OP
Weren't you required to do 4 open water dives to be certified for Open Water Diver?
How long between your open water and advanced open water course?
- Thread starter Progen
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Weren't you required to do 4 open water dives to be certified for Open Water Diver?
OW - 2008
AOW - 2012
About 50 dives inbetween. I started in the Caribbean, so not so much need for AOW to get to deeper parts. Chose AOW and Deep when I got around to diving in the Pacific and freshwater lakes.
AOW - 2012
About 50 dives inbetween. I started in the Caribbean, so not so much need for AOW to get to deeper parts. Chose AOW and Deep when I got around to diving in the Pacific and freshwater lakes.
18 yrs between certs... AOW was a joke... Already had the training in my OW but Padi then split OW into OW and AOW. Had to get AOW for boat dives in warm water. Course Director said I was the easiest AOW he ever certified. Was a better diver than the DM that took me down to 97' for my deep dive. Diving cold water in MA while hunting for lobsters will do that...
nolatom
Contributor
25 dives. Then after another 25, took rescue.
Kieran Byrne
Registered
OW 5/13 PPB dive no 6..... 6/13
So far have 9 OW dives to date.
Me and the almost wife (getting married) this saturday 27/7/13, then off to borneo on Sunday. Start AOW on the Tuesday in Kota kinabalu. One week later we will be in Sipadan.
So far have read the manual about 3 times lol Iove the knowledge I'm getting from it. Can't wait to start the course.I am under no illusions I will be an advanced diver but I wholey believe we will be better for doing the course.
So far have 9 OW dives to date.
Me and the almost wife (getting married) this saturday 27/7/13, then off to borneo on Sunday. Start AOW on the Tuesday in Kota kinabalu. One week later we will be in Sipadan.
So far have read the manual about 3 times lol Iove the knowledge I'm getting from it. Can't wait to start the course.I am under no illusions I will be an advanced diver but I wholey believe we will be better for doing the course.
It was almost 40 years from the time I first used SCUBA until I got my AOW. One reason was that when I finally got certified, my Los Angeles County certification covered much of what is taught in today's OW-AOW-Rescue series. I only took AOW to get a PADI cert that prevented the shops from questioning my LAC cert and allow me to dive "advanced" dives.
I was planning a trip to Cozumel in June that year, and I decided I wanted to dive on that trip. I happened to have another trip planned for march of that year, a short trip to Puerto Vallarta, and I figured that would be a good place to get certified. It wasn't. It was not until years later that I realized how many short cuts were taken in that certification. I felt I was an OK diver, but I was not truly confident. I therefore signed up for an AOW class to take place my first days in Cozumel--dives 5-9. It was a wise decision. I learned a lot from that instructor, and I dived the rest of the week with confidence. I enjoyed myself so thoroughly that my original intent of diving a couple of times every other year during a tropical vacation went completely out the window.
If you dive actively for 20 years as an OW diver and then take AOW so that you will be allowed to do certain dives, you will certainly not see it as a worthwhile course. If you do it when you still need that basic instruction, it will be very valuable.
Here's another thought. I moved to Colorado and learned to ski as a young adult. I was gong to graduate school and had little money to spare. I could not afford lessons, so I learned by imitating others--my Mentors. Years later I was a fairly accomplished skier, and I took some lessons. I also joined a citizen racing team, and took some racing lessons. I was obviously a much better skier than I was when I started, but I was never able to be the skier I could have been, and I was never able to get beyond the mediocre level of racing because of all the deeply ingrained bad habits I had picked up from my early Mentors. Try as I might to implement skills as I was taught by my new instructors, in a pinch I would always revert to my bad habits. My advice now in all pursuits is to get good training early on so that you ingrain good habits.
To give you an example in scuba, I was working with a student in the pool a few weeks ago while an OW instructor was sharing the space. That OW instructor commented about how good my cave diving student looked. He was shocked to learn that this was not a cave diving student. The student had only been OW certified a few weeks before. he did not even have his AOW completed yet. He just wanted to get his skills taught properly so that he could be the best diver he could be as he progressed.
If you dive actively for 20 years as an OW diver and then take AOW so that you will be allowed to do certain dives, you will certainly not see it as a worthwhile course. If you do it when you still need that basic instruction, it will be very valuable.
Here's another thought. I moved to Colorado and learned to ski as a young adult. I was gong to graduate school and had little money to spare. I could not afford lessons, so I learned by imitating others--my Mentors. Years later I was a fairly accomplished skier, and I took some lessons. I also joined a citizen racing team, and took some racing lessons. I was obviously a much better skier than I was when I started, but I was never able to be the skier I could have been, and I was never able to get beyond the mediocre level of racing because of all the deeply ingrained bad habits I had picked up from my early Mentors. Try as I might to implement skills as I was taught by my new instructors, in a pinch I would always revert to my bad habits. My advice now in all pursuits is to get good training early on so that you ingrain good habits.
To give you an example in scuba, I was working with a student in the pool a few weeks ago while an OW instructor was sharing the space. That OW instructor commented about how good my cave diving student looked. He was shocked to learn that this was not a cave diving student. The student had only been OW certified a few weeks before. he did not even have his AOW completed yet. He just wanted to get his skills taught properly so that he could be the best diver he could be as he progressed.
alecto
Registered
I did AOW dives #5-9. Only 3 of the 5 dives were useful: nav, deep and buoyancy. We initially wanted to do wreck and search/rescue as well. Instead, we were talked into wreck becoming DPV where the instructor didn't even come with us on our dive and search and recovery (which we did do training in the pool) became fish ID. The DPV was fun until one died right after we turned around. Search/recovery got changed while on the boat by the instructor. He gave us a card with pictures of fish on it and said look for these. Oh really? So basically a normal dive that doesn't need training.
I'm glad I'm rated AOW as some dives I see require it, but I still want a few more dives under the belt before I give those a go. I realize I'm not actually advanced and now I'm finishing up the navigation specialty with a new instructor. So far this one seems more legit
I'd recommend to anyone thinking of going AOW to decide on what needs/wants you have and to not let the instructor talk you out of something. I felt talked out of wreck and regret that. I understand the search/recovery could be called for conditions and that any dive can be called at any time, but feel like that dive should have been made up at another time, not replaced by handing us a plastic fish ID card and saying look for these as you follow me and tell me what you saw...
I'm glad I'm rated AOW as some dives I see require it, but I still want a few more dives under the belt before I give those a go. I realize I'm not actually advanced and now I'm finishing up the navigation specialty with a new instructor. So far this one seems more legit
I'd recommend to anyone thinking of going AOW to decide on what needs/wants you have and to not let the instructor talk you out of something. I felt talked out of wreck and regret that. I understand the search/recovery could be called for conditions and that any dive can be called at any time, but feel like that dive should have been made up at another time, not replaced by handing us a plastic fish ID card and saying look for these as you follow me and tell me what you saw...
mat4ov
Registered
I did my advanced as dives 6-10 and thought it was beneficial mainly for the extra practice with an instructor at hand. With that said, my LDS is very good about not moving on until you've shown you can execute skills. I think overall the best class I've taken yet was rescue. It brings a lot of things into perspective and gave me a lot more confidence when it comes to helping a buddy with issues. Although I found rescue to be a great class, I recommend being comfortable with your own diving first.
Similar threads
