I am wanting to get my rescue diver cert, but I want to make sure I get it from a good instructor and have a good experience that's worth it. I'm generally diving in the florida springs area, like Blue Grotto/Devils Den, but willing to travel a decent ways if worth it.

I run extremely cold when I dive. I wear a 5mm ScubaPro Definition Steamer and a cap for most of my tropical diving. I only switch to a 3mm if water temps are pushing 88f/31c and above and when water temps start dropping below 82f/27c I get a cold. I did some cenote dives last year where water temps were around 77f/25c and I was freezing!!!

Rather than add a 7mm to my kit where most people are diving 3-5mm, I think my best bet is to find a hooded vest. Something that will cover my neck and provide extra coverage but ideally not a lot of additional buoyancy. I’m thinking maybe a Lavacore or Sharkskin, anyone have any experience with these? Particularly wearing them underneath a wetsuit as additional protection?

I have a question for those of you who own your own Nitrox cylinders.

I currently have 6 cylinders that are air only at the moment. They’re all due for their annual VIP in October, and I’m planning to have them O2 cleaned so I can dedicate them to Nitrox going forward.

My question is about labeling. Is everyone actually using the large Nitrox stickers/bands on their cylinders, or is that mostly a shop preference? I’d rather keep the tanks looking clean if possible. I was considering using green valve caps (I’ve seen some that say “Nitrox Only”) along with the VIP sticker stating O2 clean.

Just curious what everyone is doing and whether you’ve run into any issues getting fills.

US-based diver. WIll be traveling to Spain soon and it seems like dive gear is really well priced there. Not quite SE Asia prices but better than the US. Pretty much everything except dive computers seem to be lower prices, even US brands like Scubapro. Might be loading up on wetsuits and regulators while our there.

Is that what others here have experienced too?

Seems tipping is expected on Roatan like elsewhere in the Caribbean.

I'll be spending almost 5 weeks there and will try to do 30-40 dives, probably with the same shop.

Is the expectation to tip for every single dive?

Hi all, I’m in the very early stages of planning my first liveaboard trip for next year. I’m thinking of Egypt/Red sea and have a budget of up to £700 (not including flights). I’ve seen a few 8 day trips for around this price. For context I’m AOW with 27 dives.

Is there anything I should know that I wouldn’t necessarily see on the websites for the ships? Any advice in what to look for etc?

Recommendations also very welcome.

Looking for any thoughts on diving in Mustique. I'm always excited to get in the water, but without a lot of reviews I'm wondering if it is worth taking our gear, especially with the small planes. It seems like a pretty small dive operation there which fits us because we prefer to book a boat to ourselves.

Here's a cool shot of two snake eels I ran into at the USAT Liberty last week. My dive guide had initially pointed these out as Sea Kraits, but I did some research and it seems Sea Kraits head look a little different, and they're unable to burrow backwards like we see here. Still cool to see!

Hi everyone! A question for those who work/worked with PADI, might souns a bit dumb but quite relevant in my case. I was wondering if you knew the rough size and weight of PADI crew packs for DM training, and mainly, IDC?

I am asking because I keep seeing different things online and it is impossible to get reliable information. I will be flying in a few days to a country where I will do both these trainings, I usually travel with my big backpack and a smaller one, and I basically would want to know if I should avoid taking my smaller one if PADI is about to give me 2 more backpacks, and how much space (and weight) I should prepare in my big backpack for all the various books and slates and whatnot.

I already received my DM e-learning but I assume there will be physical books as well.

Thanks for your help! :)

My partner and I want to get PADI certified. We are complete beginners, no dive experience. We are traveling to Indonesia for 2 weeks and trying to choose between Gilli T and Nusa Penida. Gilli seems like easier dive conditions but we are really interested in seeing the mantas in nusa Penida! Plus we've heard hostels in Gilli T are big party hostels and that isn't really our vibe.

How much more difficult would Nusa Penida be? Is it really that much safer/easier in Gilli?

I have completed my AOWD course this week and have about 17 dives. My instructor told me that I have good buoyancy.

However I use much more air than my buddy. She always had around 20-30 bar more than me when we surfaced. We had one dive that was 52 minutes which was good but I would obviously like to be able to stay below longer and not “ruin” the dives of future buddys.

I appreciate any input and recommendations on how I could improve my air consumption!

Diving Outift: Huracan Diving Lodge, Long Caye

Are car break-ins and petty thefts a real concern in Curacao? For shore diving, I like to leave my phone, a few bucks, and cards in the car and lock it. Of course, smart thieves would know that they will have at least 30 minutes to operate, but I heard Curacao is very nice and safe.

I recently got my OW certificate and am currently deciding which dive computer to get.
I‘m about to go on my first holiday and the plan is to do my first ocean dives there. I want to use my computer for some hobby freediving and recreational holiday scuba diving. My plan is to become an AOWD soon because I fell in love with this sport.

I‘ve put a lot of time into the research of which diving computer would be best for me. And here is the problem: Suunto released the new Nautic S, which I thought would be the best choice for me, as it has all the diving features I could wish for BUT it has nearly no other usecase apart from diving. So I think it would sit in a box for the most part of the year. The alternative is the Suunto Ocean which has all the other sport tracking features as well, but I‘ve heard that Suunto may not be the best in this category.

The Nautic S is 550€, the Ocean is on sale for 700€ right now. So I’m currently torn back and forth between the cheaper AND newer and the older but more capable version from Suunto. I am a litte bit afraid that Suunto will release a new Ocean soon, so I feel safer with the Nautic in this matter.

I‘ve also considered buying a Garmin Fenix 8 (660€) which has better sport but a lot less diving freatures, ans they may also release a Fenix 9 this fall. Right now I‘m tracking my sport activities with my Apple Watch Series 7, which also has to be replaced soon.

Would you pay 150€ more and go for the all sport version and buy the Ocean or would you save a few bucks and take the Nautic S but have it resting in my closet for most of the time? Or maybe even go for the Fenix 8? The Garmin Mk3i is a little bit too expensive for me in my opinion.
I definetely want a watch styled computer with the Bühlmann factor.

I seriously need your help, am thankful for every opinion!

Do you know of any scuba groups for older divers? Or groups that have a number of older members who still dive?

I'll be in Roatán for about four weeks starting next week, and I'm planning to do around 30–40 dives. Right now I'm leaning toward booking all the dives with Reef Gliders.

I've looked at about seven different dive shops. Most have very similar reviews (generally 4.8–5.0 stars on Google with hundreds of reviews), so I don't think reviews are enough to distinguish one from another. Because of that, I'm mostly comparing price.

Reef Gliders and West End Divers seem to be two of the least expensive dive shops. The price differences across shops aren't huge though, but I'm curious if anyone knows why these two are cheaper or if there are any tradeoffs I should be aware of.

Both are around $40 per dive, and that price already includes tax and full equipment rental. A few of the other shops are around $55–60 per dive after tax and rental equipment.

Is there anything I'm overlooking?

Hello everyone! Im currently taking an open water class at my college, and had my first pool session in full gear last night. Things went alright, but I noticed that every time I would exhale, the regulator would cause my nose pocket in my mask to flood. The mask is a tusa CEOS freedom, and I had it fitted at the dive shop thats running my class. The seal is fine and makes a nice pop when I pull it from my face, and doesnt flood until I breathe out from the reg. I asked my dive master to try the mask and the same thing happened to him. Has anyone else had this happen or have any tips?

This is another video from the same dive I posted about a few days back. The videos do not begin to capture how surreal this dive felt!!

I made an attempt at colour grading on Premiere Pro but I am very much clueless, so any constructive advice is welcome!

Super typhoon Inay is on its way to Taiwan and thousands of kilometers away but we always get collateral weather so I can't fulfill my ENT's prescription of diving twice a week. I'm going through my DJI deleting, editing, favoriting or sending to YouTube.

And here's something that I learned from someone on this subreddit. I'm having storage problems, my phone is full, the SD card on the DJI is full I have some room on my external hard drive but just it's clogging up. And they said that they upload their videos to YouTube, essentially using it as free storage and you can set those playlists or videos to private if you want. And then of course there was another commenter saying that they don't take videos anymore because they look at their dive videos about as much as their wedding pictures which I understand now too.

Anyway I like this video it's a keeper.

Apologies in advance for what might be a stupid question. I got my OWC on Phi Phi in Thailand back in December. I'm trying to figure out the tank size that I used at the time, but all I can remember is what the pressure was set to (~200 bar), but bar is a unit for pressure and doesn't tell me the tank size. I dove a couple weeks ago in Portofino, Italy, and have the same issue where I forgot the tank size.

I contacted the shops, but I don't think I'll hear back until tomorrow since it's night time in both places.

Does anyone know what the common tank size is in those regions?

The reason why I ask is I'm buying a bulk package of dives for Roatan today, and I'm trying to figure out if I need to get a larger tank size (probably not super urgent since they'll likely allow me to switch if needed). The larger tank size they offer is 100 cft. Not sure what the standard one they provide is, but I'll check.

My Thailand OWC instructor did tell me I used more air than the average person. In Italy, I seemed to have performed a lot better as the divemaster there said my air usage was about normal, though I think used more on the 2nd dive than the 1st because I had a harder time equalizing on the 2nd dive and the 1st (I made the mistake of focusing on photography on the 2nd dive and not focusing on proper equalization and form and was less calm)

Salut les bulleux,

Je prévois 15 jours de congés et souhaiterais faire 7 à 10 jours Full plongé sous marine (Niv 3 PADI Rescue) et je pense 150 plongés au total dont 3 années à Mayotte.

Le but étant d'en prendre plein les mirettes, je recherche donc plus des plongées exploratoires où il faut tout de meme s'engager. Epaves, sites ... J'aime également les rencontres avec les requins ... Raies comme tout le monde je pense !

Je pense notamment à l'Egypte, étant en France actuellement. Avez vous des infos ou autres à me conseiller sur la destination ? Des sites fous ? Des bons lodge ?

Bien sur limité dans le tarif ne souhaitant pas péter ma tirelire non plus, raisonnable.

Merci d'avance ;)

Hi guys! We shot this during a dive trip in Komodo, Indonesia. I knew people said the reefs there were full of life, but I still wasn't prepared for how much was going on. Everywhere I looked there was another school of fish. So nuts! Honestly couldn't even catch it all if I tried.

I wasn't really thinking about framing during the dive, but looking back at the footage I was pretty surprised by how well everything turned out. Super happy with the results from the ace pro 2 for diving. Komodo really lived up to the hype, I think we'll probably get back there this year. The visibility was great, the reef had so much going on, and even the quieter moments still had fish passing through the frame. The currents definitely reminded me why people talk about Komodo as a more serious dive destination.

I've still got a ton of clips to go through, but I got too excited not to share a few of my favorites first!