I'm going to do my Advanced Open Water

[Time_Bandit]

At the moment I am tempted by Wreck, Night and Peak Performace.

 

[DiveMaven]

I'd definitely recommend Peak Performance. We recently completed our AOW and PPB was our first dive, and not only did we feel like it was one of our most valuable modules, we spent quite a bit of time on the rest of the checkout dives practicing our bouyancy skills.

We didn't think we had "problems" with bouyancy when we started the class, but by the end our bouyancy had improved significantly and we knew the module had made a huge difference.

 

[drew52]

I would recommend Peak Performance, Night & Wreck as the dives of choice; it's always amazing to see the difference in peoples diving after the buoyancy dive. Even the best of divers can learn something from this dive.

Another possibility is doing Peak Performance, Night and EANx (Nitrox); Remembering each adventure dive counts towards the first dive of the specialty course and every diver should do a Nitrox course. For the Nitrox dive your instructor will need to be Nitrox qualified.

The Search and Recovery dive is also a whole lot of fun as is the photography dive.

 

[dl348]

I would recommend Wreck, PPB and Drysuit if your LDS offers it. As you know, Deep and Underwater Nav. are required. You may also want to piggyback Nitrox with your AOW.

 

[HowardE]

At the moment I am tempted by Wreck, Night and Peak Performace.

Peak performance is a great suggestion that was made by others. Even to Trinigordo who says his bouyancy is good... How good? I think attaining excellent bouyancy skills is one of the most "advanced" skills you can walk away from your AOW with.

If you've never done a night dive. Do one. They're GREAT! Personally I wish that I had done the search and recovery... It sounds like a fun game, and although you don't think that you're going to use it recreationally, what would you do when you lose your $50 weight pocket? Hopefully, it will be a recovery. It's a good skill to learn.

IMO you'd be better to learn "skills" that will make you a better diver as a whole. Night dive and wreck dive, are really just dives. Not too much learning involved. I say make the best of your AOW course, and acquire as much KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS that they will offer. That's why I would recommend taking the S&R and Bouyancy.

 

[timle]

I'm planning on nav, night, deep, search and rescue, and wreck. Just so happens I want to get specialities in most of those.

 

[Adobo]

At the moment I am tempted by Wreck, Night and Peak Performace.

Bandit,

This reply is a quite wordy so apologies in advance.

I just finished my open water certification a couple of months back. I'm so enamored by the sport that right now, it takes up all of my personal play time. When I checked with the dive shop I did my open water certification, they told me that the next logical class to take was advanced open water. In my case, AOW is not too bad as it focuses on 4 somewhat benign specialties that include, Limited Visibility/Night Diving, Boat Diving, Drysuit Diving, Navigation.

What I personally find scary is that some AOW instruction allows you to take deep diving (below 60 ft and sometimes over 100 ft). The reason I find it scary is that divers that are pretty new who go to AOW are IMO ill prepared to be that deep. Here are my reasons:
- Descents are done in a pretty hair fashion. The diver is most likely overweighted and has not mastered bouyancy. Additionally, the diver normally has feet first position. Usually, the diver finds himelf/herself crashing to the bottom. (I'm sure many of you newbies know what I'm talking about)
- Ascent profile is scary also. Generally, you are taught to do a swimming ascent and to do a safety stop at 15 ft. In my experience (or lack of), I have found the 15 ft stop to be almost impossible unless you are hanging on to an anchored line. The culprits at play here are lack of mastery of bouyancy and bad or no trim. (Any newbies share my pain here?)
- Gas management IMO is sometimes taught in a vague fashion. You know, be back at the boat with 500lbs of air. I could never figure out if that meant I should turn around at 1000lbs, 1500lbs or what. What if I were to turn around with 1000lbs of air thinking I need 500 lbs to complete my ascent and during that ascent my buddy signals out of air? If that gauge is not accurate, are me and my buddy gonna have enough air to make a safe ascent? This one is quite likely not that big an issue during class but generally speaking, I have issues about this approach of gas management.

With a lot of these issues in mind, I opted to hold off on AOW. Instead, I took a class that teaches basic skills that none of the other classes (OW, AOW, etc) in my LDS taught. The class was taught by kind of a specialty company and covers all of those things that I personally thought needed more attention not only for me but for I would say the vast majority of new divers. We covered bouyancy with the objective of learning how to achieve precision bouyancy. We covered what proper trim is and how to learn to get it. We covered more comprehensive gas management theory and then dumbed them back down so that the diver could use "rules of thumb". We covered alternative propulsion techniques because honestly, the flutter kick is not appropriate for all situation. We covered some basic self preservation skills that most likely you already know like air sharing, mask removal, etc. And lastly, we covered how to be more aware of everything like the team, the equipment and the environment.

Where this class is different is that once you master the skills taught, you actually wind up being quite capable of doing deep diving when you take your AOW class. Lets say you are going to an 80ft dive. Your descent is going to be slow, relaxed and completely in control. When you get to the bottom, you will have better control of whether you 2 ft from the bottom or 10 ft. You will be able to approach a subject and propel yourself forward, back and turn on a coin (dime for us americans). Your gas management will be planned better as you will know how much gas you can use going out, how much you can use coming in and you will know that when you hit rock bottom, you will have plenty of gas in reserve even if you buddy swims to you all bug eyed in a panic and signs ooa.

The class I took is called essentials to recreational diving and it is taught by a company called 5thd-x. They are based in California but they do travel to teach off site. (I understand that they taught a series of classes in Poland a couple of years agon). Anyway, I suggest it as an alternative or perhaps a supplement to your AOW class. It's not as sexy sounding as "Advanced xyz class" but I am betting that you will find it to be more closer to what most of us are looking for when it comes to scuba training. Details on the class are available at http://www.5thd-x.com/classes/outlines/essentials.html.

If you want to read my class report, you can find it under:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=116583

T

 

[HowardE]

Adobo,

Your decision to wait on the AOW sounds like a good idea. All too often, people are in a rush to acquire c-cards. Your fear of depth is natural for beginners, but I think once you break the 60' barrier you'll see it's not so different than 30'.

After reading your post though, you definitely need a Bouyancy re-enforcement. You should NOT be crashing to the bottom, or having problems maintaining your safety stop. Where I dive on a regular basis, there is no tag line, so this luxury isn't always available. I would say to you that until you fix those problems you should keep training.

Remember that AOW doesn't really TEACH a lot, it's more of a way to show students what else is out there other than just diving in. Some people may disagree with my assesment, but if you read other posts, you'll find that many people see the AOW as a guided tour.

You will know when you are a better diver by yourself. AOW WILL NOT make you a better diver. Only experience can do that. Dive as much as you can, and work on your bouyancy.

 

[Adobo]

Adobo,

Your decision to wait on the AOW sounds like a good idea. All too often, people are in a rush to acquire c-cards. Your fear of depth is natural for beginners, but I think once you break the 60' barrier you'll see it's not so different than 30'.

After reading your post though, you definitely need a Bouyancy re-enforcement. You should NOT be crashing to the bottom, or having problems maintaining your safety stop. Where I dive on a regular basis, there is no tag line, so this luxury isn't always available. I would say to you that until you fix those problems you should keep training.

Remember that AOW doesn't really TEACH a lot, it's more of a way to show students what else is out there other than just diving in. Some people may disagree with my assesment, but if you read other posts, you'll find that many people see the AOW as a guided tour.

You will know when you are a better diver by yourself. AOW WILL NOT make you a better diver. Only experience can do that. Dive as much as you can, and work on your bouyancy.

Howard,

Thanks for the reply.

You are absolutely correct on many points. First, no one should be crashing to the bottom. But where I dive, the viz is quite limited. With the feet first descent that I was taught in my OW class, the diver in many situations would touch with their feet before they could even see the bottom. I would say that this condition is true for a huge percentage of new divers and not just reserved for the unlucky few. If AOW is just a "guided tour", it seems all the more important for new divers to know that if they are looking for a skills class instead of a "tour" there are other options.

With regards to bouyancy, again you are correct. Most if not all new divers will struggle with bouyancy. The time it takes to master it depends on the diver. But again, I say that bouyancy mastery is far more important that some of the things covered in some AOW classes.

To be more specific.... the crashing to the bottom and those other issues are issues I described are things that I found to be true when divers are completing open water certification. My point is, this is your state as a diver when you exit that program. With 15 or less dives as the poster has, it is doubtful that he has figured out bouyancy, proper ascents and proper descents. And taking AOW is not going to get him closer to those ever important skills. Now go back to my original post, can you imagine a new diver being taken to 90 feet when that diver is still prone to crashing to the bottom or still struggling with bouyancy?

Since taking the essentials to recreational diving course, I now do my descents in a horizontal position. This way, I can see the bottom before any part of my body gets there. I also present more surface area on my descent so I have far more control of the descent rate. I also do my ascents in trim and in two dives yesterday was able to maintain pretty close to 30 ft/sec ascent rate with kicking or fiddling around with my BC. I was eye to eye with my buddy for the most part of the ascent as well. I'm pretty confident that when I get my ascent nailed down, when I do my AOW and go to 100ft, I will be able to do 1 minute stops at 50 ft, 40 ft, 30 ft, 20 ft and at 10 ft. in proper trim. Well, 20 ft and 10 feet might be hard but you get my drift.

Much better than going on a guided tour, no?

Check out this example below..

I know you need 5 dives for OW and 6 for AOW. Is it possible to do both in 7 total dives? A buddy of mine told me his LDS is going on a trip for a long weekend and they are telling him he can get both done on this trip.

I just pray that the AOW portion of that program has nothing to do with deep diving.

 

[HowardE]

Adobo,

I Agree 100% - TOO MANY PEOPLE RUSH TO GET C-CARDS, thinking it will make them more advanced by having the card.

Personally, I didn't take my AOW until after 50 dives... The only reason I took it was because I ultimately want to get my DM cert, and also, they REQUIRE it for diving the Spiegel Grove. Even though I had more than 40 logged dives to 60' or more, with current, they wanted the AOW C-Card.

However, the AOW tour I refer to is the PADI course... as I understand it, the NAUI AOW does cover and require bouyancy skills as well as other required skills for their AOW.