the surface and discussing our navigation requirments (which we did for about 3 mintues on land), we decended again to take care of those skills. My buddy and I got through ours fine, but another couple weren't able to. They struggled on land with the simple navigation so there was no way they were ready for anything below the water. Both dives were really rushed, presumibly since we started almost an hour late and they were trying to cram "3" dives into the first night.
Time for the night dive. We all had to rush because dark was falling fast and the mosquitoes were terrible. After a super fast dive breifing we all decended and had a nice, albeit short, night dive. It was so short because a couple of the divers didn't swap tanks between dives because they had only used half. Our bottom time was a minimum just to reach the requirement. I know that because the instructor referenced this multiple times during the weekened.
The next morning we headed back out to the dive site for the deep dive and the search and recovery dive. He informed us that the platform was at about 80 so we'd go down there and do our skills. We'd go down in two groups at seperate times. The first group (not mine) went down and they didn't make it very long. One diver got cold at about 60' (probably about 45 degrees or so at that point). Another experienced a free flow so they aborted the dive. Everyone was fine, no issues or panicing from what I understand. That group took a break and our instructor brought me and my buddy down. We made it to the platform which was supposed to be at 80ish but was really at 96. I for sure noticed some narcosis but I was fine. My buddy however, was not. He was very clearly in a panic but the instructor helped him work through it without issue. We didn't stay down very long at all because of the other diver (with good reason) but we did make a safe accent and an extra long safety stop too. One of the other divers in the other group (the one with the free flow) was able to complete his deep dive.
The final dive was the seach and recovery. That was a fun dive and I got to play with a lift bag and some search patterns. Nothing really remarkable happened but this was proably the dive that I "learned" the most during the weekend (sadly).
After all that we went back to the shop to fill out paperwork for our certifications (execpt the two that didn't complete the deep dive).
Over all it was a pretty dissapointing experience. I was really hoping to work on trim and boyancy which was hard to do when we were kneeling all the time, except the 60 seconds required for the PPB dive. I was also excited to experience a deeper dive but it wasn't very enjoyable. Although I was comfortable and ok, it was frustraiting to plan a dive at 80' then find out it was actually 96'. Now, I know what some might be thinking. If you planned for 80 why did you go to 96. There is more to that story and the plan was changed at the last minute. I was personally comfortable with it. I felt like I had a good handle on it and was ok with the change. I knew before I even got wet that we'd be going to 96'. It was just odd to me that the instructor didn't know the platform was that deep until the guy diving a line down came back up and told us.
I also understand that I maybe should have spoken up during the weekend and expressed some of my concerns. And maybe you're right. I thought about it, I talked about it with my wife after our dives friday. But honestly, I felt like no matter what I said, it wouldn't change anything so I just tried to figure out how to get as much out of it as I could. Starting a fight with my instructor wasn't going to help, so I just asked questions and worked on my skills as I could.
After this weekend do I feel like I'm ready for a 100' dive because I'm and "advanced open water diver". Nope. I'll keep working on my skills, doing my research, and find a better instructor to take more training with. I may even redo my advance open water course all together. I actually am close with another organization so maybe I'll do that instead. Who knows.
I just wanted to share my experence with others. This is just a good example of why finding a good instructor/shop matters.
