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Criminal negligence aside, true. Criminal negligence in diving should probably be defined as wrong gas or faulty equipment or grossly incorrect dive breafing. Duty of care is probbaly not a well enough defined concept to be addressed in waivers.

Oh, the rise of consumerism... The outsourcing of responsibility... I cannot blame the diveshops and dive operators, however.

Do you need to trust? [I am ignoring insurance companies and litigative societies here] If you rent a bicycle to an adult, and that adult gets overrun by a lorry, then are you responsible for that as a bicycle shop? Sometimes there's too much of a duty of care. Adults should know what they do...

I would disagree. The ONLY gauge you will ever need on a basic rec dive is the SPG. Given that one cylinder of air and the very moderate max and avg depths, decompression illness is quite unlikely. Some week long liveaboards are an exception.

If a SPG hose fails, it gets noticed. It is the unnoticed errors that kill. A SPG does not experience electronic failures nor communication issues. A Bourdon tube is quite reliable. An analog gauge is easier to understand when narced (I do have experience of this from 50m on air).

No. You are not overdoing it. Redundancy is great. I would use the analog SPG as main, and let the AI computer act as a backup with warnings.

CMAS decades ago, but then PADI made it into a business maximizing income. Others followed suit. If you want to make a living on diving instruction, then there must be a certain amount of customers per day. Most people are not willing to pay enough for proper tuition. I get my salary from...

I believe it could be, if that person actually overcomes the fear and starts to enjoy submersion. However, fear must change to joy, or else it's the wrong hobby.

Hey, it could be made a law that a deceased diver automatically sues everybody at a 10 mile radius :D Isn't it like that already?

Insurance companies are not a problem as long as training is non-commercial mentoring in a membership based society. There is no duty of care then (may vary from legislation to legislation). This would obviously turn an industry into a hobby, and many would loose their income. Not quite optimal...

I like the idea of a separate certification body. We need discussion, however. So, let me be the devils advocate and propose an opposing idea: There shall be no certifications. If you screw it up you die. Pick your instructor. Too many certs, too little diving.

In sidemount we have - classic bungees (around the cylinder valves to the chest D-ring) - loop bungees to the valves only - ring bungees with the metal clip to the chest D-ring And the cylinder valve can point to different directions etc. etc. There are thus many bungee/cylinder configurations...

One more thing. It is hard to stay on course when swimming on your back. You need to bend your neck to see where you are going - and the world is upside down. If you swim face down, then you need to lift your head occasionally to see where the boat is, but at least it's the correct way up :D

If there are waves, and you have some gas left, then diving is more comfortable than a surface swim. Swimming against the wind can also be hard. In calm weather it is great to swim on the surface on ones back as then you can breathe freely instead of using a reg or snorkel (if you even carry...

Why would you want to descend feet first? For the first 3 to 6 feet it's OK, but don't you want to see where you are going? Prone position, and even head down, are great ways to descend (the former specifically with drysuit). You have fins. Use them. In the days of old people put their head down...

A rebreather is a closed circuit system. You need to add diluent only when you are descending. You don't need that much of it thus. A return trip without a rebreather could be long, though. If you dive deep, you might need both bottom gas and decompression gasses to reach the surface...

As we all know, there are coping methods, to some extent, but no true "resistance".

I am not a rebreather diver. However... WTF is MOD5 ? BACK UP GAS: air, oxygen - who uses those at 100+ meters???

Not sure bungees are easier to use. Jetfin divers often wear drysuits, and often that means cold water and drygloves. In this case a thin bungee would be a PITA. Now, with wetgloves and with a sturdy enough bungee the presented solution might be absolutely lovely. I love the idea, with reservations.

The spring strap is historically (at least) a Finnish invention, and we do have an adjustable version of that. It's based on an U-shaped piece of metal, with three holes for bolts. You can then choose where to attach that spring: the first, second or third hole. We have these adjustable things...