Advanced Scuba Diver Development Program vs Just taking specialty classes you want?

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I think you need to interpret the SDI Training letter as meaning: "...includes CERTIFICATION of Advanced Open Water or Advanced Diver..." That is, the slash mark is being used as an "or" and "Open Water" is on one side of the "or" and "Diver" is on the other side. They are saying you can have an AOW certification or an Advanced Diver certification, or whatever the various agencies want to call their course that is like those courses.

I understand that. My point is that, looking at the website, SDI does NOT have an Advanced Open Water certification. They have Advanced Adventure Diver and Advanced Scuba Diver Development Program.

So, when an official at SDI sends out something that says "CERTIFICATION of Advanced Open Water/Diver", I think it is extremely sloppy, unprofessional, and just increases confusion for anyone who didn't already know the answer (and thus, wouldn't have been asking the question in the first place). They don't have AOW, and Advanced Diver is ambiguous because it could mean Advanced Adventure Diver or Advanced Scuba Diver.

And what's worse is that everyone seems to recognize that Advanced Adventure Diver is the equivalent of PADI AOW. And it SEEMS like when people are talking about SDI and they say AOW, they really mean, essentially Advanced Adventure Diver. Yet, on the Advanced Scuba Diver Development Program page, down towards the bottom, it actually says:

After the previous requirements are met and verified by an instructor, the instructor issues the SDI Advanced Open Water Diver certification

And if that is actually correct, then things are even worse because PADI AOW is (like SDI AAD) minimal training and experience. SDI AOW being the same as Advanced Scuba Diver would mean that SDI AOW is way more "advanced" than PADI AOW, thus anytime anyone ever says AOW without specifying the agency, it would be totally unclear regarding how much training and experience is implied.

This is the SDI forum. So, even those of you here who continue to use, either, AOW, or "Advanced Diver", instead of being clear and saying, either, "Advanced Adventure Diver", or "Advanced Scuba Diver" are also just contributing to the confusion. If this were the PADI forum, where they have AOW and NO OTHER cert with Advanced in the name (I think? Heck, they don't even have Advanced Buoyancy Control, like SDI does. PADI has Peak Buoyancy Performance, or something like that), it would not be an issue.
 
Stuartv, man you sure like to pick nits, argue semantics, and blow smoke - without making much sense. I got to put you on the ignore list.
 
I understand that. My point is that, looking at the website, SDI does NOT have an Advanced Open Water certification. They have Advanced Adventure Diver and Advanced Scuba Diver Development Program.

So, when an official at SDI sends out something that says "CERTIFICATION of Advanced Open Water/Diver", I think it is extremely sloppy, unprofessional, and just increases confusion for anyone who didn't already know the answer (and thus, wouldn't have been asking the question in the first place). They don't have AOW, and Advanced Diver is ambiguous because it could mean Advanced Adventure Diver or Advanced Scuba Diver.

And what's worse is that everyone seems to recognize that Advanced Adventure Diver is the equivalent of PADI AOW. And it SEEMS like when people are talking about SDI and they say AOW, they really mean, essentially Advanced Adventure Diver. Yet, on the Advanced Scuba Diver Development Program page, down towards the bottom, it actually says:



And if that is actually correct, then things are even worse because PADI AOW is (like SDI AAD) minimal training and experience. SDI AOW being the same as Advanced Scuba Diver would mean that SDI AOW is way more "advanced" than PADI AOW, thus anytime anyone ever says AOW without specifying the agency, it would be totally unclear regarding how much training and experience is implied.

This is the SDI forum. So, even those of you here who continue to use, either, AOW, or "Advanced Diver", instead of being clear and saying, either, "Advanced Adventure Diver", or "Advanced Scuba Diver" are also just contributing to the confusion. If this were the PADI forum, where they have AOW and NO OTHER cert with Advanced in the name (I think? Heck, they don't even have Advanced Buoyancy Control, like SDI does. PADI has Peak Buoyancy Performance, or something like that), it would not be an issue.

Stuart,
We have gone over this on other threads. I don't give a **** what SDI calls its various programs, If someone who has SDI says they are AOW then they have the five specialties and 25 dives. Period. End of story. This whole well they might be really be this adventure diver or that diver is crap and only in your mind. I know of no one who would say they are advanced who is done the adventure course. You NEED to stop dissecting every word, especially when it comes to scuba marketing materials.

You are correct that PADI AOW is not as stringent as all the other agencies (something that has been covered in detail in other threads). The fact that PADI is not as stringent is one of the reasons why people need AOW plus X dives (usually 25) to dive charters--as a way to filter out PADI AOW who have 9 dives to their name.

I really believe you are way too caught up in the marketing and semantics. Just go out and dive. Dives and experience matter more than all this bull**** that you are constantly bickering about.
 
The point is that any kind of "advanced" from any agency is sufficient for the Solo prerequisite.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
 
Stuart,
We have gone over this on other threads. I don't give a **** what SDI calls its various programs, If someone who has SDI says they are AOW then they have the five specialties and 25 dives. Period. End of story. This whole well they might be really be this adventure diver or that diver is crap and only in your mind. I know of no one who would say they are advanced who is done the adventure course. You NEED to stop dissecting every word, especially when it comes to scuba marketing materials.

You are correct that PADI AOW is not as stringent as all the other agencies (something that has been covered in detail in other threads). The fact that PADI is not as stringent is one of the reasons why people need AOW plus X dives (usually 25) to dive charters--as a way to filter out PADI AOW who have 9 dives to their name.

I really believe you are way too caught up in the marketing and semantics. Just go out and dive. Dives and experience matter more than all this bull**** that you are constantly bickering about.

I never said PADI is not as stringent as all the other agencies. I thought PADI was somewhat the de facto standard because they seem to be so much bigger than the other agencies. In other words, I would have though that, to most of the world, a diver who says they have AOW would only be ASSUMED to have the minimum training and experience that PADI requires. And I guess that corresponds to what you said about dive charters requiring AOW plus 25 dives. Because they interpret AOW as meaning what PADI says - which is the same as the Adventure course, by the way.

Note: This IS the SDI forum. You can say I'm too caught up in marketing and semantics. What I would say is you want more people to come into the sport, right? You want the sport to grow, right? Well, the perspective I'm giving here is the perspective of a new diver just coming into the sport. And (some of) us new divers learn about the sport and also decide what agency we want to train with based on the information we can find on the Web. So, when an agency has a website that is uninformative, confusing, and ambiguous, shouldn't we all want the details of that brought out so that the agency can address the issues and (hopefully) draw even more people in?

The SDI website is uninformative (for potential new divers). When I went through it before taking my OW class, I didn't find anything that informed me that Rec diving specifically means diving to No Decompression Stop limits. That it means you don't do tank switches or multi-gas dives. It was hard to find anything that made it clear that Rec diving is limited to 130 feet/40 m. It's like everyone involved knows that so it never occurred to anyone that that kind of info should be front and center for people who don't really know anything about Scuba diving and have come to the website to learn about diving and the agency and maybe get some training.

The SDI website is confusing because it has things like a page for Advanced Scuba Diver that says you will get an Advanced Open Water certification. And the master page showing all the certifications and specialties doesn't mention Advanced Open Water anywhere.

The SDI website is ambiguous because it has places that reference an Advanced Diver certification and don't make it clear whether they're talking about Advanced Adventure Diver or Advanced Scuba Diver. It's also confusing because it doesn't make clear the difference between a "specialty" certification card and a "certification" certification card.

All the ambiguity and confusion is compounded for a potential new diver if they have also been exposed to information about PADI which uses some of the same terms to mean different things.

So, again, this is the SDI FORUM. Why should I not be posting here about SDI issues that, in my opinion anyway, contribute to a negative experience for new or potential divers? I don't know about you, but I definitely do want the sport to grow. The more dive operators and dive shops and dive instructors that are out there, the better it is for me and I'm not apologetic about admitting that my desires are selfish. I think and hope that someone from SDI does check this forum and I really hope that the things I've been saying can help someone to achieve a goal of making the SDI website more helpful to new and potential divers and bring more people into, not just the sport, but the SDI agency. I personally prefer the approach that SDI is taking over how PADI does things and I would like to see SDI grow and be more widely recognized.

---------- Post added January 14th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ----------

The point is that any kind of "advanced" from any agency is sufficient for the Solo prerequisite.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Got it. Along with the 100 dives prereq, it finally makes sense (to me!).
 
I have seen that divers. Single 15L and go to the Togo wreck, 60m depth.
I was not questionning the single tank on air, as it is indeed routinely done in France, but rather the assumption that it would mean that those divers have no deco experience.
When I was diving there (on trimix), our iantd trimix cert was not recognised, they wanted a cmas 3* (we all had that cert). It was in september 2012 that we where in France.
Actually, they wanted both. The cmas 3* to dive deeper than 40m, and the trimix cert to dive with trimix (within the 70m or 120m range depending of your cert).
 
Got it. Along with the 100 dives prereq, it finally makes sense (to me!).

And yet in a way - it does not make sense for any agency in my opinion to limit you in the classes/knowledge you want to take if you can show that you are qualified (not certified) - in my opinion.
But then I don't own an agency so I don't get a vote...
 

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