All good points - my favorite is the honesty part. If a diver slides on the truth just once, the other divers will eventually find out and view that diver through lens of suspicion. My one piece of advice to new divers is to keep that regulator your face no matter what! I was with a dive group a year ago when one diver had a problem, panicked and spit the mouthpiece out. Fortunately someone was near the diver, provide rescue efforts and get to the surface. I tell new divers, (only two years of diving myself but 66 years of life in my back pocket), that I don’t care if a manatee is trying to give you wet sloppy kisses or if you suffer a panic attack deep down in the water column, “You bite down on that mouthpiece and keep it in your face! Someone will come help.”
One extra tip: Test out your octo second stage occasionally. I like to do it at a safety stop...make sure it works, breathes okay, comes loose from its holder etc. Too many people never test out their safety gear...
On my Open Water Referral, first exercise - kit assembly, having just test breath the regulator: Instructor: "Now not everyone bother to test their octo" Me presses the octo purge button * Loud noise, octo freeflow * Yeah, I think I'm going to be one of those that tests the octo every time. 😄
@Katie Chan Part of buddy checks as I was taught them is (a) reg in your mouth, (b) gauge in left hand, and (c) right hand on the octo. Breathe in, watch gauge, and press purge simultaneously... while keeping one eye on your buddy to make sure they did all 3 too. So I'm right there with you. That said, don't forget to actually pull a breath from it, not just purge it. You might discover it needs maintenance that way, I believe.
Very sound advice. I’ve only had to do a real buddy assisted ascent once (a free flow at about 20m) and my buddy’s octopus mouthpiece was perished - got air but it was quite unpleasant especially when stressed.
I know this video is 3 years old however I am a brand new scuba diver about to complete my final Open water all of your videos have been extremely helpful in everything that I have done from class work to scuba excursions in different countries I really enjoy your videos
One of my top tips is actually to do with what you do when you are not actually in the water, and that is "organise your storage / carry bags". No matter if you are diving from a boat, or from the shore (potentially out of a car boot!) then having just the right kit, when you need it, without loosing it (especially amongst other divers gear) really makes the difference between a enjoyable, stress free dive and one that could be more stressful. I tend to compartmentalise things into strong waterproof zip lock bags, and then store all those subbags into one or two waterproof day bags. In this way, you know where everything is, and stuff you leave behind (esp on a boat) will not get lost (fall into the bilges....) or wet, or damaged. I typically use a caribiner or spare bolt snap to actually clip my waterproof bag to some part of the boat,like a hand rail, or rope or something (make sure the operators aren't going to need the thing you clip too, so don't clip to a lifeboat/lifering or anchor line etc!!!). When you hall youself out of the water, dripping wet (and probably a bit cold if in the UK), you can access everything you need, from where you left it, straight away! The smaller the boat and the larger the number of other divers diving with you, the more important this becomes..........
I'm always learning new ways to dive better and safer. I never thought about looking over things to identify the dive boat. I've never had a problem over my dive career, but I'll add that to my check list now. Good suggestion.
Insurance-wise, I just recommend straight up DAN dive insurance. They're the absolute best to deal with in case of an accident. Calling DAN will generally give you all the most relevant information for your area.
Thinking about SAC rates, one thing I've found recently, since using Subsurface software is that having an air integrated computer gives you a ton of info about your consumption that is really useful in improving your gas management skills, and really is a window into how I dive that I hadn't seen before. I was kind of heartened to see that my SAC rate isn't that bad, and also has improved quite a bit since I first returned to diving. Nice :)
I’ve just watched three different channels and seen you on all of them . If you can get on to divers ready, you will complete all four of my diving subscriptions!
Started diving in 1977, been an instructor, dive master, and support for frightened first-time divers. So may I politely suggest using the term air instead of gas when addressing points for beginners.
Great information. Myself and most divers I know are nomadic. Just live out of a backpack. I don't have room even for a dive computer.. It would be great to talk about gear with just renting. The overwhelming dives I have been on, has been with everyone having rented gear. I'm going on a liveaboard soon to Egypt so my perspective may change
Love both videos. Thank you! Could you please add more tips for cold water diving and shore diving. You videos did have some and they are much appreciated. Also, how exactly do I prepare my mask before dives? Thanks again!
The mental part is to me really important. Usually all the folks on the boat have been to that place a bunch of times and can just plop in. I have driven 14 hours then had to get up super early to go to a spot I have never been before. I know some folks will say "suck it up" but I am still getting to that point. Standing over the stern of a boat with 80 pounds of gear on your back and over 100 ft. of water always gets the pulse going.
I wish I could get a few minutes to get in the zone before getting into the water. Usually with a group it’s suit up jump in go here go there get out ….repeat
@@ScubaDiverMagazine The best thing is that you are delivering a real diver experience and that’s way better beyond the reference books and guidelines! 👌🏽
I thought they were all good except the PADI dive center/resort rating with is not accurate there is no 2, 3 or 4 * PADI dive resort only PADI dive center or 5 * dive resort as far I know and basically you pay to receive those ratings.
I believe you should benefit financially from your content but I have 13 ads in this video, I think that’s excessive. Maybe you could test on audience retention showing ads up front only versus every few minutes during.
The 5* rating is completely meaningless. Sorry. The only tip that I would disagree on (because to be PADI 5* you basically just have an exclusive contract with Padi - nothing more).
For tip 3, as a diver, you shouldn't touch anything. Not because it may hurt you, but most importantly because you're more than likely to hurt marine life (or worst case irreparably damage it)
By the way: the abundance of commercials would be less annoying if they didn’t always start in the middle of a sentence. I watched until the end, though. Lots of good advice.
Realistically what caliber of BCD would you recommend for a first bcd. Being an average recreational diver? With all the options out there it is really hard deciding. And of course the dive shop wants to sell me the best scuba pro package there is. 😅😅
Another top tip, if going on a dive trip with friends / buddies, is to try to split up your "spares" between people. In a group of say 4 divers doing a week on a liveaboard, you don't each need a spare regulator, but one spare between four of you, might just save one persons dive! Lots of divers have older kit that gets relegated to their spares box, and this kit, could certainly come in usefull. Whilst not perhaps being a shiny and up-to-date as your regular £600 second stage, that old one, the one that saw 5 years of trouble free service before you got reg envy and replaced it with the "latest thing", that old reg makes a perfect spare!
As mentioned, your insurance may not cover an accident if you exceeded your formal training. Even though you may have several dives with experienced people.
I just got my OWD certification. One of the training dives I got a nose bleed and equalizing was difficult. Any advice? Should I give up or is this just growing pains for some?
It could be a range of things that are making it hard to equalise. The best advice is that you should never need to force an equalise. Trying to equalise harder will only hurt yourself. One trick to equalising is to start equalising early, I start on the car journey to loosen the tissues in my throat. If you dive too deep you can reach a depth where even if you equalise perfectly, the pressure around you will prevent your ears from equalising. So early and often with equalising. If they don't equalise then shallow up and try again. There are also different equialsing techniques to try. If you were only taught to pinch your nose and blow, there are other techniques that you can try that might work better. There are plenty of videos online to explain them if you search for equalsing techniques.
I spent over 8 hours using toothpaste on my atomic venom mask. It still is susceptible to heavy condensation. Any tips? Thanks for sharing this great content! Safe diving!
