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In a webinar about neutral buoyancy instruction about 3 years ago, Mark Powell said SDI now requires all OW instructors to teach that way. I don't believe that is true, but that is what he said. PADI does not require it, but it promotes it. It requires some skills be taught that way in...

I don't want to push this--I was mostly just adding to my continuing crusade to change the way scuba was traditionally thought, but I will comment on this specific sentence, because I have seen its equivalent many times in arguments about why instructors don't change. Let's give it a closer look...

Ask the instructor if the skills will be taught while you are kneeling on the floor while negatively buoyant or horizontal and neutrally buoyant. The difference in the kind of diver you will be at the end of the pool sessions is huge. If taught while neutrally buoyant, you will look and act like...

Back when I was training with UTD, I was specifically (and emphatically) told that computers can make mistakes, that is why it is better to use "the computer between the ears," which does not.

There is math you need to be able to do, and there is math you don't need to do. Back in my own "ratio deco only" stage of diving, two friends got mildly bent on a T1 deco dive. One of them was using a computer in gauge mode as a bottom timer, so he was able to produce a dive profile showing...

Paying attention to what? Your physical environment? Your teammate(s)? Animal life? Your route? You have lots of things to pay attention to during a dive, particularly a technical dive. Constantly doing math throughout the dive only distracts you from those things. If anything important arises...

He was a very valuable voice on ScubaBoard. This environment is sadly diminished by his passing.

If you really look at what little research there is available, you will see that it is hard to make any comparisons of any typical ascent profiles typically in use. Just as there is no research to show that the ascent profile is superior, there isn't anything to clearly show it is worse. As...

It has been a while since I last taught an OW class. I was unaware that PADI had any such recommendation. When I taught, we just did weight checks. As several people have said, individual people have individual needs for weights, depending mostly on personal body composition. In my own diving...

If you are going to dive at that altitude and are going to fill your tanks with nitrox for that dive, you should be aware that the MOD will be different. If you don't make any adjustments, though, there is no danger, because, contrary to what many people believe, the MOD will be deeper at...

I am goin After making the previous post I figured I would cut to the chase. There is no research supporting this claim about the benefits of this ascent process, and the people who created the process do not claim that there is. A few years ago I wrote an article on current thinking on ascent...

Could you please show a link to the research that supports this?

Are you talking about the boat following the bubbles of one team? In Florida, a boat might drop 5 different teams, each of which will then progress at its own rate. When I have surfaced from such a dive, I typically see the boat in the distance picking up another team. A boat picking up a team...

My recent experience with LCBR was nothing like the situation described in this thread, so I really have nothing to say about it. I will say that I thought their processes were overly strict and controlling. I did not like being in a single group of 17 divers following the lead DM with another...

I was once holding the dive flag in my hand when I suddenly felt it pulling upward in a series of jerks. I looked up and saw it was somehow connected to a boat. The boat's engines roared into full power and the flag began to pull violently upward. I let go of the flag. It turned out that the...

I an provide details of several oxygen toxicity fatalities, but all of the are on technical divers. I do not know of a case of anyone known to be have gotten oxygen toxicity on NDL dives. By the phrase "known to have gotten oxygen toxicity," I mean that a surprising percentage of diving...

A carbonated beverage has no bubbles when it is sitting in your refrigerator, but it suddenly gets bubbles when it is opened and exposed to ambient pressure.

this confused the heck out of me as a new diver, too. The pressure gradient you are worried about on ascent is the gradient between your internal gas pressure and the pressure around you (ambient). The lesser ambient pressure as you ascend is your concern, just as opening a bottle of soda at...

When the TSA first allowed small amounts of liquids and gels to be carried in plastic bags, I went on a dive trip, traveling from Denver to Yap with a large group of divers. I was the only one who put my liquids in my checked bag. We left Denver, and everyone else went through security with...

I am going to agree that doing AOW on a vacation is not a problem, especially if you can do the academic part ahead of time. You are doing dives you would have been doing anyway, and you may well be doing them in a better location. Here is Colorado, AOW is a problem because the few normal dive...