OW and AOW

[Diver0001]

Not true, the basic cert allowed you to dive anywhere without supervision so it's not the same as the Scuba Diver cert currently being offered.

Oh ok, so you mean it's like the OW cert of today?

R..

 

[Clark Fletcher]

So, it sounds like my memory hasn't completely failed me - yet. That brings me to my next questions.

I seem to remember that Basic Scuba did not include navigation and that the OW certification did include navigation. Does anyone else remember that?

For those of you who remember Basic Scuba and OW certification from the 1970s, what were the big difference between the two? Specifically, what could I have done with an OW certification that I wasn't allowed to do with a Basic Scuba certification? I know that with Basic, I could rent gear, dive without an instructor, and get tanks filled because I did all of those things and all I had back then was a Basic Scuba certification.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

This is circa 1978 - Scuba Diver. I have never been denied access to any boat in the US or Caribbean waters. I have dove below 100ft in the 80's on Martinique, Aruba and Grand Cayman.
The course was extensive and it included basic deco...

 

[Erich S]

My basic course took 6 weeks and like I already said also included CPR certification so it was a complete Scuba course.
The OW consisted of two more OW dives with an instructor.
I think my basic course consisted of 3 OW dives and 2 more to get my OW.

 

[Bob DBF]

Back a ways, when I started, SCUBA diver and instructor were the two certifications. The first instructors were in the military and the scientific community, followed for the recreational community by LA County, YMCA, and NAUI. NASDS started the same year I started diving.

Initially there was no need for a c-card to get tank fills or any diving activity. Over time the restriction on air fills, dive operations, and types of dives evolved. In 1980 when I wanted to do some traveling and diving, I finally got formal training and a c-card.

Recently PADI changed the standard to emphasize neutral buoyancy in a way that was never done before and still isn't by most agencies

Although all the skills were initially done on the knees in my OW class, it was required that the skills were done while diving, neutral, in order to certify. I don't know if this was required by NAUI, PADI, or just the instructor. The class certified for both NAUI and PADI.

The class was long and thorough. A lot of NorCal specific and rescue type info and practical exercises. One that I thought was interesting, after one is the OW dives out of an rhib, we were required to float on the surface for a half hour or so without approaching or touching the boat. And one failed, just needed to grab the boat. No harassment drills as such, but stress testing the students.


Bob

 

[boulderjohn]

AOW was created first by Los Angeles County, than picked up by NAUI. PADi got into a bit later. This was in the mid 1960s.

I don't know the details of course structure, but indeed, today's OW course is less substantial than it used to be.

When are you talking about? The current PADI PW course has not lost any of the required standards that were in place when I was certified in the last millennium, and it added a number of new requirements several years ago. It is thus more substantial than it has been in my memory. Rob (Diver0001) was certified before I was, and he said it has lost nothing since those days.

A lot of people point to the time it took to take a course decades ago as a sign, but that is a false comparison. Decades ago students with no background would show up for a series of lectures about scuba diving, a very slow and inefficient mode of learning. It was then discovered that having students take the materials home and study on their own before class greatly improved their understanding and retention of that information. Then online learning came into play, and that further improved student understanding and retention. When comparing courses today and back in the day, people almost invariably talk about the length of the instruction. They include the lecture time in the old courses, and they exclude the at-home learning time in the new courses. They then make the specious claim that the difference in time indicates a difference in the amount of material being learned.

 

[Erich S]

We had people shut off our air and remove our masks so we had harassment drills in our Basic Scuba class.

 

[boulderjohn]

We had people shut off our air and remove our masks so we had harassment drills in our Basic Scuba class.

That was not a normal part of instruction--that was something done by individual instructors on their own. In this History of NAUI, Al Tillman (NAUI Instructor #1) talks about the 1960 Houston meeting of instructors from across the nation that led to the formation of NAUI. He said they were surprised to see some of the instructors doing that sort of thing. He says that they were of the opinion that it was more for the benefit of the instructor (they were having fun doing it) than the student. There are still instructors who still do this today, although it is pretty rare.

 

[RyanT]

Perhaps it was my instructor then (circa 1985) versus what I've seen in some courses these days. When I got certified, we did two solid weeks of pool work and conducted a real CESA instead of a mock one in a swimming pool. Also (and my memory could be wrong) the PADI OW manual was more substantial. I seem to recall detailed illustrations and explanations of pressure/volume relationships as well as some basic illustrations and descriptions of how regulators work. At least the regulator information is now in the Rescue manual. Also, the new manuals seem to be presented more like "sound bites" of information that rather than detailed descriptions. My 2 psi

 

[Erich S]

Oh ok, so you mean it's like the OW cert of today?

R..

Yes