Advanced Open Water SSI vs PADI

[supergaijin]

From what I understand during the SSI AOW course, it requires 4 specialty courses and a minimum of 24 logged dives. However it does not require either Deep or Navigation as in the PADI AOW.

I question this thinking. While I agree that divers need a minimum of hours in the water to consider themselves beyond the beginner level, I also believe basic skills of navigation to be critical in order to call yourself "advanced".



Also for the guides. Do you physically check the specialties that the diver has done before you start guiding deeper than 20m/70ft?

I'm currently doing an SSI crossover and this question was brought up. The trainer insisted that SSI AOW was automatically able to dive deeper, but we questioned this and referred to the Instructor Training Course part 4-10, where it says

"... (a diver) may combine Dry Suit Diving, Night/Limited Visibility, Diver Stress & Rescue and Navigation to meet the training requirements for AOW certification."

The trainer then referred us to the Training Standards for Advanced Adventurer p.23
Training depth: "All OW scuba training dives must be conducted at depths between 15-100 ft (5-30m)"

Our question wasn't about training dives but guiding a fun dive after a diver has done an AOW with the specialties as above. PADI AOW has requirements for Deep. Guides can legally start guiding at depth after this course but not before. With SSI do the guides have to check which specialties the diver has made before taking them below 20m?

Any comments?

 

[scubamarketing]

I'm a PADI Master Instructor. I think the 24 dive requirement is a great one, but I also think deep and navigation should be required. I do check (and have seen every dive operation I've travelled with) check certification levels before planning guided dives. When I teach the advanced class, I stress to students that 9 dives DOES NOT make you an advanced diver. I encourage tag-along dives on other checkout weekends or additional specialties or taking the Rescue class. It sounds like in both the PADI and SSI worlds there are positives and negatives to the AOW courses, but the rule of "dive within your limits" still prevails.

 

[tracydr]

I agree. My husband has been a Master Instructor for about 10 years. He teaches it with deep and navigation. You can choose your other but he recommends night. When he taught me, I did nitrox the same week with no shortcuts allowed.
I probably had 150 dives at the time.

 

[jswantek]

When I took the SSI AOW it was a total of eight dives, two for each specialty; Night and Limited Visibility, Deep, Wreck and Navigation. That was all nicely packaged in a one-price package by my local dive shop. Normally those are the 'packaged' courses, but I don't know if that's a 'required' package.

 

[jscott099]

Hi Super, I am also both a PADI and SSI instructor. The Advanced OW rating is often a source of confusion. For SSI, AOW is not a course. A dive shop may wish to market, package, and price it that way if they choose however. In short, the requirement is any 4 specialties (only 1 may be a Unique Specialty) and at least 24 dives. These dives and specialties could have been taken over a period of days or months and years. There is no requirement that the specialties be any specific ones.

As an SSI instructor, I do try to steer students toward certain 'core' specialties such as Night, Navigation, Deep, and Advanced Buoyancy when they are working toward their AOW rating. With the prevalence of computers and nitrox, I also recommends those in addition where possible.


I don't much like the AOW term as it really does not guarantee a guide, a trip leader, or a buddy any real sense of whether the diver is advanced. By way of example, I would not consider a diver with 24 dives, night, nitrox, computer, and advanced buoyancy specialties, anywhere even close enough to dive with me on advanced deep, wreck dives of the North Carolina coast in the USA. And let's make it worse by assuming those 24 dives all happened 8 years ago and none since. Not so advanced.

 

[Beowulfe]

AOW and Advanced Adventure Diver are two different things. AAD looks to be equal to PADI's AOW in that you are sampling 5 different specialties. Not sure if there is an actual course for it. AOW is not a course either but a set of requirements.

Whether that qualifies you to dive deeper or not is always the question. The SSI courses do say dive within your knowledge and training.

I also believe the SSI AOW requirement is that the specialties are all ones that have check out dives. So the computer and nitrox would not count towards it. Not sure if advanced bouyancy has a check out dive.

 

[Stujiro]

It might not be required but i honestly wonder if there are any sizable number of divers who don't do deep. My guess would be that the ones who choose not to do deep probably have a bunch of deep dives already logged and doubt the course is worth their time. So they do the courses in things they haven't done before (nitrox, search and recovery, dry suit, ice). If a new diver were to tackle advanced i can't imagine them not doing deep or the dive shop not recommending it so heavily that it becomes an unwritten requirement.

The cards don't make the diver. Most of the dive charter requirements ive looked at say such and such certification or equivalent logged dives in the past year.

 

[Stujiro]

by the way, i just finished my 4th specialty last weekend for my SDI advanced diver. I chose Deep, UW Nav, Night, and Wreck. i still have 7 dives to go to hit my required 25.

 

[Walter]

Also for the guides. Do you physically check the specialties that the diver has done before you start guiding deeper than 20m/70ft?

I'm currently doing an SSI crossover and this question was brought up. The trainer insisted that SSI AOW was automatically able to dive deeper, but we questioned this and referred to the Instructor Training Course part 4-10, where it says

"... (a diver) may combine Dry Suit Diving, Night/Limited Visibility, Diver Stress & Rescue and Navigation to meet the training requirements for AOW certification."

If I understand you correctly, you are saying an Advanced card from SSI does not automatically qualify the diver to make a deep dive. My question is how does this differ from the PADI AOW card with which you've compared it? To get a PADI AOW card, a diver has to have made one (1) dive to sixty (60) ft. One dive to 60 feet does not qualify a diver to make deep dives.

I agree it would be wonderful if these and other agencies would put more meat in their requirements.

 

[flots am]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying an Advanced card from SSI does not automatically qualify the diver to make a deep dive. My question is how does this differ from the PADI AOW card with which you've compared it? To get a PADI AOW card, a diver has to have made one (1) dive to sixty (60) ft. One dive to 60 feet does not qualify a diver to make deep dives.

I agree it would be wonderful if these and other agencies would put more meat in their requirements.

SSI AOW requires 24 dives and 4 specialties, which could easily be night/low viz, navigation, drysuit and nitrox. They're good classes, but certainly don't guarantee any significant competence.

Master Diver much more useful for judging possible competence, since it requires 50 dives plus Stress and Rescue, which IMO is the best non-professional class they offer and should actually be part of OW.

flots.