My last article discussed the importance of selecting the appropriate instructor to help you meet your diving goals. As important as your instructor is to your diving education, there is another, often overlooked, person: a mentor. Your mentor is usually […]
Scuba has more than its share of acronyms, banter, and confusing jargon, but Helitrox may take the cake. So what is it and why do you need it? I call helitrox “Trimix Lite.” Like trimix, helitrox is a mix of […]
A surface marker and line is an essential part of a tech diver’s kit. Most people use either a lift bag or an SMB (surface marker buoy) as the marker. A reel or finger spool are two options for carrying […]
There’s an adage in technical diving, “Never use a new piece of dive gear on a complex dive.” You should always practice with new equipment on a simple dive, preferably in a controlled environment like a pool or quarry. This […]
This is the time of year that my course schedule for the upcoming summer really begins to gel. The holidays are over, winter has set in, people start thinking about the upcoming dive season and what they would like to […]
That’s the setup for an old joke. It goes something like, “The absent-minded maestro was racing up New York’s Seventh Avenue to a rehearsal when a stranger stopped him. “Pardon me,” he said, “can you tell me how to get to Carnegie […]
Charter season has arrived once again here in the Great Lakes and wreck divers are chafing at the bit to get back out on our favorite boats. Before we pack up and head out, let’s review a few basic courtesies […]
In my last article, I discussed the use of personal dive computers and the absolute necessity of carrying some form of back up decompression tables. I referred to the practice of generating decompression tables using software such as V-Planner and […]
Not that long ago, there weren’t any personal dive computers (PDCs) for technical divers. No PDC that could handle multiple gasses. None that could compute a decompression schedule for helium-based gasses like trimix. Back in those dark times, we planned […]