liveaboard for the OW course?

[chocoloca]

All the replies are big big help. Good thing I did bother going to this forum, otherwise I'd probably be doing a liveaboard for the OW. I'll look around if I can do the theory and pool sections here instead then do a referral course in Thailand. That should give me more time to do ''fun'' dives.

I'm pretty much excited about this already, but work related crap might not approve my annual leave request. Fingers and toes crossed!

 

[aquamarin]

From my own experience of teaching ow on a live-aboard:

If the student is a quick learner and comfortable in the water and doesn't have any ear problems and conditions are benign.....it's no problem to conduct the ow course on the boat.

The hurdles I have experienced are:
- students not able to or not willing to focus on studying while in such beautiful surroundings
- students not having done a discover scuba diving first, realize on day 1 that they don't actually like diving
- students having ear problems, cold, sinusitis etc which means they can't dive
- choppy seas and surge which prevent us from doing the confined water sessions from the beaches
- nervous beginners, who would be fine in the pool, give up because of the conditions

I'd do a land-based course and then go on the live-aboard as fun diver. Too many things can "go wrong" if you do the course on the live-aboard. I'd make sure to ask questions about the instructor's experience and size of the group though

Enjoy Thailand
Karin