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I may have not gone to med school, but I'm still a Doctor of Love :stirpot: (everyone, feel free to vomit at the thought :yeahbaby:)

I shouldn't jump back in here, but come on. And how does that work? How does someone in Japan find someone somewhere in the world, or even local? That's Forrest Gump's million dollar wound. Pain in the .... I can't believe that is being suggested. Here's the thing. You say you never have...

Maybe @Darcy Kieran can chime in as he's studied/published data about it.

Does safety include insufficient staff being available? Or not enough customers?

I can't speak for everyone in the world, but no one reasonable has a problem with paying a deposit that they lose if they flake out. I'm all for the dive charter keeping that, as then they are losing revenue. I, and others, do have a problem when the charter cancels for whatever reason. Now...

Risk is shared. Customers who fly in risk not being able to dive when it was their plans to do so. But no one controls the weather. So it is what it is. To me, the solution is simple. Just travel to places where dive charters have a reasonable refund policy. No limit to those. You've...

That's completely fair. Deposits should be ensuring that the dive op has revenue WHEN operating. If they decide to cancel, it doesn't matter if no one signed up that day, they were not making any income. And I would expect (someone like @Wookie can comment) that a business would base their...

The scale of the problem is far greater than I realized. Thank you @Searcaigh for posting. I'm no scientist, but my understanding is that a priority of managing an ecosystem requires ensuring the apex predator is thriving, because if that predator is thriving, then everything in the food...

Was teaching your only source of income? I had the same policy, but I was teaching because I enjoyed it, not for the money. I made less than minimum wage teaching for shops. The problem is that people are flaky and/or kaka happens. There has to be reservations. Can you imagine a system of...

If you wish to become a PADI pro only if you wish to become a dive pro with another agency. A bigger question (and this really should be in a separate thread) is what are your goals? Why do you want to do this? Have you considered the financial aspect of this? As dive instructors are...

So I've taught for several ships. There is a difference in equipment being used. I never taught at 8 and have no affiliation with the shop. It was extremely frustrating with a student being given a poorly fitted dry suit that made acclimating to diving dry impossible. My last statement is...

Do you really want to compare the quality of rental dry suits? Or the quality of instruction? Nobody at 8 teaches on the knees. Most area shops and instructors are not of good quality.

Go to 8 Diving in Des Moines. I live in Kirkland, and if I were starting over, I'd drive there. The only other shop in the area I would recommend is Jade Scuba in Port Orchard. Tacoma Scuba seems to be good, but I don't have personal experience with them.

Can't imagine why.

Spending my summers in Greece it was always souvlaki me pita. The first gyro I saw was in the United States. I started seeing gyros in Greece later when I traveled with friends to places more popular with foreign tourists. Since then, I see gyros more often, but still it is mostly pork souvlaki...

if you change your mind, let me know. Chios is not a touristic island. Plus it is pretty far from Athens. As opposed to the Kyklades where you can take a ferry that lasts just a few hours, the boat to Chios is an overnighter (or an hour flight). Also, many of the Greek shipping magnate...

Sorry, I should have pointed you to the second blog post. But I'm glad you got something out of the first one. So here's an offer. Come to the Greek island of Chios the first two weeks of August. I'll be there with my family for my nephew's baptism. We'll be staying at the Golden Sand Hotel...

No such thing

I don't know about others, but I feel this is one of your best comments on ScubaBoard. It really drives the point home. To me at least. We can talk about adapting to the student, but that takes time and/or ingenuity, and sometimes a bit of luck. My attitude has always been if the student...

More likely to be attacked by sharks (kidding, not kidding). In all seriousness, I think snorkeling is a great way to start. Now if even that makes them nervous, then I'd recommend the mask/snorkel skills that are derived from what @Peter Guy taught me. Teaching Neutrally Buoyant and Trimmed -