Search results

DMs get all the girls. Us lowly instructors just get to chat with old fat people that are afraid of water. Oh well.

Utila is probably a good bet. It's inexpensive, it's full of young people, it's cute, it has a very prolific night life, and it's fun. The diving is good, nothing to write home about if you have dived many places in the world, which is not your case apparently, so you will surely enjoy the...

Well, diving is not a sport. More of a hobby really. Have you seen most divers? Would you call that in shape? Hehe.

Again, I understand your feeling, but the proper instructor could have advanced your skills. It is not AOW´s fault, but the instructor´s, inmho. Find good instructors, take private classes, and then receive the type of two way interaction that would make ANY class, worth it.

Let's also be honest. There's a lot of "old school" (and not so old school too) divers with experience who believe there is nothing to learn. Most recreational-only dive instructors from tropical destinations fit that bill. I agree that the curricula from a regular AOW course could prove boring...

Wookie, I feel for you. Last year I was diving in Cuba with some friends and one of them was hunting lion fish. He missed with the spear, and the lion fish decided I was sort of a cave and swam right below me. I never knew. My friend started to signal to me, in a "quiet and calm manner". I...

KISS (keep it simple stupid) always wins in my book. Go hog, you wont regret it.

I direct TV commercials for a living. Done some work in feature films too when I was younger, still working on my first film. It gives me a lot of flexibility to travel, to scuba dive, to be an instructor whenever I need something different, etc. I really love my job, but love doing other stuff too.

Cecilia, you should then think about pursuing Divemaster training. That wayyou can be a "certified" assistant to instructors. It will make it more probable that someone will offer you any kind of paying or non paying job. There is quite a few places where you could get your DM rating, and that...

I hate resorts, of any kind. I like freedom, I like to know different stuff. For people like myself, I would recommend staying at The Lighthouse (a nice hotel, at the end of the road where the bridge is) very close to downtown (but still secluded from noise), and very close to many dive centers...

Dear lord ... recreational diving stupidity at it´s fullest.

Protune is NOT raw!! It is just a better recording mode in terms of amplitude and bitrate. RAW implies many other things that ProTune does not accomplish. WB is pre set in ProTune too.

I used to smoke 2 - 3 packs a day. I quit smoking 7 years ago. I will never go back to smoking. I couldn´t care less if someone smokes. I would not date a chain smoker, definetively. But my current gf smokes one or two cigs a day, and Im fine with that. I usually share boats with smokers, but...

I would probably take a look at Interjet (interjet.com.mx) and Volaris (volaris.com.mx) for cheap flights from Mexico City to Cozumel. Bear in mind the baggage allowances are very low, so it´s a good idea to prepay (in Volaris this is possible, not with Interjet) for some extra allowance. I...

This is a very interesting thread, because Chatterton IS a diving legend. No doubt about it. He is not the type of diver I would probably choose to dive with, because he is into a kind of diving I do not share a passion for. Being a diving legend does not equal him being right. There is a...

In other words, going back to the basics of team diving philosophy, don´t try to solve a lack of skills with equipment / or by justifying stupidity. You can plan ANY dive with sufficient spare gas, in particular in a team of more than two. The minute you start adding capable team mates to the...

I am a firm believer in the team diving mentality. I believe in it, I like it, and I really don´t like diving alone (in all the different meanings of the word). I will teach the team mentality from day one. I will want the people I dive with to have that same mentality. I have never felt more at...

I completely agree. That´s why there are so many instructors that are lousy divers. There should be a filter that prevents that. There is none. And that is the big portion of the real problem.

It´s more like being a kid out of high school and thinking, "hey dad, I want to teach medicine". He can be a doctor (a diver), some of us complain how many want to teach other doctors without even stepping foot inside the hospital.

I have four quick comments on what you are thinking. 1 - You seem still to be a very new diver, probably not ready yet for any level of cave training, but then again, training is always good, you might fail the course, but you will still get some of the best dive training available. Make sure...