Did you go into your AOW class having already completed any specialty certs that they could have counted for the 5th dive? (Assuming we're talking PADI)
Adventure Diver to AOW
- Thread starter Rewob65
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Deep wreck drift dives?
Were the wrecks drifting?
For PADI AOW, you have to do 5 dives. You can't combine two adventure dives on one dive and cut down the total number. You can repeat skills on multiple dives. As I said earlier, I have run out of time on the navigation dive and finished it off while doing another dive. I also like to build skills. For example, once we have done compass navigation, I usually have the students use compass navigation on later dives, assuming it would be appropriate to do so. If you are doing two wreck dives and using one one for, say, fish identification, there would be no harm in repeating some of the wreck skills on the second dive. It would even be OK to do fish identification and wreck skills on both dives, as long as it is two dives.
If you did only four dives, and if you did not already have a specialty that would count as a dive, then your instructor violated standards.
Hm. Which agency is your Advanced Open Water through? I can teach through two; one requires five open water dives and the other six. For both, two types of dives are required - deep and navigation. The other dives are so called electives in which the student can chose they type of dive, buoyancy for example. None of the elective or two mandatory dives can be combined to reduce the number of dives. An instructor can increase the required number of dives. For example, I live in the mountains which means all local diving is high elevation. I can add an additional dive to cover high elevation procedures, then carry on with the other required and elective dives. What I can't do is combine high elevation procedures with another dive and state they completed two types of dives in one dive.
In your case, this isn't an agency issue (assuming more than four dives are required for AOW), rather it is an instructor issue who is short cutting you. boulderjohn has expounded on this type of issue in other posts.
A couple people have elaborated on the issue above.
What I wonder about is if the shop you are referring to is requiring you to conduct all five dives with one of their instructors in order to complete the course. Reasons could vary for this. Conducting one dive then signing off for a certification without knowing exactly what your diving skills are like may be a concern for the instructor issuing the certification. This, of course, is up to the instructor / dive shop's policy.
In short, what others have posted is correct. The question is, did the shop incorrectly misquote your or is their policy one must take the entire AOW course through them? When it comes to the order of which dives are conducted, for an Adventure Diver, it doesn't matter. However, during the AOW course the deep dive cannot be conducted as the first dive of the class.
One Issue could be as simple as this--people taking guesses or acting on something they heard sometime in the past rather than looking up the actual information. Getting the Adventure Dive and then moving along to AOW is not a very common occurrence. I have never known anyone who got the Adventure Certification. This is the first I have ever encountered anyone going from Adventure to AOW. I don't recall it being mentioned in a thread on ScubaBoard in the nearly 15 years I have participated here. When this thread started, I had to open my manual to make sure I knew the details. It could be that the initial person doing this was acting on mistaken information because of a lack of familiarity with the process and did not check it out to be sure.
@boulderjohn,
Isn’t adventure diver a prerequisite for the deep diver course and therefore a prerequisite for a deep adventure dive?
I’ve only heard of the deep dive being dive 4. But I could be interpreting standards incorrectly as including deep in the first 3 adventure dives doesn’t sound correct.
Isn’t adventure diver a prerequisite for the deep diver course and therefore a prerequisite for a deep adventure dive?
I’ve only heard of the deep dive being dive 4. But I could be interpreting standards incorrectly as including deep in the first 3 adventure dives doesn’t sound correct.
Adventure Diver CAN BE a prerequisite for deep, but so can AOW, and that is what usually happens. Most people just get AOW without even giving the Adventure Diver certification a moment's thought, I assume at least 99.87% of the time.
There is only one reason I would suggest that someone get the Adventure Diver certification--they are too young to do the deep dive and get AOW. If they get Adventure Diver, they can go on and take the Rescue Class, which would otherwise require AOW.
Sorry, I don't think I was clear. AOW (and adventure diver) are prerequisites for the deep diver course. Extrapolating from that, is adventure diver (3 adventure dives NOT including deep) a prerequisite for a deep adventure dive? Maybe one for PADI HQ to answer.
I am not understanding you.
Adventure Diver is a certification level. You get a certification card for it if you send in the paperwork. A diver who has completed OW and wants to move on has two immediate choices: Adventure Diver certification, or AOW certification. People who get the Adventure Diver certification can go on and get the AOW later. Pretty much the only reason to get the Adventure Diver certification is that something is preventing you from getting the AOW (such as your age) and you want to go on and take a course like Rescue Diver, which requires one of those certifications.
A diver with the Adventure Diver certification can indeed go on and take the Deep Diver certification, but that certification is not required to take Deep Diver. Yes, you do need a total of 5 adventure dives in order to get AOW certification, and, yes, having the Adventure Diver certification will give you 3 of them, but that certification is not required for any other PADI classes.
Yes, I realize I am not being clear.
We agree that AOW or adventure diver is required for taking the deep diver course.
My question is, does a diver need to have qualified as an adventure diver (3 adventure dives) before doing the deep adventure dive?
Or asking in a different way: is a diver allowed to have a deep adventure dive enroute to becoming an adventure diver? (nevermind that there isn't much value to this).
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