You are wanting to argue semantics with a strawman argument. There are people on this thread, people well educated and masters at diving who have sugested that you get a refresher course. You dive very little in comparison to others, and you could only benefit from taking a refresher before you take a dive holiday. They are not suggesting that you do this becuase they do not like you, or they have nothing better to do. They do this, becuase by your own admission, you have dove 30 dives in 15 years. NOT a monumental amount by any stretch of imagination, save for someone who has never dove at all.
At question is not whether a master diver who dives 1oo times a year has memory or skill fade, but whether YOU have skill fade. You seem to have this belief that you can strategize your way through the whole thing. If you wish to continue to dive, there are just some obstacles you will have to engage. Whether that is paying for additional classes, your own gear, or more dives. As it is, you say you rent gear, however , if you obtain your friends gear, you will then have the burden of taking care of that gear, cleaning it, having it serviced, at additional cost to you. This, like diving, is not an endevour you should take without concideration. Because if you will not put forth the time and money to maintain that gear, just as one would maintain a skill, then it is not a wise investment. Because it is your LIFE SUPPORT under water, just as your TRAINING is your LIFE SUPPORT. If either one falters, then you become a statistic. If you become a statistic, you may very well be THE statistic that makes it harder for those of us who do dive more than twice or thrice a year, to dive. That goes without saying that you owe it to your family and yourself to keep from becoming a statistic. Given the snippiness of your last post, I expect nothing less in following. But you do not seem to appreciate the depth of the obligation you have as a diver, nor of the importance of the advice given to you, by people who have spent the time to gather the knowledge to be able to advise you.
Yeah... this is getting off topic but I had checked out dive shops in Cabo and contacted them. Ended up none could accommodate the shore leave time of the cruise ship. The killer was when I told them, "the cruise ship arrives at xxxx and we have to return by xxxx". This was because most tours, running on local time, have already left by the time even the first tender boat would have arrived. In contrast, the tour associated with the cruise was specifically chartered for the ship's schedule.
Anyways, all points taken by all posts. I'm shopping around for refresher courses.
I'd like to point out that fade happens as quick as 1 month, probably less. 12 months is pretty arbitrary; someone who dove 11 mo, 29 days ago is still a master but someone 12 mo and 1 day is not? Of course not. Now while most of you regulars on the board are frequent divers enough to never have to worry about the 12 mo window, there are a lot of certified divers who don't get out as much. And just because someone logged a dive a month ago doesn't mean that they are suddenly refreshed to mastery level of emergency procedures. So it would seem that everyone would need a refresher course on emergency procedures no matter how many dives you've logged.
