I am going to agree that doing AOW on a vacation is not a problem, especially if you can do the academic part ahead of time. You are doing dives you would have been doing anyway, and you may well be doing them in a better location.
Here is Colorado, AOW is a problem because the few normal dive sites we have do not include anything deep enough for the deep dive. The sites used also have very poor visibility, which effectively eliminates some of the dive choices, like photography and fish ID (unless you count seeing scads of crawdads). It is extremely common for people to do AOW on vacation. I was one of them. I did mine in Cozumel, and I think it was a very good experience for me.
People laugh at Fish ID as a choice, but I thought it was great. Studies show that being able to attach a name to what you are seeing has a great impact on your ability to understand and remember what you are seeing.
Here is Colorado, AOW is a problem because the few normal dive sites we have do not include anything deep enough for the deep dive. The sites used also have very poor visibility, which effectively eliminates some of the dive choices, like photography and fish ID (unless you count seeing scads of crawdads). It is extremely common for people to do AOW on vacation. I was one of them. I did mine in Cozumel, and I think it was a very good experience for me.
People laugh at Fish ID as a choice, but I thought it was great. Studies show that being able to attach a name to what you are seeing has a great impact on your ability to understand and remember what you are seeing.
