AOW as Family or adults/kids? Vacation or home?

[Jim Lapenta]

It also depends on the what you are looking to get out of AOW. My AOW class is 8 hours of classroom and requires students to be able to perform basic skills horizontal in midwater before being allowed to take the class. I also teach advanced propulsion techniques, bag shoots, stage bottle deployment, navigation, search and recovery, deep with deep stops and simulated deco with stage, OOA drills at 90-100 feet with air share ascent to 50ft, and buddy rescue and assist. The last involves 100 ft no mask swims, air shares, loss of buoyancy assisted ascents, and unconscious diver from depth. Not all AOW classes are tours. I would do the same class for everyone but adjust the depth for junior divers to a max of 70 feet. Otherwise all skills would be the same. The dives I offer are Advanced Skills, UW Nav, Night/Low Vis, Deep, Search and Recovery, Buddy Skills and Assist. I can substitute wreck for the Search and Recovery. Weighting and trim are addressed on all dives and buddy positioning is strictly enforced. Get separated once you get counseled. Separated twice is a fail for the class. Safety violations are treated the same way. I may also withhold certification if I feel that more practice on the AOW required skills is needed.

Note: This not a PADI AOW Class.

 

[scubamum3]

Thanks everybody for your input! It gave me and my husband a lot to think about last night. We like the idea of the family time for the AOW but since it's 23 outside right now and I am a wuss, we need to figure out if waiting until May/June or going someplace warm for the kids school breaks for AOW will work out better. From what I think I'm hearing the AOW may or may not be a great learning experience, but is a stepping stone to keep going. I always have approached diving with the kids as it's a lot more than just looking at cool stuff underwater and already I make them practice all of their safety stuff (buddy breathing, mask recovery,etc) about every 4 or 5 dives just to help make it 2nd nature. The Rescue diving had not really crossed my mind so much...I do anesthesia for a living so I do advanced airway/resuscitation stuff all day long but I'm sure it would be a LOT more stressfull outside of my pristine hospital environment. That one for sure I will do in some chilly low viz spot here in Michigan since this is what we have access to on a regular basis. Is there much difference between the adult and the junior Rescue course? The adults have PADI and the kids are SSI...I know we can all use the same cert agency at this point. Have people found much difference between the 2?

 

[BKP]

...The adults have PADI and the kids are SSI...I know we can all use the same cert agency at this point. Have people found much difference between the 2?

This is an age-old debate here... However, you'll probably hear from most, and I agree, that it's not the agency, it's the instructor...

 

[Garrobo]

AOW is actually a way for PADI and other agencies to drag some more money out of you on the way to other certifications. Some instructors make it more complicated by adding their personal touches to it either making it harder by encompassing other skills and seeming to make you think you have accomplished something or to charge more. But in it's basic form it's an open-book exam with five dives which you might or might not have already done. I mean like "boat dive". What's that all about? But without it you won't be able to dive the Oriskany.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

AOW is actually a way for PADI and other agencies to drag some more money out of you on the way to other certifications. Some instructors make it more complicated by adding their personal touches to it either making it harder by encompassing other skills and seeming to make you think you have accomplished something or to charge more. But in it's basic form it's an open-book exam with five dives which you might or might not have already done. I mean like "boat dive". What's that all about? But without it you won't be able to dive the Oriskany.

1+, sadly.

With PADI it is a stepping stone, but I think some instructors CAN make it much better than it often is.

Our experience with PADI AOW in 2007 was that it was self-study of the required chapters, a review of the end-of-chapter review questions by the instructor, then go for a dive. If you've done a good bit of diving post OW, you will not learn anything new in AOW, but if you dive infrequently or have not dove in many years then AOW is a good chance to get in the water with an instructor for some more dives, which is a good thing.

Best wishes.

 

[scubamum3]

I just wanted to post an update. We decided to do our AOW as a family. We sent the completed paperwork to PADI yesterday, having completed our dives on Thursday. We found a great instructor who was willing to take us into the St Clair River for 4/6 of our dives (For those not from this area, this is truely an "advanced" dive environment. As a mom and as a medical professional I would not put my kids in a situation that I felt they were ill prepared for, but did find it discouraging that there were many dive shops that would take our money for the course without providing any real advancement of our skills and automatically ruled us out of the "advanced" diving opportunites we have available in Michigan strictly based on the ages of my kids and nothing else). We had some real opportunities to expand our dive knowledge as a "team" and push our boundaries a little. I would recommend to any families out there in the same situation to do it as a group effort!!!! We also decided to learn close to home rather than on vacation. If we can manage the cold, shifting currents, and questionable visability that we have here, we can be comfortable almost everywhere we want to dive. Thanks again for everyone's input! And a big CONGRATS to my kids.....I am a very proud mom!!!!

 

[spectrum]

Kudos for going the local route! What a gift you have given the kids.

If I were you I'd get at least yourself & husband through Rescue Diver ASAP. You should find tremendous value in that course.

Pete

 

[scubamum3]

Rescue Diver is next on our list, probably in the fall. Doing anything times five takes a while to build up the funding . I think that that one will be me and my husband...maybe my 15 year old son. I need to get the book and start reading through it to see if it's something that my 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter can handle or if they need to be a little older.