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That is the opposite of what is normally recommended for instruction in pretty much all areas of training. In general, you teach the student under conditions that enable successful learning and then you add difficulty. When I started diving in the challenging environments you describe, I already...

In addition to the instructor, location is important if you want to get the most out of it. If you are just looking for a card, it doesn't matter. After quite a few years of instructing in Colorado, I do not have a lot of AOW certifications on my instructional résumé, and that is because...

Yep. A little more than a dozen years ago the debate raged on ScubaBoard, with people insisting that instructors who added stuff to the course would be expelled, and others quoted PADI policy and statements from PADI headquarters in response. One guy was particularly tireless in his posting...

This is a very common misunderstanding. In one past thread on this topic, someone posted a message from PADI CEO and President Drew Richardson talking about the value of the things that instructors add to the courses. In the first shop where I taught, our PADI Course Director asked each of the...

I have only gone off a private boat a handful of times. When I did, the procedure used was multiple dives, with people taking turns staying on the boat.

The Diver Alert Network (DAN) studied flying after diving from 1992-1999. The military was not involved. The process and results are described here. A few years ago DAN Europe did a maddening flying after diving test to determine if their 24 hour recommendation was sufficient. They determined...

There has been a lot of hard science done regarding decompression over more than 100 years, and Buhlmann was only one of many researchers.

Here are some facts that may help you make a decision. You are essentially doing a 45 minute safety stop. On the U.S. Navy tables, you would finish the dive as an A or B diver--barely. Scottsdale's elevation is 2,165 feet, so a flight would be an elevation gain of about 6,000 feet to a...

It should not take too much of a search on ScubaBoard to introduce you to a host of people with contrary attitudes about Aggressor. That includes me.

The story said the boat's name was the Maranatha 4. That suggests there are more than one such boat. "Maranatha" is a word commonly associated with fundamentalist Christianity, and my brief search of the name being used in Cozumel revealed several uses, including a hotel. I also found a fishing...

Since this has turned into a "what if...?" thread, I figured I would point out that the key factor is what I have often called the second rule of scuba--don't panic! A primary example of this is seen in a video that has appeared often on scuba media, including SB, with the viewers usually...

Remember the context in this thread--the diver was supposedly so severely overweighted that she could not swim it up. Also remember that we really don't know what happened, so we are speaking hypothetically.

Yes, very much so. The standard weight check process for single tank diving is to be able to float at eye level without kicking with an empty BCD and while holding a normal breath. Sadly, the instructional process of teaching skills to kneeling divers requires that they be significantly...

Really? I don't think I have ever seen any post say that, let alone seen it "all too often." What I have seen frequently are posts saying that the cases in which dropping lead is necessary are far fewer than many people think, that dropping weights would make no difference in the overwhelming...

The simple answer is that if you jump into the water with your valve shut off and the BCD uninflated, you will not get any air when you inhale, and you will not be able to inflate your BCD. If you are as overweighted as most beginning divers are, then you will sink like a stone and be unable to...

In Colorado, about 80% of all dives are done by completing the academic and pool positions of the course locally and then doing the open water dives somewhere else, either with the shop that did the initial training or via a referral to somewhere else. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact...

You may have misunderstood this. It is probably for a scuba diver course, which is not full open water. Open Water certification requires a full 4 open water dives.

A good PADI shop near you is Flatirons Scuba in Broomfield. Before choosing an instructor internship program, do more of your planned travels and get more experience. There are fine programs all around the world, some not far from your planned stop i Costa Rica. You will no doubt have people...

In my 21 years on ScubaBoard, this is one of the most common thread topics. Instructors always talk about the need to drop weights, but they rarely talk about the circumstances that would lead to it, possibly because the need is so rare it would contradict their message about dropping weights...

The incident was 8 years ago. Last year he and another amputee competed in a cage fight. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-31/amputee-athletes-make-history-in-mma-cage-fight/103917828