AOW Dive Expiration

[84CJ7]

My PADI AOW deep dive was 8 students, 5 foot vis with a flashlight (near pitch black) and upper 40's for temp, equipment was whatever random stuff we normally used which was heavy cold water gear which compresses a lot making buoyancy a PITA, with no backup gear. I thought it was fun but it was definitely more of a supervised experience than a class under those conditions.

I took AOW just for the plastic since I didn't want to be held up with depth limitations.
As far as I am concerned books, videos, websites and a crap ton of practice is for learning skills, classes are to buy certification cards to remove obstacles. Other people have other needs.

For you I would suggest a dive to see where you are at, if you are comfortable then get the dive shop to do the deep dive without paying for it or anything else. There is no reason you need to pay an instructor to hold your hand for practice, you have a buddy for that, just pick an easy dive to start with.
If you are comfortable diving, the deep dive isn't any different, its surprisingly anticlimactic actually considering how psyched out and stressed you get by everyone making such a big deal out of it. Just keep an eye on your air more than usual.

 

[FM1520]

That is absolutely not true. It is more of an instructor/shop thing.

Per PADI standards it is true that 8:1 is a ratio for instructor to student, and it has to be direct supervision.

The agency (PADI in this case) sets the standard and the instructor/shop works within that standard. In this case you state PADI has a standard of 8:1 max; a different agency may have 6:1 or even 3:1 standard which the instructor/shop would have to work with. Read Jim Lapenta's post #12 above (which was exactly my experience with UTD) is a good example of how much difference there is between agencies.

 

[PhatD1ver]

The problem I often see is that instructors don't realize how bad things can go until they do. Then the we do this all the time excuse/justification doesn't mean squat. I also do not view a quick trip to 80 or 90 ft to open a lock, or look at a color chart as a proper deep dive. You figure out the gas you'll need, add a redundant bottle, and do an actual dive related task while maintaining good buddy position and communications. Then you throw in some kind of rescue or assist task and look for the reaction. Couple that with deployment of the pony or stage at half max depth and finish the dive with multiple stops. All while maintaining good trim and buoyancy. That is a proper deep dive in my opinion. I have seen a shop take 6 people deep with one dm and no redundant gas on anyone. That to me is asking for some one to get hurt. Especially in low vis and 40 degree water at depth.

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Jim, you are a knowledgeable guy, and I take most of your posts to heart, but I'd be hard pressed to see those performance criteria you demand listed in any instructor manual for and AOW 'adventure' DEEP dive. Adventure dives by definition are INTRODUCTORY experiences, and your requirement for using pony bottles isn't even part of the required knowledge base. In fact, I think you do a disservice by even teaching what is a skill beyond the scope of this dive to these divers since the focus is to teach a diver how to experience diving withing the deep parameters of their recreational diving world (18-40meters)... why would you want to introduce higher level task and skills that 'enable' a diver to purposefully exceed recreational limits? (surely you can't be so naive to believe that by teaching such skills, that some divers would not then be tempted to do dives beyond recreational limits just because 'they know how').

The performance of dive related tasks at depth is of course good, but there is great value for a student diver in performance of the lock exercse, color chart, or in my case knot tying game is to demonstrate to the student the effects of deep water on their mental accuity... loss of dexterity, loss of color recognition, etc... these exercises are supposed to be performed prior to the dive, to allow the student to make a direct comparison to how they are affected at depth.

I'm usually in awe of your knowledge, but I have to disagree with this approach, there is so much more in my opinion that is important in introducing a diver to the world below 18m, the ability to understand narcosis, to efficiently manage bottom time using their dive computer after planning that dive ONLY on air, (planning using 1/3 principles) and surfacing with reserve in the tank, not on fumes... and more importantly, making the required stop and ascending at the right rate... if all that can be accomplished you have met the requirements. And the student hopefully has gained some insight into DEEP diving that they can build on in the future.

just my humble, uninformed, newbie, non-instructor opinion, but there is a reason that colleges, universities give credit for LIFE EXPERIENCE and OTHER training.

---------- Post added June 24th, 2014 at 02:49 PM ----------

Exactly!! I have 21 dives, and 11 of them are DEEP by PADI standards because my maximum depth was more than 18meters, but it wasn't until I went to 30m that I felt like I had really gone DEEP, and even then, 30m felt about like 25m that felt about like 20m... in fact, my 25m dive was my favorite over my 30m dive because the cave/chimney entrance we 'swam thru' was at 23m...(and came out at 12m).. for a deep dive like 30m, my dive plan was to descend directly to 20m, check everything, tie a couple knots that I had tied on the boat, then descend to 30m and do that again, watching for signs of narcossis... I got to 30m, felt good, took about twice as long to tie the knots, and then we swam off staying at 30m for only 5 minutes total, and we were back on the surface in 15 minutes (due to a minor drift/navigation issue - not me on the compass)... grabbed a new tank in about 3 minutes and were back in the water and down to 25m for 20 minutes and then slow stairstep ascents along the wall before pulling into a little lagoon and making a 5 minutes stop...

It was good fun, and I have to say that I feel comfortable if I needed to go that deep again sometime (like this weekend)...

Keep at it, do what feels RIGHT (unless you have narcossis, then don't)

T.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

First of all I am not a PADI instructor so those limitations do not apply to me. The advanced course I teach is one I wrote myself. It is approved by the agency I teach for. Our standards do allow instructors to determine what is in the best interests of the student. Giving someone a card that now gives them access to deep dives, current dives, low vis dives, etc. and not giving them new knowledge and skills is irresponsible and risking that students safety. The people that come to me for advanced training do so because they know they are not going to get a taste or tour of dives. what they get is actual knowledge and a slew of new skills to safely plan, execute, and return from those dives. If I wanted them to just experience those dives it would be as a guide and not result in a certification. Which I could not do since as a professional I would be limited to guiding them within the limits of their current cert. My own morals and ethics dictate what I put in my classes as well as agency standards. Which is why there are also minimum entry requirements for them. AOW being just a taste or tour of these dives is morally and ethically offensive to me so I don't teach them that way.
Also when you go over gas management in detail and talk about how divers die when they exceed the limits of their training the temptation to do that lessens. If you want shoot me your email via pm and I'll send you the full outline for my advanced class. It also explains why I teach this class the way I do. As does my book.
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[tursiops]

The OP is asking about a single deep dive (> 60 ft) as the AOW Deep Dive; it is not a full class with full content. Jim is talking about a full class with full content. Jim is off topic.

 

[grantwiscour]

Much good info given here. Get a refresher under your belt. It sounds like your initial training was during a "challenging" time in your life.

After your refresher, get in some local diving. Clear Springs in Terrell and Athens Scuba Park are both close enough to Dallas for you to get wet and log some underwater time. Honing your skills locally and on your own will help develop confidence and bring lots of fun.

Check out our local dive club for local dive opportunities. https://www.facebook.com/NorthTexasDiveSociety

 

[James R]

Here's an idea...why not complete your refresher as planned, and talk to your LDS about joining your buddy who's taking the full AOW as a fun diver. This way, you get to dive together and you don't need to pay to repeat stuff you've done already, but you still get a review of adventure dives you've done previously. Then complete the deep adventure dive as planned & get signed off for your AOW.

I wouldn't let someone I don't know and haven't been in the water with before just tag along with one of my classes.

It has nothing to do with ethics or how hungry the dive shop is for revenue. It's about being fair to the students that have paid for the class and, to an extent, everyone's safety.

 

[scubadiver888]

First, let me say it has been three years since I've been here and three years since I last dove. I'll be doing a refresher soon. You can skip the narrative and jump straight to the question at the bottom, but for those interested.

Three years ago I took the AOW course as a follow-on to the OW. It was a less than desirable experience with the dive master not even going under with me, but staying below the surface above me. I was not nervous about this, but it did put me off a bit. I finished all the adventure dives with the exception of Deep Dive.

After complaining to the dive shop about my experience, they did offer to get me a dive in Lake Murray, but the instructor had said he had never been to this spot and we would be hiking down a hill to get there. Needless to say this did not make me feel comfortable. A lot of other personal family issues were going on at the time and things just went their way.

Now, three years later, I have a buddy that is completing his AOW and wants to dive. I'm excited to get back into this.

Can I just do the Deep Dive and get it signed off to complete the AOW or would I have to sign up for the course all over again?

I read this and think I wouldn't even be asking this question.

When I was younger the license for motorcycle and scooter was the same license. Some shops would 'sell' you a scooter, you'd go get your motorcycle license then you could come back, return the scooter for a credit towards a racing motorcycle. It was a lot easier to get the motorcycle license on a scooter. The end result was the government changed the rules so you got a different license for scooter than you did for motorcycle. The biggest reason was the number of newly licensed 'motorcycle' drivers who crashed their racing motorcycle with less than 600 miles on them.

With scuba certification cards you can do a similar thing. I have met divers who are horrible at diving (I rescued two of them once I became a divemaster). I'd talk to these guys and find they met the minimum requirements for getting a certification. When everything went well it was not a problem but when things went wrong they went horribly wrong.

So do you want an AOW certification card? Or do you want to learn to handle diving to 100 feet? I was told by a great scuba diver that anyone can scuba dive but the training was to ensure you don't die doing it. The better your training the safer a diver you will be.

If the people who started your initial AOW are the same people who did your OW training I'd wonder if you got your money's worth for OW training. I would never expect that shop to give me the training I deserve. I would cut my loses and go to a different shop. You can ask people here if there is a shop they would recommend. Diving in say Jamaica or Aruba is one thing; you have clear water, no current, great visibility, et cetera. Take someone trained in that environment and drop them in Dallas to do lake diving and they are probably not going to fair well. Same would hold true for someone poorly trained.

Bottom line, find a shop with a good reputation for training local divers (not vacation divers). You can even consider doing cross over training. This means having PADI OW is usually sufficient for switching to say NAUI or SSI AOW. So don't limit yourself to just PADI. If you do a little research on here you will find it isn't about the agency and it is all about the instructor. So if the best instructor in your area is SSI then go SSI. If the best instructor is NAUI then go NAUI. But if the best instructor is PADI then continue with PADI.

 

[Zen1300]

Like I said... I just wanted to know whether or not I could complete the deep dive or re-do the entire course.

I found that I can just perform the deep dive. I will use that opportunity as a learning experience... an "Adventure Dive."

It's not my desire to go wreck diving tomorrow in the depths of the ocean. It's my desire to complete what I started, to learn from experience (not just books) and to develop what I hope to be a long-life hobby.

 

[iztok]

The agency (PADI in this case) sets the standard and the instructor/shop works within that standard. In this case you state PADI has a standard of 8:1 max; a different agency may have 6:1 or even 3:1 standard which the instructor/shop would have to work with. Read Jim Lapenta's post #12 above (which was exactly my experience with UTD) is a good example of how much difference there is between agencies.

Just because agency allows it doesn't prevent an instructor to set lesser ratio. In fact it is clearly discussed and addressed in the standards.