AOW immediately after OW?

[Jim Lapenta]

I would agree with the consensus that doing AOW after OW is beneficial from the standpoint that the 5 dives are under supervision of the instructor and will give you just a little more supervised time in the water.

I could not disagree stronger from my point of view. If a diver wants 5 more dives with an instructor as some of mine do, we just go dive. No need to have a class or charge them for it. But to be fair it does depend on the AOW class. I will not speak of any but the one I teach and the one I took.

The one I took was a by the book "tour type" thing that involved very few new skills, did not require solid basic skills (other than that required to open my checkbook), and really did little other than get me a few dives with someone who became a mentor and really taught me some things. Right after OW I would not have qualified for the AOW I teach. I did not have the time to develop further and polish the basic skills needed for my class. Some of it was in fact a joke. Altitude dive? C'mon gimme a friggin break! All the dives were at altitude! Drop to 90 feet, open a lock, compare gauges, and ascend? Not my idea (at least now) of a useful experience, but it did give me plenty of false confidence!

I require a certain level of basic skills and comfort with them to even start my AOW class. I've seen very few students who have that to the level I feel is necessary to benefit from the many new skills, task loading required, and additional knowledge they get in the class. I'm not going to allow someone who cannot perform all basic skills in midwater and in trim to go to 100 feet, hand them the reel we run for another 100 feet or so, pull an air share on them at 90 that we will do up to the 50, and then retrieve the stage we left at 50, deploy it and finish off the dive as a multilevel for total run time of 45-50 minutes. They simply will not be ready for that.

I hear the 5 more dives with an instructor justification all the time. And frankly, IMO, it holds no water with me.

 

[aquaregia]

The biggest thing I got out of AOW was some guidance determining when to dive and when to call it. Most of my local diving is shore diving, and judging conditions is pretty important. My OW checkout dives were on a very easy beach that I've only seen undiveable a few times, but for AOW we went to a variety of sites and discussed the diveplans, entries and exits and emergency contingencies. This made me comfortable trying new dive sites, etc. The dives themselves were not guided tours, and the site assessments were done as a group discussion followed by critique from the instructor.

 

[cocoajoe]

50-99 dives and you ask this question?

 

[stargazer61]

Surely AOW SHOULD mean more than just "I've got OW and done 5 supervised dives." There OUGHT to be a serious training element in the cert. In most cases you won't be ready for that training because the OW skills aren't yet fully bedded in.

The school of thought that says "I needed to do AOW because I wasn't ready to go and dive independently" is plain silly IMO. What you need is some dives with a mentor or DM. Yes, often you can get just that in the guise of an AOW cert. But then you don't get the extra training to the level of a GOOD AOW course. Where does that leave you? Probably certified to dive at 30m but not safe at that depth...

 

[jester1226]

Well, old thread but finally after a year and over 50 dives I am signed up for my AOW in 2 weeks I still haven't decided on my elective dives but I am pretty excited to do some more training.

Perfect. IMO those who take it right after OW are not ready and do
not fully appreciate and or understand what they are being taught. How
could they, they are new to diving. AOW should be a fun class where you
are learning additional skill sets to further your diving. If you have not
been diving very long, your comprehension will be low. You may be
able to get through the course, you just don't learn everything you
are paying for. Congratulations, your wait will be worth it!