As a new diver, you are going to hear and read various opinions about which agency is better, which you should avoid, or even a comment that you are not a “real diver” if you get certified by XYZ agency. There are people that have dedicated all their free time (which they apparently have way too much of!) to bad mouthing one or more of the certification agencies, via websites or forums.

First let me tell you that there are more agencies out there than you can imagine. Here is a list of ONLY the biggest names:

PADI
NAUI
SSI
YMCA
PSAI
MDEA
IANTD
SDI
TDI
IDEA
BSAC
ESA
GUE
NACD
PDIC
SAA
SSAC
HAS
ANDI

There is no law that mandates an instructor be affiliated with a certain agency, but I can’t imagine any instructor teaching in the US without an affiliation with at least one agency. Outside the US is a different story.

Historically in our sport people associated with one agency whose members, for whatever reason, have had a falling out over a difference of opinion or philosophy within the membership, have moved on to create a new agency. Many of these “offshoot” agencies didn’t last very long, but a number of them did, so it’s very easy to understand why one agency may not necessarily be friendly with the other since their founders have a long-standing feud with the original group. This is not the case with all the agencies, but this kind of animosity does exist. You will also find individuals (instructors) who have left an agency and will spend a considerable amount of time telling their students how bad that particular agency is.

In my opinion there are no bad agencies, especially at the entry level. They all follow the RSTC’s (Recreational SCUBA Training Council) minimum course content guidelines. All agencies are going to teach you how to clear your mask, recover your regulator, control your buoyancy, etc. Some agencies are more appealing to the mainstream, mass market, while others are more boutique-like, with a narrow appeal. Some have been very successful and others not, but that doesn’t make one better than the other.

In a nutshell, the problem isn’t bad agencies, but bad instructors and the SCUBA shops that employ them. Some instructors are so new at the sport that they shouldn’t be teaching yet, while others have spent so many years in the field that they just don’t care anymore. I have always beleived that the responsibility falls on the consumer to find the right instructor and course, and not worry so much about the agency they will be certified through.

Let me tell you about a personal experience. A couple of years ago, I was working at a dive center answering questions from a father who wanted his 13 year old child certified. The most important (ONLY important) factor to him was the price. He could have cared less about what he was getting for his investment, or what the overall quality of a cheaper product might be. Should he have a right to complain about the agency when he opted to save a few bucks without realizing what he was giving up in the process and ended up with a bad experience? Whose fault was it that his discount course with one instructor and twenty students wasn’t what he expected? Unfortunately, most people take the route of blaming someone else for their uninformed mistakes rather than accept personal responsibility…and SCUBA Agencies suffer the brunt of this abuse.

The bottom line is simple, look for the course and instructor that fits you. Find an instructor that will listen to you and be interested in why you are taking the course.
Please don’t base your decision on the price! In the SCUBA store, ask questions, check out the rental department (even if you are not renting), ask to see the compressor room, and check training certificates. Don’t just assume that a dive shop employee is an instructor, many are not, but to a new diver they may appear to be more knowledgable than they really are. If you find hesitation when asking any of your questions, or discover old, outdated gear and/or facilities, please find a different dive center.

It’s funny, but people seem to do more way more reasearch, and even get references, for a contractor who may simply be installing a light bulb in our home, than we do for someone who is going to take you and/or your loved ones underwater. Is it just me, or do you think that’s a little silly?

So in conclusion, what do I think is the good, the bad, and the evil surrounding the topic of SCUBA Agencies?

Good = ALL SCUBA Agencies.
Bad= Instructors and shops who don’t care about their product.
Evil = Anyone who doesn’t take personal responsibility for making the wrong choice in their SCUBA training and blames others for their mistake!

Over the years I have cautioned my students about trusting others for their safety.  This is a difficult issue because folks want to move forward and do more advanced dives, but how do you do this without going out of your comfort zone?

Traditionally the sport  has promoted SCUBA mentors, or diving with a more experienced buddy. The mistake that most new divers make is not asking questions, and not making a clear dive plan that factors in all the “what ifs?”.

The trust me dive is not just limited to extending your comfort zone, but also to believe/trust other, more experienced divers when they tell you that you don’t need a particular piece of equipment. As you grow with the sport, you will find that many divers start cutting corners as they get more and more comfortable. Make no mistake, these are the most dangerous dive buddies you can have! Just because nothing has ever happened to them, they assume that they can throw all rules of safety out.

Here is a scenario that I have seen way too often:

Someone has just started diving after their open water class. They know they have a depth limit, but their friend tells them not to worry…there are no “SCUBA Police”.  Blindly they get ready and follow their friend, with NO dive plan in place.

The newly certified diver is using rental equipment so the first thing that happens is that they can’t get down. No problem because their friend will help by pulling them down. Now they start noticing that they are getting deeper and deeper, almost to 100 feet, and they are wondering why such a big deal was made about this depth. They start to relax. Soon something gets their attention and they stop to check it out. As soon as they stop, they start rising up. They are able to adjust and only end up rising 10 or 15 feet. Now they look around and their friend is gone. The logical thought would be to go back down to the last place they were, back to 100 feet, but there is another problem. Their cylinder is almost empty and they have become buoyant. There is no way to stay at the bottom. They know a runaway ascent is bad, but they can’t stop it. Once at the surface they are so far away from the beach that they can’t see which way to get back.

Does this sound like a fun dive? I don’t think so!

I am not saying you shouldn’t dive with your friends, this sport is so much fun because you can share it with others. But you should always ask questions, not just assume that everything will be OK because you are diving with an experienced diver. Please note, this also applies to divemasters and instructors. Just because you are diving with an instructor you shouldn’t forget all the rules of safety. Make sure YOU are totally confortable with the dive plan.

If you want to go see the cool thing that everyone talks about at 100 feet, do it the smart way — take the class and get certified for that depth. Be a smart shopper, research you instructor and the class you are interested in taking, and you will have fun going to your next level.

Happy Diving!

FYI: A bailout bottle is also known as a “pony tank”.

When I first moved to Washington, I was happy to find that many of the local divers have and use a bailout bottle. What I found surprising was that most divers used a 19 ft3 cylinder. When I asked why, most couldn’t explain the reason they were using that size. And then there were the few who offered my favorite reason, “because this is what my buddy or instructor uses.”

Different people, different sizes, different air consumption — same size bailout bottle? When it comes to an emergency air supply, one size does NOT fit all!

When I worked in Florida the popular “bailout” was a 2.5 ft3 cylinder.  With a 2.5 ft3 cylinder you would be lucky to get two breaths at 100 feet, thus it was not really a true bailout.  Unfortunately, it was a cute set up and it came in many colors that you could match to your gear and it was also a profitable item for the shops, so it got promoted heavily.

The main point I am trying to make is that there isn’t a single piece of equipment that works for all divers with regard to a bailout bottle. We don’t all have the same air consumption and we don’t all dive to the same depth. So the questions you should be asking yourself are:

• What is my air consumption?
• What is the deepest dive I am certified to do?
• How much air will I need if I am out of air at the deepest point on my dive and facing a mandatory safety stop?

Another problem I have with pony tanks is when they aren’t a true bailout, divers never check the pressure! They always assume it will be full and leave the valve on the cylinder turned off during their dive, or end up using the cylinder to extend their bottom time.

To be a true bailout bottle it must contain the same gas as your primary cylinder, it should be full and checked before every dive, the valve should be always on, and (my personal preference) the bottle should easily remove from your gear (underwater) to hand off to other divers or be left behind in case of an emergency.

This is a time to be a smart shopper, so ask questions. Once you’re in the water the weight difference between an aluminum 19ft3 and a 30ft3 or 40ft3 is not enough to limit yourself to a smaller, less effective size. If you determine that you need a bigger bottle, get it, it could save your life!

Ahhh, the unloved and often misunderstood snorkel! I remember taking my open water class and hating my snorkel. It pulled my mask down, made the mask leak, and every time I tried to get ahold of my BC hose I would end up with a firm grasp on the snorkel instead.

Soooo, about five dives after I was certified (since I was now an expert! I decided that I didn’t need my snorkel anymore. It wasn’t long after that I found myself caught in a current, low on air, and facing a long surface swim. To make matters worse, the wind had picked up and I now had 2-3 foot seas to deal with! It was impossible to swim face down without the snorkel and every time I tried to lift my head to get a breath of air, a wave would go over my head.

Thankfully, in the midst of stupidity brought on by my over inflated sense of dive “experience”, I did two smart things:

1) I stayed calm;
2) I kept my mask in place.

Still, I did manage to swallow a few gallons of salt water. Now let me just tell you if you have never experienced this delectable liquid, it doesn’t like to stay in your stomach for very long   But I digress…

Turning onto my back, I was able to protect my mouth with my hand and get more air. Luckily, I was diving with an experienced boat crew and they were able to get a rescue line out to me and pull me to the boat. Needless to say, all of this still would have been a lot easier if I had my snorkel!

Years later, and after learning this valuable lesson, you will still not see me wearing my snorkel on my mask. WHAT?!, you say. Are you a gluten for punishment? Do you simply enjoy the added salt in your diet?

Think what you’d like and I’ll just grin and giggle. You see I DID get wiser as I got older, and more resourceful too. I now have SEVERAL snorkels that can easily be stored in my BC pocket, one of them actually bends in half, another collapses like a straw, and one rolls into a ball!

If you are at the point of frustration with your snorkel, it’s time to buy a new one. Do yourself a favor, stay away from the snorkel with all the bells and whistles (they are often heavier anyway and will really pull your mask down!) Buy the simplest one you can find; it will also be the cheapest.

It’s such small, simple piece of equipment, but the day you need it, you’ll be very glad you have it. :O)

Because technical diving is one of my passions I often get asked about what it is. I thought I would answer that here. While there are many ways to define technical diving, this description is my personal understanding and philosophy.

Let me start by saying that I have only been a tech diver since 1998, and don’t consider myself an expert. I have had the opportunity to dive with, and learn from, some of the biggest names in the sport, and I continue to learn every day.

Technical dives are classified as any dive outside the recreational no decompression limit, any dive deeper than 100 feet, dives with a physical ceiling (cave, wreck, ice) or mandatory decompression stop, and dives requiring multiple gases.

If you are diving at 60 feet for more than an hour, you are tech diving and should have the proper training and equipment. It is my belief that any dives to 100 feet or deeper should also be considered tech dives because of the limited time with no decompression, the significant increase of air consumption, and the increasing amount of impairment due to nitrogen narcosis (that is caused by the increase in pressure.)

Tech divers may also use different gases for different dive types. The gases used include:

Air
Oxygen
Helium
Nitrox
Trimix
Heliox
Heliair

Note that some of these gases are deep diving gases, but not all of them. For example: Nitrox may not be safely used past 130 feet and pure oxygen has a max depth of 20 feet. As you can see, tech diving is not necessarily deep diving.

Many divers get into tech diving to extend their bottom time and slowly move on to more advanced dives. It is possible to tech dive with very little modifications on your exisiting gear, but most divers prefer a whole new set of gear. A tech diver will have a redundant system for all the equipment, such as two regulators connected to two cylinders that may or may not be connected to each other, two buoyancy compensators, back up lights, cutting devices, etc.

We still believe in the buddy system, however, a tech diver should be prepared and be able to handle any emergency with little assistance.

If you are starting to become curious about ship wrecks or are increasingly pushing your computer to the max no decompression limit, you are the perfect candidate for tech training. Tech training will make you an overall beter diver and and will give you a much better understanding of the sport.