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I relax in the water, get my buoyancy pretty much spot on, try to make minimal movement e.t.c and my SAC rate is still absolutely terrible compared to the people im diving with. Im not to bothered however since unless im really shallow 9 time out of 10 its the no stop time that forces me to...

Hard or soft lead shouldn't make much of a difference. Also a wee warning so far this year 3 of the guys i dive with who have the apex sure lock system have had their weights fall out. Lots of other guys (myself included) are diving with integrated weights without any problems but the apex...

Oddly enough I find that warm water dives don't really interest me much. I seem to enjoy myself more diving in freezing cold nil vis than i do in warm clear water. It never feels like im really diving when im in warm water its almost like the "means" become so easy that all there is is the...

Another thing to watch out for with kids and young teens diving is that they have a much higher chance having a PFO (Patent foramen ovale) which can increase the chances of getting a bend. I believe BSAC, ScotSAC and SAA just got together and agreed on a depth limit for divers under 14 and under...

Just remembered another newbie-ish mistake i once made, swimming through wreckage and there was a beam sticking out running horizontally. The vis was pretty much nill and i happened to swim along just under the beam so my 1st stage ended up hitting the beam but i didnt notice cos the vis was so...

Did you take into account the fresh water being less buoyant than salt water? You wont need as much lead in fresh water as you do in salt water. Also the thicker your wetsuit the more of a swing in buoyancy there will be as you change depth and thus the harder it will be to control your...

Ive never had an out of air situation either, but from talking to people who have ran out of air they all said that they pretty much tried to take a breath and couldn't and that was them out of air. The thing is pretty much everyone has balanced 1st stages these days so you don't notice any...

Ill never forget my first time on scuba gear. Walking down the slipway, getting stuck hanging upside-down when all the air went to my dry-suit legs. That first rush as the water flowed past my dodgy neck seal. Then 20 minutes of swimming around admiring the inside of my mask, occasionally being...

The thing about "how far you can swim on a lung full of air" is that you have to remember that it really should be "how long can you swim on a lung that is empty of air". If you run out of air due to any reason you are unlikely to notice it on the out breath, most likely you will notice when you...

That was extremely interesting, i liked seeing them doing a rescue in the pool with the old equipment, dropping the casualties weight belt and pulling them to the surface. I doubt you could do that today ;) I actually recognised one of the areas they where in underwater as being a place I...

Jumped into the sea with the vanity zip on my drysuit open. I had 7mm gloves on too so i couldn't get ahold of it to close it in the end i had to descend to about 10 meters before my gloves compressed enough to allow me to get ahold of it and close it. Sad thing is the suit was that leaky it...

Hey didn't expect to run into you here!

I train every Wednesday in a pool over the winter. Sometimes when im diving with other club members we will suddenly pretend to go unconscious or be out of air or something like that just to keep each other sharp and to make sure we don't get complacent. Ive done that many unexpected rescues and...

Thats the setup i have at the moment with a backup computer on my console. I find it a bit bulky having it on the console though and find i prefer stuff on my wrists. Since i only really use the computer as a bottom timer anyway a watch is nice and discreet and dosent have much bulk for wearing...

I have an SPG, suunto vyper and compass built into a console. I then have a suunto d6 on my right wrist and an analog depth gauges on my left wrist. The good things about this setup are that I have a redundant computer on my console that i never look at but can if i need to, and with a...

You can also get neoprene socks that an be worn under wetsuit booties and make a huge difference. For your hands try going to a garage and grabbing some of those free plastic gloves that they have on the forecourt, they are great for wearing under gloves to keep your hands warm and also make it...

I dive a 7mm as well and even though i only wear 12 pounds of lead i still end up putting air in my bcd as i descend at the start of the dive, as has been said the compression of the suit is simply to large to effectively compensate for with your lungs alone.

Yeah we dont hold the divers regs in, we teach our students not to purge the divers regulator or try to put it back in if it falls out since we figure that doing so could fire stuff down the divers throat. Also we figure since they are going to be constantly ascending to the surface the air in...

To get my basic SSAC (scottish sub-aqua club) qualification i had to learn to do a rescue, i actually did my padi OW course then joined SSAC and was classed as a trainee with them for about a year while i learnt all the rescue skills and stuff from them. When we do a rescue we approach form...

The thing is the open water course only really qualifies you to start learning. It dosent teach you how to handle everything that might happen to you underwater but it gives you the basics so you can then further your skills. Its up to you to lean more if you want to. Stuff like lifting...