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Thank you for the replies! The very closest dive shop to me does in fact stock scubapro and explicitly states that they service their equipment. I'll look into them. Thanks again!
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May 30, 2023 16:30
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DreadLlama posted:I also have this exact question. I've been out of the water for 12 years and seeing a BCD, primary, secondary, and octopus all together for just over $1000 has got me thinking that just maybe I can afford to start diving again. we have been using Hog, Edge, and Gears from Dive Gear Express or Dive Right in Scuba without issue, you can take a class and service them yourself if you are motivated to so. We have two sets of these https://www.diverightinscuba.com/regulatorsoctosregulators-hoggear-d3regulatorset-html.html
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May 30, 2023 16:37
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Is that the padi equipment specialist course, or something else? Because I am very interested in learning to service regulators. Also is Genesis a good brand? This looks like a good deal: https://www.diverightinscuba.com/used-regulator-set-with-dive-computer-r22.html
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May 30, 2023 22:36
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DreadLlama posted:Is that the padi equipment specialist course, or something else? Because I am very interested in learning to service regulators. Online via zoom or in person. I’m not recommending this but I took my regulator apart and it’s a flapper and few o-rings. 1st stage is not something I have monkeyed with and probably won’t
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May 30, 2023 23:05
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DreadLlama posted:Is that the padi equipment specialist course, or something else? Because I am very interested in learning to service regulators. It's a division of Sherwood. My wife and I dive Sherwood exclusively in New England. Their stuff is very basic and very durable, easy to service, and bulletproof in our experience. My wife dives for work and spends hours in the mud counting grass blades and taking sediment cores. She's had zero issues with her Sherwood Magnum and Brute setup. I have a similar, albeit newer setup with the same regs. Their first stages leak a tiny amount of air constantly which keeps them dry internally, which is a huge plus IMHO. I have a Genesis BC that I like. I've used other regs and regardless of all the bells and whistles, I'm sticking with my Sherwood stuff. There are fewer Sherwood shops outside the US and Canada, if that matters to you. The biggest thing is getting parts and service. If your local shop can't or won't service your gear, you're going to have to drive or ship it, which is a huge PITA. sharkytm fucked around with this message at 01:10 on May 31, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 01:07
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Thank you all very much for your advice. In the end I have decided to go with an ex-rental scubapro unit from the nearest dive shop.
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Jun 2, 2023 18:28
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 Snubnose sculpin eating another sculpin, from this AM
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Jun 11, 2023 06:10
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DreadLlama posted:Thank you for the replies! I don’t particularly care for Scubapro’s BCs or fins which seem to be loving everywhere, but I’ve been diving a Mk25/S600/Gen5 Air2 combo for years now, and I literally can not recommend it highly enough. Breathes extremely easy and bone dry in all orientations even with the adjuster closed down, and has a surface adjustment (that is still breathable if you forget) to prevent free-flows. It’s not cheap, but I’ll essentially never have to buy another regset.
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Jun 11, 2023 13:42
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Hey, my institution here in Japan is looking for a new dive safety officer. We're having a hell of a time getting good candidates. Does anyone know where to post job ads for international professional diving gigs?
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Jun 14, 2023 07:01
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Can post with PADI. I think they have an online jobs board. There are also various FB groups.
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Jun 14, 2023 08:42
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Oh good call, thanks! I'm also going to try to post to the AAUS boards but they seem closed right now. Just in case: https://www.oist.jp/careers/diving-safety-officer https://www.oist.jp/careers/marine-field-work-technician The yen has sucked lately so the salaries aren't great, but you know... 
Trig Discipline fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Jun 14, 2023 |
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Jun 14, 2023 12:08
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I got to see a couple whale sharks the other day it’s been a pretty good week.
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Jun 20, 2023 14:30
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Continuing the theme of me hating cameras but liking when others have them (and take pics of me): https://youtube.com/shorts/7gd49Ag-ldM?feature=share3
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Jun 20, 2023 14:55
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Diving The Pit in Yucatan this weekend, will be my first time going somewhat deep after completing Advanced Open Water a few months ago. Wish me luck, nerds.
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Jun 22, 2023 20:26
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Objurium posted:Diving The Pit in Yucatan this weekend, will be my first time going somewhat deep after completing Advanced Open Water a few months ago. Stay within your limits, close to your buddy and ensure you’re checking your air all the time. I haven’t done any blue hole type dives but I hear it can be very easy to accidentally go too deep.
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Jun 22, 2023 22:47
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Red_Fred posted:I haven’t done any blue hole type dives but I hear it can be very easy to accidentally go too deep. Something to keep in mind for deep wall dives in general.
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Jun 23, 2023 00:05
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Red_Fred posted:Stay within your limits, close to your buddy and ensure you’re checking your air all the time. Good advice. Here's a sculpin having a good day and another fish having a bad day. 
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Jun 23, 2023 00:19
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ploots posted:I got to see a couple whale sharks the other day it’s been a pretty good week. There was a guy on the boat who was clearly unprepared. Over the course of the week he tried every item on the menu of equipment problems: tank slipped out, lost a weight belt, mask outside of his hood, could never get his gloves on, unraveled his SMB and spool a couple of times. He complained about his rental computer a bit. One of his friends took a look at it on the third day - he'd put it in gauge mode and not realized 
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Jun 25, 2023 19:54
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Dive was incredible, we had The Pit all to ourselves with absolutely unreal water clarity, topped out at 104" and didn't get narcd.  I've got a ton of photos and video from this dive, Angelita, and Cenotes Tak Bi Lum / Tak Bi Ha. I'll post a trip report if there's interest.
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Jun 26, 2023 11:52
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Objurium posted:Dive was incredible, we had The Pit all to ourselves with absolutely unreal water clarity, topped out at 104" and didn't get narcd. Pretty hard to get narcosis at under 9 feet.  I'm interested in a trip report, mostly because I'll never get there.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:13
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Definitely interested in seeing those photos! I went there a few years ago, and all my footage is pretty useless since it was so dark. Did you jump straight into the hole or take the stairs? When I was there, some of the other folks had these fancy dual tanks strapped to your sides. One of them was fiddling with his clips and dropped his tank. We watched it sink like a rock. Our guide dove down after it and managed to retrieve it when it hit an outcropping, which I'm pretty sure is about 20 meters down. She ascended straight back up without stopping. Crazy stuff!
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Jun 27, 2023 06:36
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sharkytm posted:Pretty hard to get narcosis at under 9 feet. Assuming you're talking about my computer, the "7'" is my dive time in minutes lol :v I have an obnoxious amount of 5k footage to cut down, but here's a little clip of how wild the visibility was. https://youtu.be/xrNXAEEZEfw Resonance22 posted:Definitely interested in seeing those photos! I went there a few years ago, and all my footage is pretty useless since it was so dark. Did you jump straight into the hole or take the stairs? We took the stairs - our guide was telling us that they don't let people plunge straight in from the top anymore after someone cannonballed onto a diver coming up from their safety stop 😬 Sidemount also seems incredibly cool but yeah, lots of fiddling with kit like that on a divesite like this would make me incredibly paranoid!
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Jun 28, 2023 06:28
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Objurium posted:Assuming you're talking about my computer, the "7'" is my dive time in minutes lol :v I was being glib and poking fun at your use of " (inches) instead of ' (feet). 104" =8 feet, 8 inches. That looks really cool. Deep hole diving like that has always fascinated me.
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Jun 28, 2023 12:20
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sharkytm posted:I was being glib and poking fun at your use of " (inches) instead of ' (feet). 104" =8 feet, 8 inches. Lmao, derp. Gonna blame that one on the turnaround trip to Yucatán, I'm normally not that dense.
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Jun 28, 2023 15:51
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I passed GUE Tech 1. I learned a lot, but man their written training material is hot garbage.
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Jul 9, 2023 06:06
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TDI materials are also bad, for what it’s worth.
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Jul 9, 2023 07:15
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I passed GUE Tech 1. I learned a lot, but man their written training material is hot garbage. Congrats! That’s a good achievement. I had to bail on my Intro To Tech course this weekend as I’ve got a bad cold and there was no way my ears would clear. Im currently reading Technical Diving - An Introduction by Mark Powell which is decent all things considered.
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Jul 9, 2023 10:28
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I finally went scuba diving somewhere more southern than Belgium and oh my gently caress it was worth the money and wait  . Our dives were probably relatively uneventful, saw some schools of Barracuda, 2 moray eels and 2 octopuses, but man being able to see tens of meters in salt water is so exhilarating. The water being warmer than the tropical aquarium I once went to was also awesome. What I did notice, though, is a new hatred for tourism. A friend and I went in for our advanced certifications, him having done PADI OW on a similar trip, me having done my CMAS 1* at home over the course of a couple of months. He kept on doing PADI, I got talked into doing SSI, whatever all good. However, even though it'd been more than a year for me and he had 10 dives more on his belt, I felt way more comfortable handling my gear and myself than him. Not touching the floor, not kicking up dust, etc. We often had 1 instructor guiding us rather than looking at how we performed, and so any specialties we officially have done hardly felt actually examined. In fact the only thing we discussed was the fish identification one and it involved pointing at some random fish in a book. Also both the PADI and SSI learning environments offered me essentially no novel information. Not that the CMAS book was that much better. I'm not sure what I expected, obviously you want to accommodate people with existing, tight travel schedules, but there should be some possibility of failure. At the same time, quite often the instructors would get extremely close to animals with their camera (like removing rocks from an octopus nest entrance, filming it from about 2 cm with an array of LED lights). I found it kind of a disrespectful way of handling nature, but I guess most customers, especially those just doing fun dives, would prefer to have that kind of experience (and footage), and so over the years the feedback has made them do that. It's clearly not a goldmine so I don't blame them for catering to the worst kind of diver, but it has made me realise tourism is satan. Next up will be Crete, Malta or Yucatan 
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Jul 17, 2023 22:46
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in my experience, AOW was a refresher of the stuff you should have picked up in OW, and PADI specialties are a way to extract money from people who like to collect merit badges. If you don't need a refresher, the only value of AOW is checking a box: it's often a requirement for liveaboards. Nitrox is the only useful non-tech training I've come across.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:01
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Yeah that aligns reasonably with what we thought, though the friend also wants to do wreck dives and being certified for at least 30m helps there. Turns out they can never fill a boat for the only cool wreck as it's 39m down so he was let down a bit. I originally wanted to advance because being a dive master for friends sounded nice, but most people chickened out on this trip so it seems a bit pointless now. I'll probably finish my 2* at home because I only need to do drift and rescue dives to get there, and those are nice to have done. Just need to get used to the grimy garbage again.
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Jul 18, 2023 00:00
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Most dive courses done at holiday destinations are geared towards busy tourists. Tourists already scoff at the three days for the cert, nevermind the additional costs more training would entail for skills mastery. Tourists are terrible when it comes to actual study, so a lot of them don't even finish their online theory before getting in the pool. Instruction quality is also VERY variable, and highly dependent upon the instructor themselves. If you get a new instructor fresh out of boot camp, you'll be taught in a very regimented, by-the-book way. Many of them will have been taught what to teach, but not necessarily how, and won't have the experience necessary to identify problems / techniques / shortcuts / efficiencies. This was me five years ago. The instructor I am today is vastly different, and should I continue to teach, hopefully different than the future as well. Your dive shop also matters. If price is your main concern, then you will get exactly what you pay for. Low budget places are great for backpackers, but also means that you'll be in classes with potentially 5-10 other students; instructors are paid per student (and don't make a lot either I might add). Every incentive is structured in a way to increase profits, not experience. Finding a shop that is more expensive MAY mean that the class sizes are smaller, so you're given more one-on-one time. You hit the nail on the head when it comes to the "advanced" course. It's all marketing bullshit. Advanced is just a word on the card and means NOTHING when it comes to proficiency in the water. The actual knowledge content is also pretty minimal. Technically, guides and instructors are allowed to take people to 40 meters on a basic OW certification (IIRC). Most don't because it's a safety liability (the diver may be an idiot and kill themselves) and also an incentive to sell an advanced course. The cheapest work around is to do the Deep Adventure Dive. Show that you've done the reading and the quizzes, and the dives, and you can skip doing the Advanced course entirely. What the advanced course is good for, if anything, is making people more situationally aware in the water (and also advanced buoyancy practice with PPB). This is a skill that is overlooked because of all the other poo poo instructors need to teach. I get a lot of students that are super eager to dive more, and want to do the advanced course straight after OW. I tell them absolutely DO NOT DO THAT. Go fun dive first. Get 15-20 dives under your belt then come back. Experience matters. The rescue course is about turning your attention from inward to outward oriented. You now take it upon yourself to look at and after other divers, and (somewhat) take responsibility for their safety. The course should not be a fun course in the traditional sense. I learned much more doing this course than I did the advanced, back when I was just a fun diver. This is a good cert level for people who dive with friends and family. Divemaster is a whole other ball of wax which I can get into if people wanna hear about it.
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Jul 18, 2023 02:38
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ploots posted:in my experience, AOW was a refresher of the stuff you should have picked up in OW, and PADI specialties are a way to extract money from people who like to collect merit badges. If you don't need a refresher, the only value of AOW is checking a box: it's often a requirement for liveaboards. I found rescue useful. I do wish buoyancy was drilled into everyone a lot better.
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Jul 18, 2023 02:58
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Yeah. I see a lot of new instructors just take students for a "fun dive" on open water dives 1 and 2, instead of drilling buoyancy practice for the majority of it. Save the fun for dives 3 and 4.
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Jul 18, 2023 04:41
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I found rescue useful. Yeah agree with both of these points. Rescue was also super fun.
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Jul 18, 2023 08:41
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Rescue is fun, until your instructor goes and gets caught in the current without fins/getting pushed into a busy channel, and suddenly you’ve got something that’s no longer a training event
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Jul 18, 2023 10:10
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Trivia posted:Yeah. I see a lot of new instructors just take students for a "fun dive" on open water dives 1 and 2, instead of drilling buoyancy practice for the majority of it. Save the fun for dives 3 and 4. This is what it felt like. We were just going along with the fun dive group and they basically told us to watch for fish and check our air consumption, which, no duh. I must admit I am not a genius at buoyancy, but coming from 11mm of neoprene, the 5mm I had on now was peanuts to keep under control while passing the ~5m both ways.
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Jul 18, 2023 12:14
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Sorry for barging in but I just wanted to confirm that this makes sense after getting Open Water certification: It's best to just do a bunch of dives, and then certify for the Deep Adventure Dive if you want to go deeper, right? What's the "Search for Sunken Galleons" certification people ultimately go for?
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Jul 19, 2023 19:51
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poisonpill posted:Sorry for barging in but I just wanted to confirm that this makes sense after getting Open Water certification: It's best to just do a bunch of dives, and then certify for the Deep Adventure Dive if you want to go deeper, right? What's the "Search for Sunken Galleons" certification people ultimately go for? IMO: do OW, dive a bunch, then do advanced (which does deep) and do buoyancy as one of the specializations. No idea what Deep Adventure Dive is, but if you're worried about the scuba police you don't need to be. The goal isn't to get "legal" to a depth ASAP, it's to build the fundamental skills ASAP.
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Jul 19, 2023 19:59
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Have any divers in here ever seen a White Shark? Or have any interesting shark stories? I’ve read part of the thread, starting from the beginning, but I have a long way to go to get caught up and can’t search on mobile.
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Jul 19, 2023 20:04
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DeadlyMuffin posted:IMO: do OW, dive a bunch, then do advanced (which does deep) and do buoyancy as one of the specializations. Quoted for truth. Get certified, and then put those skills/theories into practice. Preferably a fair bit of practice. There isn't usually much reason to go "deep" unless you've got a specific goal in mind, and IMHO, you don't get to enjoy the special stuff as much (or as safely) if you're new. Advanced OW is a fine class, and you can do deep, buoyancy, and navigation specialties. Rescue Diver is a good class. Nitrox is nice, especially if you do a lot of mid-depth (50-70ft) or deeper diving where NDLs can spoil the fun. At 70', you gain 20 minutes of bottom time on Nitrox compared to air (40 mins vs 60 mins). I've also found that diving Nitrox is less exhausting than on air. This is especially important on dive vacations or even a weekend where you want to dive both days. MrMojok posted:Have any divers in here ever seen a White Shark? Or have any interesting shark stories? I used to work for a robotics company who had several robots attacked. SharkCam stuff...
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Jul 19, 2023 20:12
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