Browsing Tag certification
What should I focus on now that I’m certified as a diver?
Congratulations on being a diver and joining the club as an adventurer!
After getting certified as an Open Water diver, the choice of courses, trips, and equipment seems endless.
What’s the next adventure you should embark on? And what should you spend on to maximize your enjoyment?
More diving?
Getting more diving done is always a good choice.
Your enthusiasm for diving is still running high, and there are so many places to go and things to see.
There are a lot of different types of diving out there, like strong drift dives, altitude diving, muck diving, liveaboard diving, underwater photography, etc.
Divers preparing for a boat dive
Gaining experience in all of these different diving environments is necessary to make a well-rounded diver.
However, with heavy travel expenses, and expensive resorts and boats, perhaps being more equipped would help with your overall experience?
More equipment?
What about buying new dive equipment for your next adventure? Would that be a wise way to spend your resources?
I think personal dive equipment is important when the fit is a primary concern like wetsuits, booties, and masks.
These can be purchased early on, as long as you find something that is suitable for where you plan to dive.
These items are not very expensive, and with a good fit, they will ensure you remain comfortable on your trip.
However, with bigger items where the function is more important, like BCDs, regs, and fins, buyers should really understand how they dive before taking the plunge and spending.
Different brands and models are designed for specific purposes and dive techniques.
If you’re not informed, it’s easy to make a bad purchase on equipment that will either not grow and scale with your diving, or will not last long with regular use.
The second-hand market for dive gear is huge, and most of the time, people are selling old gear to upgrade to better gear that will better serve how they dive.
In the interest of not creating any more waste than we need to, I believe that being better informed about dive gear will allow divers to make a purchase once with good gear that will last you your entire diving life.
More courses?
What about spending on taking more courses and increasing your dive knowledge?
Certain courses will teach you to be more comfortable in the water, and increase your dive skills.
I believe strongly that improving this has a positive effect on all your future dives.
Once you are truly comfortable and can manage your position in the water well, then all dives you do will be more enjoyable dives.
Less fear, less confusion about what to do, and ultimately, more enjoyment!
I firmly believe that getting to this point in your diving is the first thing you should invest in, as this has the biggest benefits to your diving.
Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
I do think that gaining more knowledge through courses and experiences make one a better diver.
It also provides a path to understanding yourself and dive gear better too, leading to better and more informed choices about the kinds of gear that you want.
Make an investment in yourself today!
The two diving skill sets every passionate diver should consider
This post about skill sets is for serious divers who are truly passionate about diving all that this world has to offer, every ocean, every lake, every river. If that’s not you, then read no further!
The world is your oyster!
To me, any body of water is diveable given the right skills and logistics, it’s just a matter of whether it’s worth your time or curiosity.
My endless curiosity has always made me wonder what’s just a little deeper, just around the corner, underneath the surface.
Over time, I’ve built up a set of skills that I think truly allows me to look at any body of water on earth and think seriously about diving it.
All the time in the world
The first limitation in diving is one of time.
No decompression time limits and gas volumes limit most divers to about an hour on each recreational dive.
However, with technical diving, these limitations are made irrelevant with the appropriate logistics and skills.
In a technical diving course, you’ll learn how to manage different gas mixes, allowing for deeper dives and extensions of bottom time.
You would also learn how to calculate the decompression time and gas necessary to accomplish this.
Once you have the ability to dive with multiple tanks, then gas volumes also become irrelevant.
It just comes down to how many tanks you can carry or stage during your dive. It becomes a question of logistics.
Technical diving isn’t only about depth, but rather about decompression.
This can be calculated for a 2-hour dive at 25m, or a 1-hour dive at 75m.
Either way, doing a technical diving course allows you to go past recreational depths and time limits, whilst ensuring that you have the knowledge to plan enough bottom gas and deco gas to complete the dive.
It’s only cold in space
After getting technical diving skills, the next limitation most people face is the temperature.
Extended duration dives tend to suck the warmth from you, even in 28C water.
Warm water diving is actually limited to only a few degrees of latitude north and south of the Equator, and only tens of meters below the surface.
Once past the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, and you’re definitely in cold water country.
This leaves large areas of water that you’ll definitely need a drysuit to dive in.
Why limit yourself to Earth’s wonders that are only in warmer locales?
What about diving between continental plates in Iceland, or the wrecks of the North Sea?
So, the next most important skill set is learning how to dive with a drysuit.
This does take some time to get used to, as managing thick undergarments is no walk in the park.
But once you do, then all the wonders of the northern and southern latitudes will open themselves up to you, as well as longer dives in warmer waters.
Get wet anywhere!
With these two skillsets, I truly believe it enables divers to dive anywhere in the world you might want to.
Overcoming depth, time and temperature limits are not easy and will take some time to accomplish.
But just imagine knowing you can dive anywhere in the world. What a rush!
Bonus skill – getting in over your head
As a bonus, here’s the third set of skills that I think a true explorer should learn – cave diving, the last frontier.
I personally learned cave diving not because of the caves, but rather for the skills and knowledge of how to do dives in overhead environments.
These skills come in very handy when diving in wrecks, sea caves, or any kind of environment where you don’t have a direct ascent to the surface.
The true skill here is in learning how to better plan and manage your gas supply to guarantee that you and your teammates can safely ascend to the surface.
Another important skill set that cave diving teaches you is line management.
This is very useful in any survey or mapping exercise and keeps you on your toes as far as navigation is concerned.
Now, get out there and dive!
And there you have it, my three picks for the skill sets that you should consider to be a limitless diver!
Should I set up my own gear or trust the resort to do it for me?
Sadly, the current state of the South East Asian dive industry has devolved into operators who pander to their divers every need. Setting up equipment before the dives, changing tanks between dives, and even putting on fins for their customers.
Some divers have come to expect this level of ‘service’ and being spoilt with this lazy way of diving, have forgotten completely how to set their gear up themselves.
I am personally against this, and will not allow it in the operations that we have. It’s not that we can’t do it, but a matter of principle.
Who’s really responsible for your safety?
If divers can’t take personal responsibility for their own safety, then who is really at fault when an incident occurs?
The scuba equipment that we use is critical to keeping us alive underwater. If we don’t even understand how it works, then if and when something does happen underwater, does that diver know how to react and how to deal with that situation?
Should we be faulting the operations at which these incidents occur?
Or should we be faulting their Open Water instructors for not training these divers well?
Or is it the diver, who gets complacent and fails to check their equipment prior to getting in the water?
The practice of signing liability forms and waiver forms before any dive doesn’t negate the responsibility that operators have in keeping divers safe.
However, when we continue to produce divers who can’t even remember how to set up their gear, who is really at fault?
Blame, blame, everywhere blame
This is a chicken and egg situation, and I’m afraid passing the blame from one party to another is not going to change anything.
Ultimately, individual divers should and must have responsibility for their own safety.
Dive operators are there to provide the logistics for diving, and to provide a safety briefing of the common local conditions found at that location.
Divers should take primary responsibility for their own safety, and not rely entirely on a dive guide or Divemaster.
If a dive is risky, or uncertain, divers should not be afraid to speak up and ask questions, rather than just trust that everything is under control and follow blindly.
It’s not just about setting up equipment, is it?
I know this question is about equipment setup, and maybe some people will think that it’s not a big deal, but to be honest, I think it’s not just about equipment setup. This leads to other skills and knowledge that most divers take for granted.
Personally, I do think that this is symptomatic of a larger problem in the diving industry.
As individual divers, always look to get better training, even if you think you already have the relevant certification, as no two dives are ever the same.
We never know what Mother Nature is ready to serve up to us, so all we can do is to be as prepared as we can be.
How is the GUE Fundamentals course different from the PADI Advanced course?
The difference between the Fundamentals course and the Advanced course is really about the curriculum and comprehensiveness of the courses.
The Advanced course offers the new diver a chance to experience 5 other types of diving environments and covers those in a relatively quick format.
The Fundamentals course instead focuses on an individual and team’s dive skills, in order to manage these new environments effectively.
Diving and Driving, an analogy that keeps on going
The Open Water course is like the basic driving course that everybody does in order to get a driving license. It covers basic techniques, such as accelerating smoothly (propulsion kicks), parking (hovering), braking (ascending smoothly to the surface) and signaling (communication).
The Advanced course would be like getting experience driving on real roads, in real conditions. For example, driving at night (night dives), at high speed on expressways (drift dives), tight car parking spaces (peak performance buoyancy), and trying to navigate while driving in another country (navigation dives).
The Fundamentals course would be more like a defensive driving course, where you’d learn how to minimize your risk (awareness and teamwork), perform pre-trip inspections (gas management, dive planning, decompression management), and handling skids, accidents, and hazards (emergency drills).
Investing in yourself is never a bad decision
While the Fundamentals course and the PADI OW and AOW are different in terms of how they approach diver training, both are absolutely necessary for any serious diver’s training log.
Only after the basics are learned, can a higher level of skill be developed.
Personally, I would always recommend investing in yourself by taking the Fundamentals course, as it takes a more detailed and focused instruction in order to attain a higher level of skill.
I do believe that both types of courses serve their purpose well, but if you truly want to be a serious diver, then the Fundamentals course is the best place to get started.
GUE vs PADI: What’s the difference?
GUE and PADI are two different organizations, right? Whose certification is more recognized internationally? Which is better?
At Living Seas, we’re often asked these questions when newcomers dive with us.
Yes, GUE and PADI are two different organizations that are unrelated to each other. GUE stands for Global Underwater Explorers, and PADI stands for Professional Association of Diving Instructors.
As a certification body, PADI is more well known internationally because it has been around for a longer time. It also spends a lot on marketing. GUE is a non-profit organization with the primary goals of advancing aquatic education, conservation and exploration. That being said, GUE is widely recognized as being the best in the industry because of its emphasis on quality control and stringent standards. Increasingly more people are beginning to know about GUE, too.
The PADI certification will allow you to dive around the world (within the limits of what you’re certified for, of course). You could think of PADI as a key that grants you access to the underwater world.
Once you walk (or more literally, swim) through that door, your dive education should continue. Going through a GUE course, in my opinion, is more about the skills and the knowledge that you acquire in the process. The certification that comes with it is secondary.
That’s why Living Seas offers both PADI and GUE courses. We believe in being qualified for the diving that we do, beyond being certified to do those dives. (If you’re curious about our diving philosophy, read our earlier reflections on what it means to be an “advanced” diver and the fundamental skills all divers should have.)
For those who believe in challenging themselves to dive better, I urge you to think in terms of qualification instead of certification. Forget chasing certificates, and instead focus on being more competent and comfortable at the dives you want to do!
True competency isn’t measured by the number of certificates you have or the equipment you own. It’s gained through time spent in the water, practicing and improving.