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So "chin stroking" impression was correct, divers trained in a comfortable warm water environment stay diving.?

Well, I dont have stats, its just my experience from years of training student divers. I think maybe we also need to separate so called "tropically trained divers" from divers trained in a "warm water environment". My impression is divers who do a course on say a 7 day vacation to a warm...

Sure, I think that makes sense, its always easier to teach a student when they are warm and comfortable and are able to make rational calculated decisions, trying to teach a student who is cold, uncomfortable, not thinking clearly and possibly even wondering if this is as good as it gets is a...

Yes, that was actually the reality of it, you needed the right product to learn how to use it, and the main reason I did the course was because I was a novice. I hear your point, but see it from the other side as well, no one wants to waste their time trying to teach people who really dont...

I know what you are saying but nowhere that I know do businesses dramatically cut prices like that. My feeling is its fine to have a special and knock $50.00 bucks off for a month or something, but dropping the price to almost junk status just diminishes the value of the course in the eye of the...

Sadly the $99.00 buck courses are seen all over the world, and in some places I have seen them even cheaper, how sustainable it is I dont know, but I just dont see the point in selling a course so cheaply, everything has a value and if you continually trade down that value is diminished until...

Yes I hear you RJP and I do agree, BUT....:D to illustrate my point just last week I was on a boat with a group and there was a young lady on her second ocean dive after qualifying, short story long, she initially wouldn't go under, then when she finally did she was bolt upright in mid water...

I couldn't have said it better Wookie, and Yup, I get what you did. :D Back then, it was easy to get divers to continue their education and stay diving, they wanted to dive, they were comfortable, they were confident and SAUU worked on a 80% return rate, where I mean 80% of the divers who...

I qualified as a scuba diver in 1977 with the SAUU (South African Underwater Union) and it was tough, there was no official Naui or Padi or other affiliations here at the time and training took as long as the instructor deemed necessary. I remember clearly that for the first 20 odd hours of pool...

Yes, I agree with this. Getting qualified is one thing, no problem, mostly you will be well looked after by the certifying instructor, but been part of a group on a dive where you in a large part have to look after yourself in the current or the surge is quite another. Perhaps if they hired a...

I did it out of curiosity but to be honest I cant see the relevance to the industry at large.? Maybe I am just missing something.?

I would say its a bit ambitious, pick one spot in Mozambique and work on that, rather try and spend more time diving in SA. In my opinion Tofu is a good option and you could spend a week there easily. Flights in and out of Mozambique are haphazard to say the least and very often run very late...

I have to say that is a pretty darn good ad. Everything someone needs to know in a short, to the point, interesting and informative piece. Certainly one of the best I have seen in over 30 years in this business. Very well done.

I hear you, its no consolation I know but quite a few European suppliers I dealt with felt much the same way, its a very, very expensive exercise for a European manufacturer or supplier to exhibit at Dema and often they didn't even meet any new customers, so for them it really became a sort of...

Hard for me to say, personally I think you may find some resistance here :D. I hardly ever attended, but some suppliers we supported were very pro-active in the seminar field, new products, technical seminars, sales briefings etc etc which they ran every day, so for example if you...

Surely folk go to the seminars because they want to? I am not sure removing or limiting the seminars will convince folk to spend more time on the floor, if that happened maybe they just wouldn't even bother coming. In all my years of attending Dema I think I may have only done two or three...

Indeed, I like it and when you think about it, its actually perfectly logical, I also like that its possible to follow over to international applications because, generally, people all over are not really that different. I think you are onto something here for sure.

Indeed, it would be great if it could happen, but, as I alluded in another thread, diving is a tripartite alliance, training agencies, equipment manufacturers and tour / charter operators, and all three need to be involved financially in any kind of programme like this, or the other benefits...

Absolutely agree, TV's and smartphones, the mechanical engine of the present.

I already "liked" this, but it is just so on the button I had to agree as well. I would also agree Scubaboard is not typical of the diving population at large, as you say, the average diver is just there to pass the time in a pleasant manner and look at pretty fishes, he couldn't care less...