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**freedivernd** · 07-18-2002, 04:00 PM,

Can anyone tell me, not necessary to go into to much detail, but what is covered in AOW that is not covered in OW, if anything. Or does it get to be more a matter of seeing that you're o.k. and comfortable at a deeper depth. And am I to understand that night diving is an AOW practice or am I wrong... And... do you get arrested and put in jail if you do an AOW dive without an AOW certification.... I've never met a dive patrol. Not that I'm real interested in getting my AOW just yet.. but I have been thinking about it. I guess for now I would just rather be down that deep with just a breath of air than with all that equipment. I would think that breathing oxygen at -70' or so and having an equipment failure and a ton of stuff to unstrap and trying to make a rapid ascent would be a not to good scenario. 'Course, breaking a fin at that depth on a breath hold dive and having to scramble for the surface might not be that good of a scenario either. Both have there problems I guess huh? Fred Johnson

tbrown · 07-18-2002, 06:00 PM,

WARNING- Doing "Advanced Dives" without having an advanced card will get you arrested by the Scuba Police, you will be fined, and your gear taken. ;D Seriously though, I would never advacate someone doing dives outside of their skill level. And without going into this topic too much, what you learn in Advanced really depends on the instructor. It also depends alot on you and your experience. Could you buy a divelight and do a nightdive safley? Could you do a deep dive without taking the class? I think that is something only you can answer. I will say that when I took this class, I had several dives that were deeper than 60 ft, but I still learned some things from taking the Deep section of the class. The AOW has 5 specialties, Deep and Navigation required, Night sugested (by my instructor) and plenty of others to chose from. Some where just refining skills that I had learned in BOW, some where skills that I sucked at in BOW and finally got right, some were brand new, but all were informative and fun. Plus you can impress everyone with your cool new card Wink

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***jasondbaker*** · 07-18-2002, 07:38 PM,

The course usually includes basic search patterns , using a lift bag, and navigation. Those might be skills you haven't tried before. Take the course so that you can take rescue.

lrmoll · 07-22-2002, 07:15 AM,

I not to long ago did a night dive without advanced open water. I will probably not do it again until I have taken the advanced open water class where the instructor is focused on me and how I am doing. I kind of feel the same way about deep dives. The first few times I want an experienced instructor keeping an eye on reserve capacity in my tank and the possible effects of nitrogen narcosis etc.....

LKunze · 07-22-2002, 07:59 AM,

I am taking the AOW class next month even though I've already done most everything covered in the advanced class except for the Search and Recovery dives. I guess the main reason I am taking AOW is to get the certification card which will allow me to take Rescue if I so choose to in the future as well as having the cert that some charters may require. I think it really boils down to your comfort level in the water as far as doing night dives or diving below the 60ft OW cert standard but staying within the 130 ft. recreational limit of course. Just my opinion...I'm sure some instructors may disagree with me. Smile

**freedivernd** · 07-24-2002, 06:31 AM,

Getting an AOW in order to be one step closer to Rescue Diver sounds like that would be my main reason. I hope to get my wife certified this winter somewhere down south and maybe at the same time I'll look into AOW more seriously. For now, I'm just so hooked on freediving... evertime I gear up for scuba I find I really miss the freedom of movement I have while freediving. I'm comfortable enough in the water while scuba diving.. that's not an issue, I'm just "more" comfortable without the equipment. I gather from the answers that night diving is an AOW practice. I have freedove plenty at night and one time I scuba'd at -50' where the only thing I could see was my compass when I put it in front of my face. Not that freediving and scuba are near the same, other than you are under the water, the sensation of heading for the bottom in -60' of water with nothing visible but the green water until you are feet from the bottom has to be about the same, whether you have tanks or not. 'Course, while freediving like that your going down head first at a rate over 2' a second. I think my last -60' dive was only 45 seconds with about 6 seconds on the bottom and a bit of a horizontal swim halfway down. I think I'd be pretty comfortable doing a night scuba dive, even with just the few scuba dives I have done... worst thing for me is imagining some huge fish or monster coming out of the blackness and into my light beam only to show it's teeth before it chomps. Usually it just turns out to be a sunfish.... Fred Johnson

LKunze · 07-24-2002, 07:45 AM,

I thought swimming between trees at Crosby at night was awesome. A total rush, I loved it. Smile

I've only done a couple night dives myself, I was a little freaked on my first one but the second one was real fun. It helps to know your surroundings a little too. My first dive at Crosby was also my first night dive, so finding a tree in front of me at 50ft and then following the trunk up with my light and seeing tree branches over my head was pretty intense.