So you’ve become a PADI Open Water Diver. What’s next? Well, a few choices, but the most popular by far is to go on to the Advanced Open Water qualification. The main thing to decide, however, is when to do it.
There are a few options. I’ve taught Advanced Open Water to people fresh from their Open Water, and also to some with over 200 dives under their belt.
My feeling is that the optimum time to complete AOW is after you have done around 10 fun dives after Open Water certification, and ideally within a few months. Why is this? I think it offers the best combination to allow a diver to get the most out of the AOW course.
One good example relates to the Underwater Navigation mandatory dive. Navigation is something that a lot of students find tricky on the OW course, and the AOW navigation is rather more complex. If you do the AOW navigation dive before you have a good grasp of your buoyancy, you will spend the majority of your time working on that, rather than developing and retaining the navigation skills you learn.
There are certainly arguments for doing AOW immediately following the OW course. Some even suggest that the two courses should effectively be combined to make a “super” Open Water certification. There is a lot of merit to this argument. The issue comes with time and cost. It would mean the OW course lasts at least another two days, and the cost would nearly double. A hybrid of this might be that you get the diving equivalent of a learner/provisional driving licence after the OW course, and don’t receive the full OW until completing the Advanced portion. This has a lot of merit, and would allow people to develop at their own rate.
The reason I like this approach so much is because there is a lot of value of just going out and diving, without worrying about training standards or exercises. You can just have fun, enjoying the sport we love, but in a very controlled environment, accompanied by a PADI Pro.
So what about doing AOW after hundreds of dives, as above? Well, initially it would seem relatively pointless. Quite frankly, it would be very rare (at least in Hong Kong) to find a diver with 200+ dives who hasn’t already been deeper than 18m (one of the main reasons for doing AOW is to get the 30m depth certification). But, when this situation has occurred, I’ve found that there are some very valuable things to be learnt, including a lot of the theory behind why we do certain things when planning to dive to 18m and deeper. Many divers simply follow guides, therefore learning the enhanced navigation skills can greatly add to a diver’s skills.
When did you do your AOW? Are you thinking of doing it soon? What is your approach? Let me know in the comments below.