Why you should Rock a Rubber Suit!
If you are simply diving for pleasure and not intending on exposing yourself to any toxic waste you should still be aware of the existence of vulcanized rubber suits, particularly those with the Swedish Viking brand and specifically their old Sport and new ProVSN drysuits.
Categories: Drysuit diving, featured, Scuba Diving products Tags: Drysuit diving, scuba drysuit, scuba gear, used scuba gear
The World’s Best Shark Dive
When someone finds out that I photograph sharks for a living, they invariably ask two questions: Have I ever been bitten and where is the best place to dive with sharks. I’m pretty good at answering the first question: “No, I haven’t. In fact, most sharks want nothing to do with me. I have to hold my breath and avoid eye contact just to get close to them”. This often leads to a period of confusion and disbelief followed by a funny look of disappointment. Then they generally walk away nursing their shaken preconceptions. I can’t be sure but I think a lot of them are thinking; what does he know? He just photographs them. I’ve seen Jaws. This guy is an idiot. The second question is vastly more difficult to answer because I have never been able to decide where the best place to go shark diving is. It [...]
Categories: featured, Scuba diving destinations, Shark Diving, Types of Diving Tags: Cocos Island, Fish Rock, Guadalupe Island, jaws, shark attack, shark dive, shark diving, sharks
Better Underwater Propulsion: 5 kicks to improve your diving
To a new diver, propulsion is achieved by any means necessary. The use of legs, arms, hands, large marine animals, currents and other divers are all useful elements in completing the journey from Sponge A to Coral Head B. In defense of the new diver, rarely is propulsion explained let alone practiced in a basic or advanced scuba class. A new diver might be told to kick from the hip, point their toes, don’t bend the knees, don’t bicycle kick, etc. To a new diver propulsion means wiggling your feet until you get to the other side of the pool and if that is too difficult you can buy a different pair of fins that will be easier on the legs. For DIR education, proper propulsion techniques are an essential part. After a diver develops a solid base of buoyancy control along with body mechanics and trim, different propulsion techniques are added [...]
Cano Island Diving
Cano island is on the south pacific coast of Costa Rica. From my base in Manual Antonio it is around a 2 hour boat ride south, but that is going to reduced soon, thanks to the arrival of speedier transport. Cano island is a national park in itself so is subject to certain rules and regulations when visiting. You have to make reservations to start with , no rocking up the day of, and even when you are there you have to check before you dive, as there are limits to only 10 divers per sight. The north side of the island is the side that is open to the public and home to a ranger station and some very basic facilities. The reef runs all around the island but there are 7 specific dive spots that are drop points for diving. Saying that, most of the diving seems to [...]
Welcome to the Dark Side — Closed Circuit Rebreathers
By now most of you must have heard of, if not yet tried a rebreather unit of some type. They fall into two main types Semi Closed units and Fully Closed units, to me in this present day and age the semi closed units (SCR’s) have out lasted there use and are pretty well obsolete except for specialised shallow diving, they were and are a stepping stone away from Open Circuit diving (SCUBA toward the world of true Closed Circuit Rebreather diving (CCR). Most rebreathers fall under the CCR category which in its self can be split further into two sub categories – Mechanical Closed Circuit Rebreathers (MCCR) or Electronic Closed Circuit Rebreathers (ECCR). The reason for these two sub-categories is mainly due to the fact that some people do not trust their life to a unit controlled by an electrical technology well underwater, others like me “trust the technology” [...]
Categories: Rebreathers Tags: Closed Circuit Rebreathers, dark side of diving, rebreather diving
Drysuit or BC for Buoyancy? BC of course!
When using a drysuit divers will need to add air to their suit on descent to avoid the accompanying, potentially painful, squeeze that is explained by Boyle’s law and the associated increase in pressure. Since drysuits themselves provide little or no thermal protection, insulating underwear is required to prevent hypothermia. This underwear needs a certain amount of loft to be effective. So, as well as adding air to avoid squeeze, divers must also add air on descent to maintain loft and remain warm. All the air added should be there solely to equalize the compression that occurs with increased depth – the diver is equalizing the airspace inside the suit in order to remain comfortable and warm. Additional adjustments may be required for buoyancy control and these should be made by adding air to or subtracting air from… the Buoyancy Control Device (whether that is a traditional BCD or a [...]
Categories: Drysuit diving Tags: buoyancy, drysuit, Drysuit diving, underwater buoyancy
The biggest threat to coral reefs: Prices on Underwater cameras.
It’s been said that every photo taken of you shortens your life with one day. I’m not sure that this is intierly true since people like Brittney Speers is still around. However, Anna Nicole Smith might be of a different opinion. I am sure though, that this is true for the coral reefs in tourist dense areas. Divers have become the new “Japanese”… The last few years the prices for under water housings for cameras has dropped like a dumped weight belt at the same time as digital cameras has become everyone’s toy. I’m not sure if this is a blessing or a curse. All of the sudden the majority of divers coming to dive the Red Sea carry a digital camera with an under water housing. Some small pocket cameras some big semi-pro cameras and most of them first time users that bought their photo equipment just before leaving [...]
Categories: Underwater Photography Tags: prices of underwater cameras, underwater cameras, Underwater Photography
The Dogfish Debate
The spiny dogfish Squalus acanthias is not the type of sexy shark that Spielberg would make a movie about. No one has ever been terrorized by a mud shark. Fishermen sometimes get jabbed by a fin spine when they are trying to remove dogfish from their nets but other than that dogfish are more or less harmless. Perhaps that was true until a few years ago when (according to fishermen) spiny dogfish became public enemy number one. If they are to be believed, dogfish are now the biggest natural threat to the survival of Western Atlantic fisheries. The problem arises from a potential miscalculation on the part of researchers. Fisheries surveys conducted along the eastern seaboard of the US some years ago, indicated that although there were quite a few dogfish still at large, almost all of them were male. This led to fears that the population was heading for [...]
Categories: Shark Diving Tags: over fishing., sharks, spiny dogfish
Rock Bottom- Rethinking the 500psi Gas Rule
Throughout the world, divers are told again and again to return to the boat with 300-500 psi in their tanks. Understandably, most competent divers stretch their bottom time out as long as they can. They smile as they show their pressure gauges to the dive master upon surfacing and then compare gauges with other divers in order to see who the closest one to 301psi is. Getting the most bottom time underwater is a fun game to play with buddies and I’m not saying that divers shouldn’t use as much of their tanks as possible. However the question becomes, “Is this the smartest way to plan gas?” What exactly is the goal of leaving some air in our tanks? To help a buddy in need, to keep water out of our tanks, to inflate our BCD’s at the surface? Many divers use the 1/3’s rule, but even this plan has [...]
Categories: DIR Tags: DIR, gas management, gas planning, rock bottom
The Law of Primacy- Kneeling on the bottom
Most scuba instruction begins with the new diver breathing from a regulator in shallow water on their knees. These are the first few breaths that transform thousands of people every year from pavement praising pedestrians into aquatic adventurers. Over-weighted, the negatively buoyant student diver begins to grow more comfortable with the workings of a demand valve regulator. It is from this kneeling position on the bottom of the pool that students are introduced to various skills necessary for learning to scuba dive. DIR education is trying to change this behavior and enlighten new divers and instructors to the logic behind neutrally buoyant skill development. For a student diver, the position of kneeling negatively buoyant on the bottom of the pool becomes a basic ready position. Stable and rooted, the student learns to remove and replace their regulator and partially flood and clear their mask. Eventually, more advanced skills are introduced [...]
Categories: DIR Tags: DIR educational Model, DIR training, Scuba Education
