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I'm sure you're a talented tec diver (although remember the proverb about the first insight of true wisdom). But *I* don't aspire to be the "best" tec diver. I aspire to be a competent OWD who excels at wildlife spotting and observation and who takes good-to-excellent underwater photographs...

Read the post, please. My point was not just about kit...it was about the entire balancing of time and money that DIRs don't seem to get. But even on kit, I have to say I disagree with you. There are many sets of equipment that are perfectly adequate for the situation they are being used...

I second this. The girls work their tails off! The Star Dancer is a great ship and you'll have a blast.

Well this has been an entertaining and instructive thread to browse on a lazy Friday afternoon. My two cents: What strikes me is that there is no notion of economy on the part of DIR advocates. We exist in a world of limited resources, both economic and temporal. Within these resource...

Hm. So an 90 minute muck dive at 3-4 meters in a lagoon in PNG isn't a logable dive? Whatever.

What about cameras, strobes, lens, mounts, etc., etc., etc.? I don't have much intention to replace my perfectly adequate diving kit.

My Canon S410 doesn't allow access to RAW images, so the first thing I do is save everything as a TIF. I'm also doing this for my negative scans.

It was a Thursday/Friday trip. Gulf Diving said there were only 11 spaces sold.

Grr. Cancelled. Not because of weather...but because they didn't have enough people.

What is the wave height at which Gulf Diving will cancel the trip? The marine forecast is showing 2-3 ft Wednesday through the weekend.

Um, no. Number of dives DOES tell you something. The variable describes a necessary but not sufficient condition in determing experience. It an environment of limited information, number of logged dives is a good first-cut constraint.

Ah, but now you're bringing more information into the situation! What if the blue water diver has significant experience with surge and current and half of her dives were exploratory first-dive-by-humans in East Timor? While the brown water diver has been peering at catfish in the same still...

I have to say that I disagree with the initial posts on this thread. If I could only choose one data point in evaluating the skill level of a diver before diving with them, it would be the number of logged dives they have completed. I'd certainly assume that an open water diver with 1000+...

Old Man and Smoking Volcano, Rabaul Child in Dugout, South New Britain

I heartily second the Dive Makai rec.

Every instinct you have is wrong underwater. Train yourself to not act instinctively.

Amen, brother.

I guess I'm just gonna be an ornery cuss on this one. I have meticulous logbooks that an operator is welcome to look at it. If they have a policy of doing checkout dives, I'm cool with that--great way to shake down equipment. But if they require an "advanced" certification that proves...

Look, there's a basic problem here with Dr. Bill's proposal--credentials are an imperfect, AT BEST, substitute for skills. And it is SKILLS not credentials that are the issue in diving. Let's say you've just popped off the plane in Vanuatu all hot to dive the Coolidge. Dive operator gives...