Advanced open water?

[jj1987]

Does anyone have their advanced open water?

I've been looking at nitrox classes, and EVERYONE tries to get me to sign up for aow and nitrox at the same time. It's like $80 extra, and I can't fathom why I would ever need this class.

I'm doing intro to cave this summer, and hopefully rescue diver (I've heard good things about this course), and was thinking the money would be better spent towards those two classes, does anyone agree?

I'm willing to take it if I'll gain something from it, but if they're just going to take me to 80ft deep and say "congrads! here's your card!", I'll keep my money, and take AOW when I want to do one of Lloyds west palm trips that includes it.

[skip]

I can't imagine anyone doing cavern without advanced and nitrox first....let alone intro to cave. You best recheck your plans and maybe think about slowing down...take advanced and nitrox. then rescue. then maybe cavern summer of 09 after a bit of experience with open water nitrox adding more advanced dives than you've been doing, before attemtping cavern/intro to cave. no hurry, the caves will always be there.

-skip

[temrich]

I agree with Skip. You cant replace experience with a C-card. Get the advanced, then hit nitrox and spend the summer diving.

[jj1987]

I can't imagine anyone doing cavern without advanced and nitrox first....let alone intro to cave. You best recheck your plans and maybe think about slowing down...take advanced and nitrox. then rescue. then maybe cavern summer of 09 after a bit of experience with open water nitrox adding more advanced dives than you've been doing, before attemtping cavern/intro to cave. no hurry, the caves will always be there.

-skip

What exactly do you learn in advanced open water? Normally when I see a full cave diver around these parts, I think to myself "that's who you model your diving style after", yet when I see advanced open water, I think "who the hell doesn't know better than to drag their gauges and kick up silt?" I'm open to taking that class, but before spending money on it, I just want to know what I get for it. So far the default answer seems to be "It's a credit towards your dive master certification".

I'm not opposed to the idea of taking it, but I'd like to know what I gain, so I can spend the (limited) financial resources I have in the best way possible.

[battles2a5]

AOW can be good and at the absolute least you will get some dives in under the scrutiny of an instructor's eye. The class consists of 5 "speciality" dives. In it's current form I view it more as a marketing tool for PADI to get more people to buy full specialty classes or to go for the "Master Scuba Diver Challenge". BUT, there are some of the specialties that compliment OW training nicely. In my opinion, they are Deep, Night, and Nav (all required I believe), Peak Performance Bouyancy (elective but absolutely great w/ the right instructor). Wreck would also be a decent one because you will start to use a reel (earlier the better). Again, only 5 dives but you can take something away from it. More importantly it is required if you want to be a Rescue diver which should be required before any overhead training IMO. BTW way I am assuming this is PADI since it's an $80 add-on to Nitrox. Some other agencies, such as SSI and YMCA, have a more robust advanced course that is more deserving of the name.

[chimie007]

so I can spend the (limited) financial resources I have in the best way possible.

Then forget about cave for now and do your nitrox/AOW and dive for a few years. Perhaps a cavern class down the road. (didn't you post on TDS that you took that?). Tech or Cave diving is serious money commitment (many many thousands...).

Before you hit the cave/tech classes, you should have a slow constant progressions in OW to build experience. That means getting your AOW/nitrox and doing dives at that level.

It doesn't mean that you have to suck in OW. Good technique can be gained with an early tech/cave class like fundies, cavern or intro-to-tech. That would be the smart class to take later this year after your AOW/nitrox.

I personally think one should gain a few years of experience diving OW stuff before doing any cave/tech class other than the early ones I named. A lot of brand new diver wrongly think that just because they passed a fundies/cavern/etc course they are ready for real cave/tech classes... Being able to hold trim is nothing compared to real experience.

While one can be a fairly good diver from scratch, experience is only acquired by diving.

[defunct]

I could have swore that AOW was a requirement before even taking cavern....

It sounds as if you have taken cavern already, true?

[Mike Edmonston]

Well technically,

If you look at standards, OW allows you to dive to 60' following NDL tables. AOW limits your depth to 130', again following NDL's. The benefit of diving Nitrox has been established in numerous posts, so I won't get into it here.

Yes, you can dive deeper without a AOW card, nobody will stop you. But you will see that in Cave diving, there are certain limits placed upon the diver based on their training levels. If you are willing to violate depths at the OW / AOW level, then maybe you should think twice about overhead diving.

This is not a slam on you or your abilities.

[RN]

AOW is not a requirement for all cavern classes, just some. It is also a requirement for some Rescue courses.

I will agree with you jj, not all AOW courses are worth the card you get at the end of the course. But don't discount all of them because of the way a majority of them are. Some instructors will actually give you value in your course. For instance, I teach my AOW students about buoyancy and trim, proper gas management and dive planning, and proper buddy awareness and communication (not like most OW courses provide). But then again, I'm also a cave diver.

[jmaddox]

wow, pump the brakes here player. your first question might be better phrased "do any cave divers out there NOT have their AOW" anyone...

no disrespect. go for it, take lots of classes, but take enough time to digest the material in real-world situations before moving on to the next level. take your time. most importantly, have fun and dont bite off more than you can chew and get yourself killed. its unfortunately not that hard to do, but i hope you already know that. BTW, I was one of steves students. I got my first OW in '86, intro in '01 and my app in '07 full will be '08... just for your reference.


--jm