I'm assuming they mean which type of BCD you are using. A lot of them pretty much do the same thing. Out of all my diving equipment, my BCD is probably the least personal to me besides the bungie cords I have to streamline my stuff (I have a lot of stuff). But for most recreational divers, as long as it fits well it should be fine.
I meant what brand, style (vest or back plate) or even what size. It's the piece of equipment I least bring traveling with me as it's bulky and I don't really notice a difference between different BCDs. Obviously always dive with a recently serviced BCD you are comfortable with!
Well, yes PADI is responsible if you get an awful instructor, the question is how much. I would say as much as SSI and all the others, it's a difficult topic, but I would say they could have done more, maybe a new Instructor should have at least two different instructors who get him certified. I can imagine that 1 out of 10000 just get certified, without a real exam and correct training. two years ago, I went to a dive shop, back then I didn't had any fresh water dive, so I asked the guy at the store: " what do you think, how much lead would I need?" He said 12kg, he didn't even ask dry suit or wetsuit, 5mm or 7mm. And this guy is an instructor, so yes PADI and all the others could do more to get better instructors. But this isn't just PADI. An other experiance was in Spain, in 2021, I want to get my OWD SSI, when I finished, I asked them: "I would love to get nitrox, too" they just said: "you don't need nitrox" Okay?! I understand if they may were to busy to do another dive, but nitrox could be dine just by theory. So I chosen perfect bouancy, and the instructor teached me much more then this, he showed me how to turn, how to swim in a circle etc.
For the PADI instructor course, the course itself is run individually by dive shops and course directors. This usually is 2-3 weeks long. However, then an Instructor Exam is done (over the period of 2-3 days) that's an independently organized. So dive instructor candidates from a whole bunch of dive stores go there to do their exam. Since it's not their personal instructors testing them, it significantly decreased bias and has them tested by what they do on the day. I do think that after years and potentially not being active enough in teaching, it's possible instructors forget or become complacent. With the dive store, he may have been thinking you were renting their wetsuits which were a certain thickness and gave you the numbers for that? I dont know, just trying to find a reason why he wouldn't follow up with any other questions.
Hi Katt, because of your high knowledge of sharks, I would love to see a ranking of sharks. As I said once, I believe some are surely more dangerous the others, so if I would rank them I may would list them like: leave me alone, don't mess with me, careful/okay, best for beginers, hug me/ easy going, pet sharks Okay pet sharks is kind of joke, but to be honest, if you have killer sharks, the opposite are pet sharks. 😜
I already did a shark ranking here !! Haha (what sharks I wouldn't like to scuba dive with) th-cam.com/video/PipKcfmHpFg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zD7jU8b-EuFNj83x
Good lord, I'm hung up on the snob claim! You'd think, like practicing aikido or doing triathlons that there'd be a buddy system. Could it be skills insecurity and not yet being an emergency diver or having the confidence to lead a dive? I dunno. I know that a buddy system is vital.
Buddy system is vital, and unfortunately not everyone is lucky enough to have a built in buddy whether it's a friend or a partner. Maybe in those cases more experienced divers can come across as snobby to newbies if they don't want to dive with someone who's air would run out quickly?
I think the main reason divers will not dive with someone inexperienced is they expect thrit dive will be cut short because the new diver goes though air much quicker than them which I think is more down to selfishness than snobbishness. There is also a concern that many OW students are certified without prooving they are safe divers, they are concerned the new diver will keep going deeper because they can't get neutrally bouyant or not check there SPG and suddenly find themselves OOA and either make a grab for the buddies primary or bolt to the surface, if we exclude the option of OW standards being much more stringent the best solution to this is having the new diver dive with a DM but if that is not an option and the experienced divers refuse to dive woith the Newbies the new divers get paiered together greatly increasing the chances of something going bad. The one I do disagree with is what to do if one person runs out of air after 20 minutes, while it is not fair on the other divers safety must come first and while some of the time it may be possible to continue the dive for the rest often, in my experiance most of the time it is not. For example I have had 3 hoidays where it was all shore diving with a DM leading 3 or 4 clients. If someone runs low on air the options are i) Have the low on air diver use the DMs octopus, not a fan of this it is often difficult to swim in such a config and sharing air should be only to get to the surface as quickly and safely as possible, if the DM needs to deal with another issue you are really entering the incident pit. ii) Have the one low on air diver surface and swim to shore alone, not an option! iii) Have one buddy pair end the dive, a bummer for the buddy and if anything happened to them I suspect the DM would be held responsible iv) everyone ends the dive. Often to safely surface you need to deploy a DSMB people who run out of air in 20 minutes are VERY unlikely to be able to do this and the majority of clients on a guided dive wont know either. It is only on dives where it is relatively straight forward to swim to the mooring line and maybe go part way up as a group that is would be safe for the rest of the group to contine their dive. I would sat "I hate scuba" is fair enough, while I love scuba everyone is entitiled ot their opinion and I can not argue with the fact a the speaker hates scuba. Having said that getting out of the watre is the best option for them.
In my opinion the DM is not to blame for anything. On a guided dive the DM is only there to use his/her knowledge of the dive spot to show the others around like a tour guide. After all everyone in the group is a certified diver diving within their limits, so they all should be able to continue the dive and look around the area without their guide. In my opinion the best solution is to just talk about this situation beforehand and as long as there is at least 2 people who are willing to continue the dive without the guide, then you can just form a group with them and if a new diver runs out of air quickly its the guide who ends the dive with him/her as well as anyone else who isn't comfortable continuing without the guide. For the same reason gas sharing with the DM also is not a problem in my opinion as long as the diver with the high SAC rate is comfortable with it. If the DM is using a long hose its not even much of a hassle to be honest. Of course there are some edge cases like guided cave/mine dives where people are TEC certified but not cave certified and would be lost without some experienced guide. But I am assuming we are talking recreational open water dives here.
@@benjaminbeier4036 I am not a DM or a lawyer and it probably depends where you are but if someone is paying you to dive with them if anything happened the courts would look very carefully on your actions if anything went wrong. Would you be able to proove the victims were comfortable to dive without you? Also in many parts of the world it is illegal to dive without a DM or at least a dive centres insurance insists all their clients are accompanied by a dive professional (e.g. they wont rent equipment only do scorted dives). I think a lot of certified scuba divers can not safely dive without a professional or at least a very experienced buddy. It was true for me when I first qualified and I have witnessed divers only stopped from reckless actions in panic due to the quick actions of the DM. My unpopular diving opinion is the OW should either be made more stringent and longer or only allow diving with a dive professional (like PADI "scuba diver"). To get a truly "autonomous diver" certification you would need to prove skills such as being able to maintain constant depth and knowing how much air you have (reasonably accurately) at any time.
@@carlmeade1667in many cases I have seen when someone runs out of air. The group stays together, the DM or dive guide surfaces them to the surface while holding an smb, has a tender pick them up, then descends down to continue diving with the remainder of the group. Given that all divers are certified, I don't really see anything wrong with that scenario. However it always gets tricky.
90% of music on dive videos suck, they typically don't match the energy of the video and overpower the natural sound track. That being said when carefully select and make it more background it works. But I concur about cave videos, except mine of course, most of them suck. They often have obnoxious music, poorly lit, and poorly shot (often either POV solo or the southern end of a northbound dive buddy). That being said I view a lot of them, mostly muted scanning to scout a new area of the cave ahead of a dive.
Yeah, I don't know why I'm a muted video watcher. Especially diving. You're right so often people don't match the vibe and it's some heavy electronic music over serene fish vibes. Where are your favorite caves to dive? What's your process for selecting a new cave dive? It's such a world beyond what I know, I find it fascinating!
@@OceanPancake I'm often muted when I want to listen to a podcast and am just viewing to scout the area. I'm a big fan of @stevebogaerts videos. Been working to match his vibe. As far as what cave to dive. Really depends om the mood and who I am diving with. Like this week I just wanted to get into the water since my next opportunity will be like 3-4 weeks between the holidays and family stuff. So I went my normal spot and just screwed around for two hours, going for a scooter ride around and testing doing exits on my back up lights as I like to switch/recharge the batteries at the end of the year. Being local things are a lot more laid back, I can go to an area I've been to a dozen times and just float around poking my head into various holes to see what is there. Compared to when my friends from out of the area come and want to get the most of their trip. My favorite cave dive was in a cave in Mexico Tajma Ha on a line called Chinese Gardens. It was just a wide variety of cave environments. From fairly normal rooms, to swiss cheese limestone indicative of the ancient reef it was made out of, to haloclines that make you feel like a fish jumping into the air, ending in huge vertically oriented room that had these small couple feet long crystal stalactites that completely covered the ceiling. The caves are more than wet rocks if one is willing to take the time to appreciate it.
I do truly appreciate geology and geography, so feel like going to submarine caves would be absolutely fascinating. I am a little claustrophobic though, so would be a little apprehensive about any of the smaller ones. Do you tend do go caving by yourself? Or have some regular dive buddies in your local area. How have you enjoyed the scooter? Is it worth trying?
@@OceanPancakeYou don't need to go into squeezey bits to enjoy cave diving. In fact in Mexico you can spend an entire lifetime diving caves in backmounted doubles and see some new cave on every dive. Despite diving SM 99% of my diving involves cave passages that can be done BM. Also as you get acclimated what you consider small changes. And IMHO you don't need to be in new cave to see new cave. I visit areas I've been to a dozen times and see new things. I've seen videos of Tank Cave in your neck of the woods in South Australia and looking at the map I could spend years exploring that cave. Most of my cave diving is solo, I do have some regular dive buddies but I often like to go at my own pace of things. During my last dive I saw some features on the floor that looked cool. I had extra gas so I scootered back up the cave and floated by three times just to get a good look at it wondering how it was made. Most buddies would get annoyed by that behavior. I've never scootered outside a cave so I can't really comment there. But in Florida, where our caves are mostly high flow, scootering completely changes cave diving. In the main cave I dive in the first 400ft there are three minor restrictions where the water flow becomes like a fire hydrant. One of the restrictions is the worst and you have to pull yourself using any little crack you can get a grip on. You get past those three spending 10-15 minutes of high effort you are gassed and likely went through almost half of an AL80 of gas in those 400ft. With a scooter those are minor annoyances, in the same 15 minutes and same half of an AL80 I can go 1,800+ ft. And you don't need to zoom everywhere. When I am looking for something I will turn the speed way down, just barely making forward process against the flow. It probably seems like I am gushing, but for Florida cave diving the scooter is a game changer. And you don't need to go far to see the benefit, most of the dives I do I could swim to.
Oh you forget: " sometimes better no dive buddy, then such.' This year I get my dry suit certification, so few month ago I went diving with my brand new dry suit, there are two dive centers in Zurich, which offer weekly dives. I just started the dive, when I realized my dry suit is leaking, I my didn't close the ziper correctly. I signed my buddy twice maybe three times: " I have an issue." But he didn't listen, I realized I keep descenting, so I did a self rescue, since then I started to think: It's even much safer to dive alone then with a buddy who just didn't care. It was 8 pm, so yes it was dark, yes I understand, if he may didn't saw the first sign I dove, but if someone just keep swimming away ... I had a torch, I gove signals with it, I showed twice or three time: I got a issuse, lets acsent. He kept didn't care. As I said, I understand if you don't react at the first sign, you mayh haven't seen it etc. But a correct dive buddy don't keep missing your signs 3 times, sorry. I did a self rescue, as I learned by SSI, even if I'm not a rescue diver yet. Just imagine I couldn't have rescued myself.. good luck I just had just 10KG lead not 14KG like I had while I did my training in March. (Okay I had a neoprene dry suit while training.)
That is so scary! I am glad you're okay. Yes it's always our responsibility to be a good dive buddy first and foremost that could have ended really badly. I definitely will do some self reliant courses soon. But props to you for self rescuing!
What do you mean by "self rescue"? Having your buddy ignore you in the middle the dive is really the same as not having a buddy in the middle of a dive and getting seperated from your buddy is taught on OW. Normal procedure is to spend 1 minute trying to get your buddy back (looking for a lost buddy or trying to get your buddy to respond to your signals) and then ascend. I had a similar experiance not long after I qualified, had a random buddy on a liveaboard in the GBR who chased after sharks with his Go Pro, he could fin faster than I could so I struggled to stay close to him and at one point he ascended faster than my computer would allow. He ignored my signals to stay together and slow down. I completed that dive but afterwards realised the danger I had put myself in because if anything went wrong I doubt he would notice as he was so focussed on getting video (even if he was going about it the wrong way), I realised if I found myself in the same position again I would abort the dive but fortunately it has not.
@carlmeade1667 I'm glad nothing happened to you! Another reason I find people who try and be photographers/videographers without being good buddies frustrating. Their number 1 job is to be a good buddy and make sure both people come back from a dive
@@carlmeade1667 "self rescue" because I ascent in 1 minute from 20m, which is the max speed navy had chosen, in the past, but it was okay since I was less then 4 Minute ago since I start the dive, I had to do a self rescue, because I kept descenting. SSI call it emergency ascent. In those situation, it's possible to ascent much faster, if I ascent slower I would have descent again, because my both legs there full of water. Yes normally you wait one minute, but He was already gone, I even switched the torch on and of, but if he doesn't care. Normally I recommend twice one minute: one minute searching, one minute waiting at a meeting point, this way a dive doesn't need to be canceled at best.
@@OceanPancake Well, I don't habe any issue with photographers/videographers I understand they want to take memories back home. My Problem are those are selfish, like the one who left me. I don't mind If you dive at day and you want to see something, so you may forget your buddy for few minutes the visibility at day is mostly few meters, even in a lake, so not a big deal to forget the buddy for two minute or so. But when I went diving it was 8pm, after sunset visibility is less then 1m in Lake Zurich, so if you when this far you don't even see a torch, switched on and off... Yes nothing happent, I acsent in 1 min from 20m, it's okay because the dive had just started 4 min ago, I didn't even had any issue 2 weeks later. What made me even more angry: not sorry nothing!, when the group finished the dive, we went to eat a pizza. I'm the last person who can't forgive, but he didn't even said anything. At least he could have offer a Coke and told a sorry. This is why I chosen I should search others to dive with, nothing bad happen, but you should tell at least a sorry, we do mistakes. Yes I would have choose another buddy in Future, but after a sorry I would have thought much more different about him. If I had done such, I would Had told my deepest sorry, but to be honest I would had turned after sawing the torch signal, hand signs can may be missed at night even 1 m away but missing a kind of SOS with a torch light?! 🤷♂️
About snobs: yes they are I had few experiance with those, mostly with divemasters, I went often diving in Lake Zurich. So here we got many, who were those kind of divemaster: "I'm divemaster-you-are-nothing, so just my way is the right one" Once I dove with two, I was in the middle, so I checked sometimes if the last one were still follow us, sure not every minute, but may once or twice in 15 min. When we finished, the leader asked me: "why did you look back? we are both divemaster, we can handle this." I told him: Well, I was a volunteer firefighter for 7.5 years, so I get use to check if they other are still there." But he just didn't care, so I guess mostly "divemasters" are snobs.
That's so strange... I guess because I've only been an instructor and not spent time as a dive master I haven't encountered dive masters behaving like that (as weirdly they would 'respect' my higher certification). You're 100% in the right. Doesn't matter what certification you are, it's a team effort to stay safe underwater
Before I got Certified, I tried talking to Divers. They acted like it was a Private Club. Once I got OW Certified, They would talk to me. Not go Diving with me until I get "More Experience". The first time I asked about a Lake Cleanup, I got the same response. Until I asked how I was supposed to get more Experience when nobody would go with me?? Then I was invited. Here I am with AOW and EAN Cert. Waiting for the next Cleanup in April. Hoping to do Deep Diver next Summer.
That sounds really sad :( I don't like that some divers act like it's an in exclusive club. We always told anyone if they want to dive, and once they take that breath of compressed air.. they're a diver! For clean ups I do understand you need a bit more experience as it can be dangerous dealing with debris and moving heavy objects. Your buoyancy has to be great, and unfortunately many OW divers aren't quite there yet. You got this!
There are Dive Snobs they look down their noses at people that use equipment which is less expensive. Also you should see the way they look at me with my lime green horse collar BCD and my Conshelf XIV
@@OceanPancake the math would support that… deep down though, I think individual divers tend not to pay attention to ebooks or eLearning for PADI. Which results directly to new divers not actually knowing how to dive, until they get in the pool. Tables are no longer taught because it’s optional. In my opinion, each new OW diver should know how to dive tables, not as a primary option but as a backup.
I still to this day always insist on doing in person theory for the open water course. I'm a nerd and a good student and still struggle with taking anything in from elearning. We're just not meant to get information that way! After teaching for many years, it's also easy to anticipate problems in the pool and discuss them in the classroom to ensure they have the smoothest learning experience possible! You just can't do that with the ebook
Pink is only for newbies? 🩷 Never! I think anyone who shames people for their gear is silly.. or maybe the unpopular opinions are right and they are snobs?? Let me know what unpopular opinions you'd add to this list!
![แฉกลโกงงานวัด 2024 [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.106 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/taC5dpP3HXA/mqdefault.jpg)
"Your BCD doesn't matter" What is that even supposed to mean? Are you diving without a BCD? :D
I'm assuming they mean which type of BCD you are using. A lot of them pretty much do the same thing. Out of all my diving equipment, my BCD is probably the least personal to me besides the bungie cords I have to streamline my stuff (I have a lot of stuff). But for most recreational divers, as long as it fits well it should be fine.
I meant what brand, style (vest or back plate) or even what size. It's the piece of equipment I least bring traveling with me as it's bulky and I don't really notice a difference between different BCDs.
Obviously always dive with a recently serviced BCD you are comfortable with!
Well, yes PADI is responsible if you get an awful instructor, the question is how much.
I would say as much as SSI and all the others, it's a difficult topic, but I would say they could have done more, maybe a new Instructor should have at least two different instructors who get him certified.
I can imagine that 1 out of 10000 just get certified, without a real exam and correct training.
two years ago, I went to a dive shop, back then I didn't had any fresh water dive, so I asked the guy at the store: " what do you think, how much lead would I need?" He said 12kg, he didn't even ask dry suit or wetsuit, 5mm or 7mm.
And this guy is an instructor, so yes PADI and all the others could do more to get better instructors. But this isn't just PADI.
An other experiance was in Spain, in 2021, I want to get my OWD SSI, when I finished, I asked them: "I would love to get nitrox, too" they just said: "you don't need nitrox"
Okay?!
I understand if they may were to busy to do another dive, but nitrox could be dine just by theory.
So I chosen perfect bouancy, and the instructor teached me much more then this, he showed me how to turn, how to swim in a circle etc.
For the PADI instructor course, the course itself is run individually by dive shops and course directors. This usually is 2-3 weeks long. However, then an Instructor Exam is done (over the period of 2-3 days) that's an independently organized. So dive instructor candidates from a whole bunch of dive stores go there to do their exam. Since it's not their personal instructors testing them, it significantly decreased bias and has them tested by what they do on the day.
I do think that after years and potentially not being active enough in teaching, it's possible instructors forget or become complacent.
With the dive store, he may have been thinking you were renting their wetsuits which were a certain thickness and gave you the numbers for that? I dont know, just trying to find a reason why he wouldn't follow up with any other questions.
Hi Katt, because of your high knowledge of sharks, I would love to see a ranking of sharks.
As I said once, I believe some are surely more dangerous the others, so if I would rank them I may would list them like: leave me alone, don't mess with me, careful/okay, best for beginers, hug me/ easy going, pet sharks
Okay pet sharks is kind of joke, but to be honest, if you have killer sharks, the opposite are pet sharks. 😜
I already did a shark ranking here !! Haha (what sharks I wouldn't like to scuba dive with) th-cam.com/video/PipKcfmHpFg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zD7jU8b-EuFNj83x
Good lord, I'm hung up on the snob claim! You'd think, like practicing aikido or doing triathlons that there'd be a buddy system. Could it be skills insecurity and not yet being an emergency diver or having the confidence to lead a dive? I dunno. I know that a buddy system is vital.
Buddy system is vital, and unfortunately not everyone is lucky enough to have a built in buddy whether it's a friend or a partner. Maybe in those cases more experienced divers can come across as snobby to newbies if they don't want to dive with someone who's air would run out quickly?
I think the main reason divers will not dive with someone inexperienced is they expect thrit dive will be cut short because the new diver goes though air much quicker than them which I think is more down to selfishness than snobbishness. There is also a concern that many OW students are certified without prooving they are safe divers, they are concerned the new diver will keep going deeper because they can't get neutrally bouyant or not check there SPG and suddenly find themselves OOA and either make a grab for the buddies primary or bolt to the surface, if we exclude the option of OW standards being much more stringent the best solution to this is having the new diver dive with a DM but if that is not an option and the experienced divers refuse to dive woith the Newbies the new divers get paiered together greatly increasing the chances of something going bad.
The one I do disagree with is what to do if one person runs out of air after 20 minutes, while it is not fair on the other divers safety must come first and while some of the time it may be possible to continue the dive for the rest often, in my experiance most of the time it is not.
For example I have had 3 hoidays where it was all shore diving with a DM leading 3 or 4 clients. If someone runs low on air the options are i) Have the low on air diver use the DMs octopus, not a fan of this it is often difficult to swim in such a config and sharing air should be only to get to the surface as quickly and safely as possible, if the DM needs to deal with another issue you are really entering the incident pit. ii) Have the one low on air diver surface and swim to shore alone, not an option! iii) Have one buddy pair end the dive, a bummer for the buddy and if anything happened to them I suspect the DM would be held responsible iv) everyone ends the dive.
Often to safely surface you need to deploy a DSMB people who run out of air in 20 minutes are VERY unlikely to be able to do this and the majority of clients on a guided dive wont know either. It is only on dives where it is relatively straight forward to swim to the mooring line and maybe go part way up as a group that is would be safe for the rest of the group to contine their dive.
I would sat "I hate scuba" is fair enough, while I love scuba everyone is entitiled ot their opinion and I can not argue with the fact a the speaker hates scuba. Having said that getting out of the watre is the best option for them.
In my opinion the DM is not to blame for anything. On a guided dive the DM is only there to use his/her knowledge of the dive spot to show the others around like a tour guide. After all everyone in the group is a certified diver diving within their limits, so they all should be able to continue the dive and look around the area without their guide. In my opinion the best solution is to just talk about this situation beforehand and as long as there is at least 2 people who are willing to continue the dive without the guide, then you can just form a group with them and if a new diver runs out of air quickly its the guide who ends the dive with him/her as well as anyone else who isn't comfortable continuing without the guide. For the same reason gas sharing with the DM also is not a problem in my opinion as long as the diver with the high SAC rate is comfortable with it. If the DM is using a long hose its not even much of a hassle to be honest. Of course there are some edge cases like guided cave/mine dives where people are TEC certified but not cave certified and would be lost without some experienced guide. But I am assuming we are talking recreational open water dives here.
@@benjaminbeier4036 I am not a DM or a lawyer and it probably depends where you are but if someone is paying you to dive with them if anything happened the courts would look very carefully on your actions if anything went wrong. Would you be able to proove the victims were comfortable to dive without you? Also in many parts of the world it is illegal to dive without a DM or at least a dive centres insurance insists all their clients are accompanied by a dive professional (e.g. they wont rent equipment only do scorted dives).
I think a lot of certified scuba divers can not safely dive without a professional or at least a very experienced buddy. It was true for me when I first qualified and I have witnessed divers only stopped from reckless actions in panic due to the quick actions of the DM.
My unpopular diving opinion is the OW should either be made more stringent and longer or only allow diving with a dive professional (like PADI "scuba diver"). To get a truly "autonomous diver" certification you would need to prove skills such as being able to maintain constant depth and knowing how much air you have (reasonably accurately) at any time.
@@carlmeade1667in many cases I have seen when someone runs out of air. The group stays together, the DM or dive guide surfaces them to the surface while holding an smb, has a tender pick them up, then descends down to continue diving with the remainder of the group. Given that all divers are certified, I don't really see anything wrong with that scenario. However it always gets tricky.
90% of music on dive videos suck, they typically don't match the energy of the video and overpower the natural sound track. That being said when carefully select and make it more background it works.
But I concur about cave videos, except mine of course, most of them suck. They often have obnoxious music, poorly lit, and poorly shot (often either POV solo or the southern end of a northbound dive buddy). That being said I view a lot of them, mostly muted scanning to scout a new area of the cave ahead of a dive.
Yeah, I don't know why I'm a muted video watcher. Especially diving.
You're right so often people don't match the vibe and it's some heavy electronic music over serene fish vibes.
Where are your favorite caves to dive? What's your process for selecting a new cave dive? It's such a world beyond what I know, I find it fascinating!
@@OceanPancake I'm often muted when I want to listen to a podcast and am just viewing to scout the area.
I'm a big fan of @stevebogaerts videos. Been working to match his vibe.
As far as what cave to dive. Really depends om the mood and who I am diving with. Like this week I just wanted to get into the water since my next opportunity will be like 3-4 weeks between the holidays and family stuff. So I went my normal spot and just screwed around for two hours, going for a scooter ride around and testing doing exits on my back up lights as I like to switch/recharge the batteries at the end of the year.
Being local things are a lot more laid back, I can go to an area I've been to a dozen times and just float around poking my head into various holes to see what is there. Compared to when my friends from out of the area come and want to get the most of their trip.
My favorite cave dive was in a cave in Mexico Tajma Ha on a line called Chinese Gardens. It was just a wide variety of cave environments. From fairly normal rooms, to swiss cheese limestone indicative of the ancient reef it was made out of, to haloclines that make you feel like a fish jumping into the air, ending in huge vertically oriented room that had these small couple feet long crystal stalactites that completely covered the ceiling.
The caves are more than wet rocks if one is willing to take the time to appreciate it.
I do truly appreciate geology and geography, so feel like going to submarine caves would be absolutely fascinating. I am a little claustrophobic though, so would be a little apprehensive about any of the smaller ones.
Do you tend do go caving by yourself? Or have some regular dive buddies in your local area. How have you enjoyed the scooter? Is it worth trying?
@@OceanPancakeYou don't need to go into squeezey bits to enjoy cave diving. In fact in Mexico you can spend an entire lifetime diving caves in backmounted doubles and see some new cave on every dive. Despite diving SM 99% of my diving involves cave passages that can be done BM. Also as you get acclimated what you consider small changes.
And IMHO you don't need to be in new cave to see new cave. I visit areas I've been to a dozen times and see new things. I've seen videos of Tank Cave in your neck of the woods in South Australia and looking at the map I could spend years exploring that cave.
Most of my cave diving is solo, I do have some regular dive buddies but I often like to go at my own pace of things. During my last dive I saw some features on the floor that looked cool. I had extra gas so I scootered back up the cave and floated by three times just to get a good look at it wondering how it was made. Most buddies would get annoyed by that behavior.
I've never scootered outside a cave so I can't really comment there. But in Florida, where our caves are mostly high flow, scootering completely changes cave diving. In the main cave I dive in the first 400ft there are three minor restrictions where the water flow becomes like a fire hydrant. One of the restrictions is the worst and you have to pull yourself using any little crack you can get a grip on. You get past those three spending 10-15 minutes of high effort you are gassed and likely went through almost half of an AL80 of gas in those 400ft. With a scooter those are minor annoyances, in the same 15 minutes and same half of an AL80 I can go 1,800+ ft.
And you don't need to zoom everywhere. When I am looking for something I will turn the speed way down, just barely making forward process against the flow. It probably seems like I am gushing, but for Florida cave diving the scooter is a game changer. And you don't need to go far to see the benefit, most of the dives I do I could swim to.
Oh you forget: " sometimes better no dive buddy, then such.'
This year I get my dry suit certification, so few month ago I went diving with my brand new dry suit, there are two dive centers in Zurich, which offer weekly dives.
I just started the dive, when I realized my dry suit is leaking, I my didn't close the ziper correctly. I signed my buddy twice maybe three times: " I have an issue." But he didn't listen, I realized I keep descenting, so I did a self rescue, since then I started to think: It's even much safer to dive alone then with a buddy who just didn't care.
It was 8 pm, so yes it was dark, yes I understand, if he may didn't saw the first sign I dove, but if someone just keep swimming away ...
I had a torch, I gove signals with it, I showed twice or three time: I got a issuse, lets acsent.
He kept didn't care.
As I said, I understand if you don't react at the first sign, you mayh haven't seen it etc. But a correct dive buddy don't keep missing your signs 3 times, sorry.
I did a self rescue, as I learned by SSI, even if I'm not a rescue diver yet.
Just imagine I couldn't have rescued myself.. good luck I just had just 10KG lead not 14KG like I had while I did my training in March. (Okay I had a neoprene dry suit while training.)
That is so scary! I am glad you're okay. Yes it's always our responsibility to be a good dive buddy first and foremost that could have ended really badly.
I definitely will do some self reliant courses soon. But props to you for self rescuing!
What do you mean by "self rescue"? Having your buddy ignore you in the middle the dive is really the same as not having a buddy in the middle of a dive and getting seperated from your buddy is taught on OW. Normal procedure is to spend 1 minute trying to get your buddy back (looking for a lost buddy or trying to get your buddy to respond to your signals) and then ascend.
I had a similar experiance not long after I qualified, had a random buddy on a liveaboard in the GBR who chased after sharks with his Go Pro, he could fin faster than I could so I struggled to stay close to him and at one point he ascended faster than my computer would allow. He ignored my signals to stay together and slow down. I completed that dive but afterwards realised the danger I had put myself in because if anything went wrong I doubt he would notice as he was so focussed on getting video (even if he was going about it the wrong way), I realised if I found myself in the same position again I would abort the dive but fortunately it has not.
@carlmeade1667 I'm glad nothing happened to you! Another reason I find people who try and be photographers/videographers without being good buddies frustrating. Their number 1 job is to be a good buddy and make sure both people come back from a dive
@@carlmeade1667 "self rescue" because I ascent in 1 minute from 20m, which is the max speed navy had chosen, in the past, but it was okay since I was less then 4 Minute ago since I start the dive, I had to do a self rescue, because I kept descenting. SSI call it emergency ascent. In those situation, it's possible to ascent much faster, if I ascent slower I would have descent again, because my both legs there full of water.
Yes normally you wait one minute, but He was already gone, I even switched the torch on and of, but if he doesn't care.
Normally I recommend twice one minute:
one minute searching, one minute waiting at a meeting point, this way a dive doesn't need to be canceled at best.
@@OceanPancake Well, I don't habe any issue with photographers/videographers I understand they want to take memories back home. My Problem are those are selfish, like the one who left me.
I don't mind If you dive at day and you want to see something, so you may forget your buddy for few minutes the visibility at day is mostly few meters, even in a lake, so not a big deal to forget the buddy for two minute or so. But when I went diving it was 8pm, after sunset visibility is less then 1m in Lake Zurich,
so if you when this far you don't even see a torch, switched on and off...
Yes nothing happent, I acsent in 1 min from 20m, it's okay because the dive had just started 4 min ago, I didn't even had any issue 2 weeks later.
What made me even more angry: not sorry nothing!, when the group finished the dive, we went to eat a pizza. I'm the last person who can't forgive, but he didn't even said anything. At least he could have offer a Coke and told a sorry.
This is why I chosen I should search others to dive with, nothing bad happen, but you should tell at least a sorry, we do mistakes.
Yes I would have choose another buddy in Future, but after a sorry I would have thought much more different about him.
If I had done such, I would Had told my deepest sorry, but to be honest I would had turned after sawing the torch signal, hand signs can may be missed at night even 1 m away but missing a kind of SOS with a torch light?! 🤷♂️
Nothing wrong with solo dives if have the training and the right gear to complete the dive
Definitely! I just always panic that people mean without proper certification
About snobs: yes they are I had few experiance with those, mostly with divemasters, I went often diving in Lake Zurich. So here we got many, who were those kind of divemaster: "I'm divemaster-you-are-nothing, so just my way is the right one"
Once I dove with two, I was in the middle, so I checked sometimes if the last one were still follow us, sure not every minute, but may once or twice in 15 min.
When we finished, the leader asked me: "why did you look back? we are both divemaster, we can handle this."
I told him: Well, I was a volunteer firefighter for 7.5 years, so I get use to check if they other are still there."
But he just didn't care, so I guess mostly "divemasters" are snobs.
That's so strange... I guess because I've only been an instructor and not spent time as a dive master I haven't encountered dive masters behaving like that (as weirdly they would 'respect' my higher certification). You're 100% in the right. Doesn't matter what certification you are, it's a team effort to stay safe underwater
Before I got Certified, I tried talking to Divers. They acted like it was a Private Club. Once I got OW Certified, They would talk to me. Not go Diving with me until I get "More Experience". The first time I asked about a Lake Cleanup, I got the same response. Until I asked how I was supposed to get more Experience when nobody would go with me?? Then I was invited. Here I am with AOW and EAN Cert. Waiting for the next Cleanup in April. Hoping to do Deep Diver next Summer.
That sounds really sad :( I don't like that some divers act like it's an in exclusive club. We always told anyone if they want to dive, and once they take that breath of compressed air.. they're a diver! For clean ups I do understand you need a bit more experience as it can be dangerous dealing with debris and moving heavy objects. Your buoyancy has to be great, and unfortunately many OW divers aren't quite there yet. You got this!
There are Dive Snobs they look down their noses at people that use equipment which is less expensive. Also you should see the way they look at me with my lime green horse collar BCD and my Conshelf XIV
I would high five you for your lime green anything! I love expressive dive gear.
A few British coroners and American law enforcement have raised questions on PADI training standards
Then that means they also raised question on every other diving agency… PADI teaches the same diving criteria agreed upon by all diving agencies
Would be interesting to read more about this? I do think with diving becoming more popular we are having more accidents
@@OceanPancake the math would support that… deep down though, I think individual divers tend not to pay attention to ebooks or eLearning for PADI. Which results directly to new divers not actually knowing how to dive, until they get in the pool. Tables are no longer taught because it’s optional. In my opinion, each new OW diver should know how to dive tables, not as a primary option but as a backup.
I still to this day always insist on doing in person theory for the open water course. I'm a nerd and a good student and still struggle with taking anything in from elearning. We're just not meant to get information that way!
After teaching for many years, it's also easy to anticipate problems in the pool and discuss them in the classroom to ensure they have the smoothest learning experience possible! You just can't do that with the ebook
Cert level don't mean much for dive buddy i have had some ow that where fantastic and some msd tec40 guys that where all talk but absolutely shit
Definitely! So much about the individual rather than an agency or certification level
Pink is only for newbies? 🩷 Never! I think anyone who shames people for their gear is silly.. or maybe the unpopular opinions are right and they are snobs??
Let me know what unpopular opinions you'd add to this list!