ChickenFried
Contributor
For me it was about 20 dives. I think that was about just right. It gave me time to work on weighting/buoyancy issues and trim before I went to AOW.
How long between your open water and advanced open water course?
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OP
Ah, another fast one. Did you find that the 'advanced' course benefited you in any way which you wouldn't have found out on your own during fun diving?
phoenix31tt
Contributor
yes and no, based on my 40 current dives... 20 were unguided and the others were not with my instructor.. the purpose of doing the AOW was to get more focused dive time with the instructor and to be certified for deep diving, so yes i got benefit out of it.
However no dive shop has asked me if i had advanced before doing any dive below 60ft so in that aspect it was useless. But the additional instructor thought me skills that i may not have learned during fun dives as i would have nobody to point things out to me (my dive buddy was certified with me), and without knowing what to look for it'll be hard to further improve.
TBH however, scubaboard does provide a wealth of information that has helped me to further improve my diving and if i had an experienced mentor i probably wouldnt have needed AOW in its current format
It's hard to say if it's a good or bad idea to go straight from one to the other. Personally I took OW on one weekend and then AOW on the next weekend. I just figured it was a way to learn more quicker but you can certainly learn a lot on your own. I think I would have learned more or at least the skills would have been more obvious if I had waited longer and just dove.
ScubaInChicago
Contributor
867 dives is a good start....
lmorin
Contributor
1 yr and 25 dives. Largely a worthless endeavor, except for the 5 dive component.
11 months and 54 dives...
OW 9/2012
EAN 1/2013
AOW 6/2013
I had a minimal amount of dives between each. OW was by far the hardest of the 3. AOW make me more conscience of diving etiquette and helped get my buoyancy under control. There wasn't anything covered in AOW which I couldn't handle. I had 11 or 12 dives when I took AOW.
I would say location has to come into consideration here as well. I trained in Jupiter, which means 80-90ft drift diving is the norm.
EAN 1/2013
AOW 6/2013
I had a minimal amount of dives between each. OW was by far the hardest of the 3. AOW make me more conscience of diving etiquette and helped get my buoyancy under control. There wasn't anything covered in AOW which I couldn't handle. I had 11 or 12 dives when I took AOW.
I would say location has to come into consideration here as well. I trained in Jupiter, which means 80-90ft drift diving is the norm.
AOW came at dives #50-54. I now have my Nitrox card, last year, and am thinking with the 100 dives I now have I am going to do Rescue.
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