AOW - Decisions, Decisions

[lottie]

Ok .. my view may not be what you want to hear

Oh I'm sure I do want to hear it (but you can't hear on here LOL).....

Forget the frilly 'adventure dives' ... underwater photography & Fish ID ... IMHO should not be a valid way to ADV (but let's not go there now)
You can look at fish on any dive, and once you are happy with your basic dive skills start taking pictures..... hey even use your pictures to teach yourself fish ID and avoid PADI fee !

That's a good point and one that I was thinking of when considering fish id and uw photog. After 9 dives I already know most of the fish, and can easily ask the DM/instructors if I don't know.

Do adventure dives that will improve your basic tool kit ...

That is at the fore-front of my mind and the reason why I'm being very indecisive and why I wanted to get other peoples opinions as well.

Deep Dive & Underwater Nav ... mandatory
Wreck, Night & Multi-level would be a good choice.

If my memory serves me correctly - multi-level might not be available at my LDS. But, wreck and night seem to be good ones to do, Plus I think I might feel more comfortable and confident with doing a wreck dive with an instructor to start off with.

Also think of which ones you would like to convert to a full speciality in the future - and then this would count as Dive one.

Yeah thats another thing I'll have to think about - if I did go the DM route, don't I need to do full speciality courses for that???