Search results

I second the recommendation of Blue Label Diving - however the company doesn't exist in the same form as before. I believe it was acquired by Sea Bees. My favorite instructor from Blue Label, Claus Rasmussen, is offering courses in a new setup: https://techdiveasia.com/ I did TDI Advanced...

Is that actually true? I don't seem to recall a lot of those.

Don't do that. That's what I tried at first but ended up with fins that were good for neither. Get one pair that is good for cold water and one pair that is good for traveling to warm places. For cold water and a drysuit you will prefer some nice, heavy fins. For warm water and travelling you...

On the Garmin Descent you can disable the deco lockout feature: Descent Mk1 - Dive Setup I dive with a Shearwater Perdix as my primary and the Garmin Descent as my backup. The both use Buhlmann with gradient factors.

I would definitely not dive without somebody qualified and capable to move the boat to pick up/search for divers aboard the boat. It is easy to imagine a situation where the divers would not be able to swim back to the boat themselves.

... if they are both filled to their rated maximum pressure. This seems useful to me if you are in the process of purchasing a cylinder, but less useful while diving. If I have an LP100 cylinder on my back and look at my pressure gauge, then there is no way to calculate the remaining volume of...

I have had good experiences with Scubafish. You might want to consider paying a bit extra for a private guide to get all your wishes fulfilled. Here is why: - The bottom time is likely to be limited by the fastest breather in the group. Unless you find a shop that is willing to let you surface...

I dive in Thailand with a 3.5 mm full suit. Personally I don't find "too warm" to be a real concern while diving, but "too cold" definitely is. So unless you are trying to minimize the amount of luggage you have to carry, I would bring the 3mm full suit if I were you.

Thank you for the nice write-up of the dive as you experienced it. I agree with your "lesson learned". The lesson not to learn is "Hey, I managed to dive congested and made it up OK. That means I can manage it another time too." What would have happened if, at some point in that dive...

I dive with a spare mask in my pocket on every dive. Therefore I also travel with two masks. It is a basic piece of equipment redundancy that changes a potentially very difficult equipment malfunction situation into one that is easily solved. My spare mask is quite similar to my primary, but a...

I went to Koh Tao in January 2018 with Lomprayah, and there *is* a weight limit on the ferry. On the way out, they didn't check my bag, but on the way back they did and I had to pay extra. I don't remember the amount they charged me but it wasn't enough to cause me a lot of concern. My bag was...

Personally I think two days is too short for a Similans trip. I would recommend a 4 days/4 nights liveaboard or longer. I have seen mantas at Koh Bon on 2 trips, both times in February, but sightings happen at many different times of the season. I have been to Koh Bon on maybe 10 other trips...

Get your friend Advanced Open Water certified first. Then go on a liveaboard to Similans/Richelieu/Koh Bon/Koh Tachai for at least 4D/4N. Preferably more. Liveaboard is by far the best way to dive in Thailand IMO if you don't have non-divers with you that you have to take care of...

In my experience, the rate for booking extra checked baggage on e.g. Air Asia is quite reasonable. I usually just book a 30 kg checked bag so that I know that my big bag of diving equipment will be accepted without issues.

You should definitely aim to be able to do the hover before you complete your DSMB training, though. That is the key to being able to control it in open water too. Additionally, before you even start to retrieve you DSMB from your pocket, make sure you are already in a stable hover. Taking a...

If you have a little bit of extra weight on while practicing in the pool, you will be able to reel down the DSMB from depth while deflating your BCD to compensate for the extra lift. You can deflate the DSMB underwater and repeat your exercise. Do all this while hovering 30 cm from the bottom of...

If I were you I would also consider a long weekend liveaboard on one of the Tapanas: http://tapanaliveaboard.com/booking/

I dive a full 3.5mm suit in Thailand. Last time I was there (January this year) the temperature was 28 degrees C at the Similan islands, even at depth, and my suit was comfortable. On the same trip I also went to Koh Tao where the temperature was 26 degrees and I was shivering from cold and very...

I just bought a new dive computer and since I previously used an Uwatec Galileo Sol, I narrowed down my choice to be between the Scubagro G2 and Shearwater Perdix AI. I also want to be able to "adjust it to be conservative". In fact, I find that to be important. The Shearwater offers gradient...

I am not sure how you define success for this poll. Can you give an example of what you would like the resulting numbers to be used for? My numbers are very different depending on what kind of diving I am doing. When tropical fun diving, my consumption is lower. Cold water drysuit diving...