Training too fast?

[currier]

Wow, this thread has received a great deal of attention, and members have contributed incredible advice!
:vintagediver:

Just my two cents -

My buddy and I completed OW & AOW back-to-back over the span of two months. This gave us more than enough time to go through the course material, complete knowledge reviews at our leisure, and space out adventure dives over a few weekends as well.

The real reason we jumped right into AOW was because we wanted to dive ... at first we had NO CLUE how to find other divers in our region, and we liked our instructor's professionalism and general attitude. The additional learning we just took as a bonus to the fun that we were having!

 

[TMHeimer]

Jim L, I agree about the lack of at least basic rescue skills in OW. On a recent thread many have disagreed, citing time involved, "what are the chances of this or that happening", etc.

Dustyb, As pointed out, regardless of courses you take, just keep diving. I try to dive weekly, or bi-weekly depending on time of year, where I am, etc. Without regular diving even the most experienced diver will probably have to think a bit more about what he/she is doing. The less experienced the diver the more this is true.

 

[windapp]

I did my AOW the weekend after my OW for a couple of reasons.
1. My instructor was really good, and it was my last chance to learn from him before going home from my business trip.
2. I got to do really cool dives that I wouldn't have otherwise have been able to do with just my OW certification.

I did two dives on wrecks. One was a modern wreck, and the other was a WWII wreck. One was at 24m, and the other 28. In this way, I got two deep dives. I also did a drift which was really really fun.

Learning to do a night dive would be pretty cool as well.

If you are good with your buoyancy and skills (which you probably are if you passed PPB), you will get a lot out of AOW. As far as the additional depth limits go, it is convenient for when you want to go on certain dives with dive operators who need you to have AOW, but you still need to be very smart about your own personal depth limits. For example, I will go to 30 m (100 ft) on a divemaster lead dive where I have been fully briefed on what to expect during the dive, and on the procedures that are used for that particular operation. I would probably not attempt to do the same dive on my own. I would also not exceed 18 m in cold water (less that 50 degrees) because I don't have enough experience to be comfortable with that.

I don't know how your breathing is, but if it could use improvement, extract all you can out of your instructor on the topic.