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Crunkjuice posted:Not to say 14,000 is an accurate number, wikipedia says 13,000. Also, not all of that is scuba. He's a coast guard certified submersible pilot with over 900 dives in the SeaMagine SeaMobile. Holds longest distance traveled by a diver (52 miles in 9.5 hours). Been diving for over 35 years. Aaaaand was a combat diver for 15. My biggest question regarding this is since the guy clearly knows his stuff, why did he let his girlfriend use that shop? I don't blame him for trying to let her learn from someone else and keeping emotion out of it, but surely he must have buddies he could trust who are instructors.
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Mar 23, 2013 06:09
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There's tons of stuff that set off my bullshit meter in tht story but word on scuba board is the instructors got suspended so something went down just probably not quite the attempted murder described. Currently on my way to a dive show, hope I don't spend too much money 
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Mar 23, 2013 12:20
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:There's tons of stuff that set off my bullshit meter in tht story but word on scuba board is the instructors got suspended so something went down just probably not quite the attempted murder described. Write a little trip report would ya? I've never been to one and I'd be curious about the setup, size, booths, your general impressions.
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Mar 23, 2013 13:20
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Hello, SCUBA goons. I recently did my first dive off the Coromandel peninsula in New Zealand, and I think I'm hooked. Only one easy dive, but it was really awesome, and I want to do more, and reading this thread just makes me want to do it even more than I already did. I want to take my PADI Open Water, but I was wondering how I can go about that once I'm home, being that I live in Saskatchewan. The shop I looked at does lake and pool dives, since that's all we have to dive in. So, I guess I have a few questions. How does lake diving compare to being in the ocean? Should I take the course at home, or make a trip out of it and get my cert in Koh Tao or something? I was thinking a trip would be a better idea AFTER I'm certified, but does it make much of a difference at that level? Has anyone done any ice diving? It seems interesting. I'm about to beggar myself, aren't I?
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Mar 23, 2013 23:34
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You can become a certified Open Water diver in SE Asia in 3 to 4 intensive training days. You will technically meet all performance requirements, but whether or not you become a competent diver after that is going to be hit and miss. On the other hand, some of the worst divers I 've seen were trained in Australia, where they supposedly take their time to really train their divers. I think a good compromise would be to do an Open Water course at a capable shop in Southeast Asia and stay a few more days to fun dive to get yourself some more experience. I work on Koh Tao so while I wont tout my own shop, I do know which shops here give the island a bad name. Feel free to PM me for Koh Tao talk.
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Mar 24, 2013 23:42
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I just had my appendix removed and my surgeon said that I should be able to get back into diving in about 4 weeks. Does this sound about right? Has anyone else resumed diving shortly after an appendectomy? Any tips/suggestions?
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Mar 25, 2013 05:16
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ehnus posted:I just had my appendix removed and my surgeon said that I should be able to get back into diving in about 4 weeks. Does this sound about right? Fuuuu, I could barely wait 2 weeks after getting my wisdom teeth out. As for how many weeks you should stay out of the water, I would honestly just call DAN.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:19
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ehnus posted:I just had my appendix removed and my surgeon said that I should be able to get back into diving in about 4 weeks. Does this sound about right? Listen to your surgeon. Or tell your surgeon they are wrong because the people on SA forums told you so.
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Mar 25, 2013 13:52
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Gargonovitch posted:Hello, SCUBA goons. You can get good quality instruction anywhere but I think it makes the most sense to try to take your training locally, especially if you plan on diving locally. Diving in cold water lakes with low visibility is a lot more equipment intensive and can make you better aware of your surroundings. Lake diving can be pretty cool (pun intended), cold temperatures and fresh water can preserve wrecks and artifacts very well. You can find wrecks that have intact wood carving that are 200-300 years old. I like ocean diving better though, bigger variety of life, coral reefs, etc. Koh Tao is basically one giant open water factory. I think that the entire island turns out more certified divers in a day than most dive shops do in a year. That doesn't mean it's bad, you can get instructors that have tons of experience teaching open water students and/or you'll get instructors that rush and cut corners. One option is to do a combination of both. You can do all your classroom and pool work back home and then do your checkout dives somewhere warm. This is very common and is called an open water referral. Almost all dive shops can do this. It gives you the best of both worlds, hopefully good quality instruction at a slow and reasonable pace and then you'll do 4 checkout dives in warm/clear surroundings then when you're done you can spend the rest of your holiday diving. The plus side of doing all your open water training in a place like Koh Tao is that it can be cheap, very cheap. Cheap doesnt necessarily mean bad instruction. Just do a little research before choosing a dive shop and you would be fine. Don't just pick any random dive shop or guy off the street. As for ice diving, I've only done it once and I can't comment too much. Watch this youtube video if you haven't yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs00QjiJZQ
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Mar 25, 2013 17:02
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Bishop posted:Unless they seem to be naturally OCD, I distrust people that know exactly how many dives or underwater hours they have logged. I know for sure that I have no idea exactly how many dives I have made with a margin of error of around 200. SlicerDicer posted:Well I have somewhere around umm 400 hours on my rebreather give or take 50.. but thats easy to calculate as I know how much how often I dive :P Ohh and I dive WAY More than most people and deeper than most too! I agree with both of you. I really have no idea how many dives I have but I suppose I can make a estimate. I will have been certified for 11 years this August; I stopped logging dives for a period for 4-5 years and I was never really good about logging when I first got certified. In the last 3 years I decided it made sense to log my dives so I've been keeping an excel spreadsheet. There were some years where I was really active and didn't log entire trips where I did multiple dives for 2-3 weeks. I average 100-150 dives a year based on the last 3 years (145 dives in 2012) which I think is pretty good for someone who lives in a cold climate and doesn't work full-time as a dive professional. I think this year is going to be a smaller number of dives since I'll be doing longer deco dives. (quality/length of time over quantity of dives). I tend to give instructors/divemasters working in warm climates the benefit of the doubt when they talk about their dive count since some of them can dive 4x a day. People around here that claim to have 1500-3000 dives and have only been certified at most 5 years piss me off. It's pretty trivial math to realize they're full of poo poo. Even at 150 dives x 5 years is ~750 dives. I know these people are'nt doing liveaboards twice a year and I know for a fact I dive more than them. Not sure where I am going with this but I think I'm just venting. My bullshit meter immediately goes off when people start rattling about the number of dives they have.
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Mar 25, 2013 17:27
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Orions Lord posted:Listen to your surgeon. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on going any sooner than what my surgeon has said, I just want to know if anyone else has had an appendectomy and what it was like when they resumed diving at around the time their surgeon said they could. Would you have waited longer? Did it feel alright? Did you do any core strengthening muscle workouts first?
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Mar 25, 2013 19:37
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ehnus posted:Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on going any sooner than what my surgeon has said, I just want to know if anyone else has had an appendectomy and what it was like when they resumed diving at around the time their surgeon said they could. Would you have waited longer? Did it feel alright? Did you do any core strengthening muscle workouts first? Call the DAN number, they will talk to you even if you don't have a membership (but if your a diver you should have a DAN membership!), they will have all the stats to back things up, and you should be able to talk to a doctor who knows his stuff, but like most things it will depend on you and how well you have healed. As much as it sucks, its better to wait a few extra weeks to be safe, than dive too early and get hosed up.
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Mar 25, 2013 21:05
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ehnus posted:Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on going any sooner than what my surgeon has said, I just want to know if anyone else has had an appendectomy and what it was like when they resumed diving at around the time their surgeon said they could. Would you have waited longer? Did it feel alright? Did you do any core strengthening muscle workouts first? I figure the biggest worry would be gearing up/gearing down, where you have to bend/stretch/lift a lot of crap. If you're worried about pain and such, i'd assemble your gear on land/boat and ask a buddy to toss it in the water for you to put it on and have someone grab it out of the water when you're done. If you avoid the heavy lifting, i wouldn't imagine you'd get any more pain than swimming. Oh, if your doc allows it, try some swimming beforehand. If you're comfortable swimming, you'll be fine diving.
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Mar 25, 2013 21:19
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Gargonovitch posted:The shop I looked at does lake and pool dives, since that's all we have to dive in. So, I guess I have a few questions:
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Mar 25, 2013 22:16
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So, first day of diving in St. Croix and the brand new transmitter for my Galileo Luna starts to crap out as soon as I get in the water, treating all of my fellow divers to a musical serenade for the entire first dive. I had stupidly turned on the audible warning for losing transmitter signal, and I spent most of my dive with my hands on my head, trying to keep it close as possible to the transmitter to shut it up. This afternoon I took it apart in the dive shop and SURPRISE Scubapro has changed out the CR2450 battery with the new, easy-to-find-on-an-island Varta 6237 CR2/3AA 3V. They haven't even changed the manual, so I'm glad I didn't buy a bunch of backups ahead of time. Thanks Scubapro! You dicks!
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Mar 25, 2013 23:14
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Bishop posted:One thing everyone in this thread agrees on is that the quality of your instructor is the most important consideration. Now if it's equal, I'd do my class work and skills dives over a couple of weekends while at home. You'll have more time to study and digest the material, more access to to your instructor/DM, and you won't feel as pressed for time. I agree with most of this, but with one exception. The only legit dive spot near me is a quarry, which Bishop knows (joes quarry in Oldham county), and if we had done our checkout dives there, I think we would have missed out on a lot. I also think my wife wouldnt have beenas interested in continuing as me, since i was always the water lover of our relationship fromswim team and all that poo poo. We did our OW in two Carribean trips, one in the BVI for our Scuba Diver cert and one to finish our OW in Curaçao. Now, we got spoiled by it, but the flip side is that as soon as the two of us finished our skills, we went off diving the closest reef and that showed us what we could look forward to. It also helped that we lucked out and were the only two students for a good instructor both times. So, we spent more than we needed to and wasted days in paradise reading the book, taking the test, doing confined dives, etc, but I do not regret doing our skills tests there. I vote you do book work and confined dives locally, the do your open water skills dives somewhere with a reef. Just my opinion, and my wife and I are nowhere near the skill level of the average poster in this thread let alone Bishop or most of the others that have replied to you, so take it with a grain of salt. E: iPad typos let it mellow fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 02:50
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Thanks guys, I talked to DAN and they said their guideline for resuming diving after general surgery is to wait twice as long as what a surgeon recommends for resumption of normal activity. edit: They also recommended diving more conservative profiles for a while (ie: using nitrox but planning your dive times for air, longer surface intervals, etc.). ehnus fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 16:39
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Well that backfired!
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Mar 26, 2013 16:46
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Heh, yeah, but four extra weeks out of the water beats a weekend in the chamber.
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Mar 26, 2013 17:24
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Does anyone use or have experience with the Nautilus Lifeline emergency radio/rescue beacon thing. I was thinking of getting two for myself (one with me and one to leave with the boat crew) as some of the little boats in this region don't even have radios. I've already got my smb and i'm waiting on a Dive Alert siren i ordered, plus i'll be grabbing some surface dye and a signalling mirror this weekend. Overkill for a newbie diver or just being prudent? A few of my casual friends that dive don't even seem to know about all this stuff, they just go on diving holidays where they use rental equipment and follow the DMs around. They are wondering why i'm being so paranoid but i figure we are all responsible for our own safety and what's a few hundred bucks to increase the chances of survival in the event of an emergency/getting lost.
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Mar 27, 2013 05:58
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raffie posted:Does anyone use or have experience with the Nautilus Lifeline emergency radio/rescue beacon thing. I was thinking of getting two for myself (one with me and one to leave with the boat crew) as some of the little boats in this region don't even have radios. I've already got my smb and i'm waiting on a Dive Alert siren i ordered, plus i'll be grabbing some surface dye and a signalling mirror this weekend. No personal experience, but my shop sells them a whole bunch. I'm gonna turn off the DM salesman and give my honest opinion. They are solid devices. You let your boat know what frequency its on, it operates on emergency frequencies that all navy/coast guards hear. If you have one, you'll be able to get help. Honest chances of being in a dive emergency are small, but if you happen in one they can be a real help. You can get away with cheaper GPS/ marine radio options, but the nautilus lifeline is a solid unit.
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Mar 27, 2013 07:00
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jackyl posted:I agree with most of this, but I am are nowhere near the skill level of the average poster in this thread let alone Bishop or most of the others that have replied to you, so take it with a grain of salt. Bishop fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Mar 27, 2013 |
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Mar 27, 2013 08:08
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Crunkjuice posted:No personal experience, but my shop sells them a whole bunch. I'm gonna turn off the DM salesman and give my honest opinion. They are solid devices. You let your boat know what frequency its on, it operates on emergency frequencies that all navy/coast guards hear. If you have one, you'll be able to get help. Thanks, good to know they're solid units and not just some flashy marketing. I think i will make the investment and probably get two units.
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Mar 27, 2013 10:42
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Crunkjuice posted:No personal experience, but my shop sells them a whole bunch. I'm gonna turn off the DM salesman and give my honest opinion. They are solid devices. You let your boat know what frequency its on, it operates on emergency frequencies that all navy/coast guards hear. If you have one, you'll be able to get help. I have no personal experience either but I know Aldora Divers in Cozumel has all their DMs carry one if they're diving far northern sites or east side of the island. The reason being, there are very few support boats at these sites and if you get caught in a strong current the next stop is Cuba. See this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/411877-nautilus-lifeline.html They've tested them and are able to call back to home office (downtown) and the boat although I guess while the boat could hear them, the boat had trouble communicating with them. I would imagine Coast Guard/Navy has better antenna. If I had the extra money and I was diving in remote places or places with unpredictable current then I would probably invest in one.
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Mar 27, 2013 17:34
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Bishop posted:Meh I'm just an average level tech diver that has also been a goon since before he saw goatse. I come across divers with resumes that would bury me on a regular basis. GOATSE!!!!! rectum drat near killed em. Had some pretty incredible shark encounters yesterday was awesome.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:25
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Bishop posted:Meh I'm just an average level tech diver that has also been a goon since before he saw goatse. I come across divers with resumes that would bury me on a regular basis. Haha, I was introduced to the goat by the LLJK forum here too. Come to Bimini Derby weekend and let's go diving! E: Jeddite posted:let it mellow fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 03:35
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Anyone ever been diving in Malaysia? I'm visiting a friend who lives in Kuala Lumpur this summer and we're thinking of taking 4 days or so to go diving somewhere within the country. I hear the best diving in Malaysia is near Indonesia but it would be great to get some really specific recommendations.
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Mar 28, 2013 03:44
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I was just there! I went to Semporna, on the east coast of Borneo. The diving in the area is definitely macro-based; lots of tiny things to see (especially nudibranchs). I did some diving around Semporna, but the real gem was Mabul and particularly Sipadan. Sipadan is a national park with some very beautiful reefs, and a turtle preserve. You can see sharks, bumphead parrotfish, and a huge school of barracuda, among other things. You need a special permit to dive Sipadan, usually with conditions (2 days local diving, 1 day Sipadan). I did 2 days on Sipadan, so I had to buy 4 non-Sipadan days (worth it though). I went with Scuba Junkie. They have a shop in Semporna and a resort on Mabul Island, which is close to Sipadan. I recommend diving around Mabul and Kapalai Islands over the Semporna area. There's garbage everywhere in the sea, but it's less pronounced near the islands away from the mainland. There truly is garbage everywhere and it made me sad. I tried to pick some up as I was doing my dive, but after a while I just gave up since there's so much and poverty is so endemic. It's really a bummer. I didn't see any around Sipadan though. I posted pics a few pages back, so take a gander. If you're not tied to the idea of Malaysia, then I recommend Palau, my most favorite-ist place in the world to dive.
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Mar 28, 2013 04:43
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Trivia posted:If you're not tied to the idea of Malaysia, then I recommend Palau, my most favorite-ist place in the world to dive. Its so expensive to travel and dive 
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Mar 28, 2013 04:59
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Trivia posted:I was just there! Awesome, very helpful. I'd love to go to Palau but I'm short for time and money this summer. I'm giving a talk at a conference on Korea and parlaying that into a quick trip to Malaysia the week before. Palau is just a bit too far for a 4-5 day trip from KL where my friend lives. I'll have to convince a university in Guam or something to pay for me to come give a talk to get to Palau another time. How challenging was the diving in Semporna? I've got an AOW and 300ish dives (+- 100 or so, it's hard to keep track), but my friend is pretty new. How are the typical currents and depths? Speaking of which, if anyone enjoys diving in strong currents, my dad and I did some fantastic fast-current diving in Fiji's Somosomo strait and Naiqoro passage a few years back. Both locations have dives that are like underwater rollercoasters. And we saw a mantis shrimp and a ribbon moray! There was another amazing site with several thousand blue tangs but neither of us had a camera for that one, unfortunately.   edit: here's another good one from Naiqoro with 6+ baby whitetips hiding under some coral:  This one was taken below 30 meters, I'm surprised at how much red came through in our lovely camera. Oakland Martini fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 05:14
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SlicerDicer posted:Its so expensive to travel and dive Part of why I became an academic is to get free international travel.
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Mar 28, 2013 05:22
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SlicerDicer posted:Its so expensive to travel and dive God, tell me about it. The diving around Semporna and Sipadan is easy, your friend should have no troubles. I went with my girlfriend and she's a total newbie; she had little trouble. You rarely if ever need to go down to 30 meters, usually 20-25. They don't give out free nitrox like Palau operators do though. Sipadan had some stronger currents, but nothing that can't be dodged or floor-creeped. Palau's Blue Corner has some strong currents, but that's a good thing. It attracts the sharks, and you can hook in and take some sweet photos. Going to Palau requires transferring in Japan or Philippines. Going to Sipadan requires going to probably Singapore first, then Kota Kinabalu, then Tawau, then a long rear end taxi ride.
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Mar 28, 2013 06:40
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Oakland Martini posted:
WHITETIP PILEUP!!!! Trivia posted:God, tell me about it. Though thats why I dive twice a week here is it is far cheaper and I can do some really amazing stuff here.
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Mar 28, 2013 07:49
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I'll be in Key Largo for about a week starting friday. PM or post if you want to go diving.
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Mar 28, 2013 07:58
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Oakland Martini posted:Anyone ever been diving in Malaysia? I'm visiting a friend who lives in Kuala Lumpur this summer and we're thinking of taking 4 days or so to go diving somewhere within the country. I hear the best diving in Malaysia is near Indonesia but it would be great to get some really specific recommendations. As Trivia said, Sipadan is the best diving you can find in Malaysia...but. It is at the far end of East Malaysia (Borneo) and the flight from KL to Tawau is almost 3 hours (around 1100 miles) plus a long ride after that to Semporna. So you'll have to factor in the no-fly period after the diving and also consider the limited "slots" given out to divers (120 permits a day if i remember right). On Peninsular Malaysia where KL is there are some islands along the east coast that you can look at for an okay experience. Up along the northern part of the east coast you have places like Pulau Perhentian, Pulau Redang and Pulau Lang Tengah (Pulau means island in Malay). Further down south along the east coast you have Pulau Tioman, Pulau Aur and Pulau Dayang which are popular with singaporean divers (a lot of the dive centres in singapore conduct OW certification there as it is accessible by chartered buses or liveaboards). As KL is closer to the west coast, it might take 5-6 hours to drive to the jetties to access the islands in the north and maybe 3-4 hours to get to Mersing town in the south to catch the ferries to Tioman/Aur/Dayang. The east coast season usually starts in march after the NE monsoons and by the middle of the year the waters should be calmer. There is not much diving on the west coast as it faces the straits of malacca, but next weekend i will be diving at a small cluster of islands along the west coast, about an hour by boat from Lumut (about 2-2.5 hours drive north of Kuala Lumpur). It's supposedly not that great and can be quite murky, but it's the most convenient place from KL where i work and i'm dying to get in the water. There is only one dive centre there and it's a branch of a well-regarded DC at Pulau Perhentian (Quiver Dive). If it's halfway decent i might do regular trips there just to gain more experience.
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Mar 28, 2013 10:08
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Not being able to dive before your flights out is pretty lovely. There's not a whole lot to do in Semporna; though you may be able to schedule a snorkel trip around the local area like I did in Palau. Palau's snorkel trip was awesome in its own right. Can't speak for Malaysia, but I imagine the garbage would slightly tarnish the experience. You could also just spend your time on Mabul Island resort beaches all day. Mabul is small though, and unless you're diving, not much to do. That reminds me, what's everyone's thoughts on doing shallow house reef dives before flights? If you stay within 5 meters would that be feasible, or is it just too risky to attempt? Unlimited house reefs are lots of fun as you can stay down for 2 hours and just piss around doing whatever you want. Also a good opportunity to do some night diving without spending the cash.
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Mar 28, 2013 15:56
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Bishop posted:I'll be in Key Largo for about a week starting friday. PM or post if you want to go diving. Am I crazy for wanting to fly out there to dive on no notice? Is the diving really good there? Are there lots of cool/big animals to see? Roughly what am I looking at a night for a not horrible hotel? Would you mind diving with a beginner?
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Mar 28, 2013 17:11
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Bishop how do you leave the keys? Do you have someone handcuff you put you in a sack and carry you back up north while youre sleeping? Thats what I would need. Oakland Martini posted:This one was taken below 30 meters, I'm surprised at how much red came through in our lovely camera. If you have a flash it doesn't matter how deep you are colors will be true, blueshift comes from sunlight needing to pass through 10-30m+ of water.
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Mar 28, 2013 18:36
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IM FROM THE FUTURE posted:Bishop how do you leave the keys? Do you have someone handcuff you put you in a sack and carry you back up north while youre sleeping? Thats what I would need. You know I grew up mile marker 24 its really easy to leave and go back :P However many people cant handle islands really and truly. So many people think its great but maui does same effect chews up people and regurgitates them out violently. I am a island boy so I got no problems 
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Mar 29, 2013 00:28
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Bishop posted:I'll be in Key Largo for about a week starting friday. PM or post if you want to go diving. Any details on specific stuff you'll be diving and what days? Ive never been to Key Largo before but I was told it is fun. I've got 10+ hour drive down there starting soon
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Mar 29, 2013 01:25
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