Scuba Diving Equipment: Is Your Gear Making You Sick?
What should you do if you run out of air? This has always been one of the most frequently asked and significant questions for new and experienced divers. Even more so today. Not because the answers have changed, but rather because our understanding of the out-of-air situation and the way divers are equipped have evolved. As a result, the choice of which ascent you make and how you make it may be completely different today … Read entire article »
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Finding the Best Dive Store
In the jungle of competing scuba products, each claiming to be better and cheaper than the others, your local dive store owner is your guide. He should have the experience – in the water, at the repair bench, on the sales floor – to know what works and what you should pay for it. He cherry-picks the best values, strikes hard bargains on your behalf and reduces sensory overload to a manageable number of options. … Read entire article »
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Prevent Tank Explosions – How to Keep Yourself and Others Out of Harm’s Way
The scuba diving industry justifiably takes pride in the outstanding safety record of scuba diving cylinders. Most of the credit goes to the voluntary inspection programs developed and implemented in the diving community all over the world. But all is not well. Some years ago, it was discovered that aluminum cylinders made of a certain alloy would develop neck cracks over time while in normal service. Safety bulletins went out, inspectors increased their efforts to detect cracks, defective tanks were withdrawn from service and, in most cases, replaced at no charge to the owner. This particular alloy has not been used by the major cylinder manufacturers since 1988, nor by any manufacturer after 1990. Luxfer, the world’s largest manufacturer of aluminum cylinders, issued a voluntary … Read entire article »
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Prevent a Scuba Diving Mask from Fogging
A fogged mask is more than just an annoyance; by reducing what you can see, it also increases stress levels, making accidents more likely. A fogged mask also marks you as a less-than-competent diver. Keeping a clear view takes some attention to detail, but it is an aspect of diving preparation where an ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of cure. … Read entire article »
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8 Things Pros Do Before Every Dive
Dress Warmly Professional scuba divers are aware that hypothermia slows their reflexes, dulls their thinking and also increases their risk of decompression sickness. Chilling builds up from dive to dive, possibly even in tropical water. So pros tend to wear more exposure protection than novices. They take add-ons like vests and hoods so they can layer to match the conditions. And they keep warm during the surface interval and ashore. … Read entire article »
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Scuba Diving Rebreathers – Two Types of Rebreathers
I’ve always wondered why Jacques Cousteau chose the wrong title for his first book, The Silent World. The sea is anything but quiet. Whales are so booming loud that they can communicate with one another across hundreds of miles of ocean. Dolphins ping the void with sonar to “see” underwater. The ocean is full of crashing waves, fighting fish and, increasingly, chugging motorboats. It wasn’t until I used a rebreather for the first time, and experienced how it silently purifies and recycles exhaled gasses rather than dumping them out as noisy bubbles, that I finally figured out why Cousteau had gotten his title so wrong: His Aqualung-grandaddy to all of todays regulators-made so much noise that it masked the sea’s other sounds. Like us, he could only hear the sound of … Read entire article »
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Scuba Diving: Sound and Hearing
We take sound for granted while moving through the blanket of air we call atmosphere. Divers, however, quickly realize that sound can be a source of confusion and consternation under water because the direction it’s coming from is so difficult to determine. Why? If you’ve ever banged on your tank to attract your buddy’s attention, only to watch him turn around and around in vain to locate the source, you’ve experienced yet another example of the failure … Read entire article »
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What to Look for When Buying a Dive Mask – Scuba Diving Masks
If you can’t see, what’s the point? The dive mask is perhaps our most personal piece of gear. It must fit our highly individual faces – fat or slim, big-nosed or pug, high-boned or low. Don’t underestimate the time and care it takes to find the right one for you. Here’s where to start: Does It Fit? How well a mask fits is more important than all other considerations combined. A constantly leaking mask may be only … Read entire article »
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56 Best Bargains in Scuba Diving
How To Save On Scuba Equipment Buy, Don’t Rent. The one-time rental charge is deceptively low and adds up fast. Owning your scuba gear is not only safer and more convenient, it’s cheaper in the long run because most of it lasts so long. BCs 10 years old are common, for example. Pile Up Purchases. Combine three or four major purchases into one big deal. You’ll have more negotiating power. The retailer will have more incentive to … Read entire article »
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Scuba Diving After 40: Tips for the Older Diver
First, the bad news: As we age, our bodies change in ways that can limit our ability to do the things we love. Some evidence even suggests that we become more susceptible to decompression sickness as we age. The good news: Our medical understanding of these age-related changes has advanced to the point that we can overcome many of them and get around others. Here’s our 12-step program for staying an active diver despite what the … Read entire article »
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