Diving .. where to go next?

I knew this wouldn’t take long to turn into a my training agency is better than yours thread

Not at all. I’ve dived BSAC, PADI & NAUI myself and they are, as you say, down to the instructor for real good and bad. My point was about what is accepted by dive operators at holiday destinations rather than the ninja-ness of the diver concerned. If you’ve not got a ticket they take (usually the big ones), you’re going nowhere.

Good point TooTall – in the states I’ve come across operators who hadn’t heard of BSAC & didn’t even understand CMAS qualification equivalents – it was only my IANTD card that got me by. That probably means that my early poitn about looking at GUE quals was one step too early – I think AOW is the qual that most resort places will look for.

As for the earlier remark about GUE being a bit ‘rigid singlespeed’, if you compared diving instructors with bike instructors then if you wanted to learn to do jumps and drops one teacher could recommend that you buy a jump bike to do them on, another (Jedi?) might say that it’s about learning the right technique so you can jump on any bike. GUE take the 2nd approach – but then if you took it to the extreme they’d then go on to tell you what sort of bike to ride, what drivetrain & brakes to fit, what tyres to use, what tyre pressures to use, what the best clothes are, what to put in your camelbak etc etc etc. And dropper posts and GPS would be real no-no’s 😉 I’d still take a look at the stuff Trimix has got though as it does open your eyes to a totally different approach.

I think I’m seeing a weird convergence of Singletrack and Yorkshire Divers Forums. The internet could implode if this continues 😆

Poor old MC just wanted to know where to dive next 🙂

purist – you know it would be rigid SS and whatever you could strap to your body (left side only, no Camelbak) if GUE wemt riding! You would only be allowed to get on and off the bike one way (falling off included) and only one colour allowed, black. Oh – you’d have to make the bike yourself from a single piece of tubing with no breaks in it either and there would only be one type of pump allowed (gauge seperate of course)!
(sorry for the thread wander, but the above amused me in a g33ky way)

MC – Byron Bay in Australia.

Too Tall, what about map reading for the DIR mountain bikers ? They would have to follow the same map, from memory, wherever they were riding 🙂

It would probably have to be taped to their top tube and written in the right sort of ink.

No cable ties either – brake hose has to be tied to the fork using the approved knot in the approved string. And you’d have to do puncture repair drills on every ride.

(Mr MC posting)

Matt24 said

The AOW course Deep dive will remind you that sharing a dive computer is a major no no! Please don’t be tempted to do that again

Two observations.
We were the only clients with a computer, everyone else relied on the guide, and they (the company) were surprised to see me wearing one so early in my diving career (they were very pro, just surprised).

The whole PADI structure of training and their manuals appear to be little more than income generation. AOW means doing X number of other courses, such as photography and naturalist? How does using a camera or naming a coral make me a better, safer diver? Not starting a training regime war as I am a total novice, but I did all the classroom and pool BSAC as a student 20yrs ago, and my vague memories are that it was a hell of a lot more complex than PADI, and I was appalled at how much guff and marketing fluff is in the PADI OW manual. If you get rid of all the cr@p it’d be a quarter of the size.

Not a pop at you Matt, we appreciate your input and I would consider myself at the cautious end of the spectrum, just some observations as a cynical, new diver. It sounds like “deep dive” is actually useful, can you recommend any others that will actually improve our diving skills and safety?

Oh and currently watching a Gekko on ebay, its at £100 with 4 days to go and I can get a new Zoop (gekko with PC connection enabled so I understand) for £135 new….

Its quite normal not to have a computer for the first few dives, not the safests, but you were limited to a shallow depth. Dont forget a few years ago no one had one – we used a table, depth guage and watch.

A good guide would have watched you like a hawk, ensured the bottom of the sea was shallow enough and your dive time short enough not to incur a proper stop.

Your real danger is a crap profile, breathing too hard and poor buoyancy control – which is an issue at any depth.

Given your work/time constraints I would suggest you do some PADI courses as you can do them to order when it suits you. Do the Deep one and do the Navigation one and the Boyancy control one. Then perhaps the Resuce Diver one.

You can do them in the UK, but if you do you will need to do them in a dry suit.

At the risk of a thread hijack, have any of you dived in Brittany (I’m there on holiday next year)? I’m PADI open water qualified, but am very much a novice, so would need a good guide, preferably speaking English. Are there any dive centres that would fit the bill?

Mr & Mrs MC
I hope you don’t think that I was having a pop at you two. My conern is that the Dive Centre would allow sharing but it appears that this seems fairly common in Thailand.
Maybe it’s because I work in the Maldives where it is a legal requirement to dive with a computer that I have a different perspective. I do often get divers with more than 100 dives that have never worn a computer and “just follow the guide”. They usually want to know why it is beeping all the time during the dive. Generally it is because they are yoyoing up and down and breaking the ascent rate. Showing them the downloaded profile is a real eye opener for them.
A Zoop at £135 sounds like a good deal. Do you reckon that they would do a better deal on two 😉
I agree 100% that there is way too much marketing in the PADI materials but you have already wised up to that. Just so that you know the AOW is one course made up of 5 elements priced complete. You have to do Deep and Navigation but the other 3 elements are up to you. Night is a popular choice as is Peak Performance Bouyancy and Nitrox. You can do stuff like photography but I would usually advise getting some dives under your weight belt before picking up a camera.
I agree 100% that the old BSAC Novice course is way more thorough than a PADI Open Water. The nearest thing to PADI OW from BSAC is Ocean Diver which is again a cut down basic course designed to be taught in 5 days. There is nothing to stop you continuing your training with another agency other than a bit of politics.
Which ever route you decide I warn you that diving like mtbing is addictive and has many different schools of thought. Go at your own pace and enjoy the fish.

Matt, absolutely not, blagging free advice from someone of your experience is one advantage of the web 😀 and as trimix commented we were diving shallow (24m max). Thanks those sound like some useful elements to build the AOW course from that will serve us well longer term, shame the OW manual didn’t make more of them.

For m_c – if you absolutely definately do not want to dive in Britain, maybe you and mr m-c could arrange a long weekend to do the AOW in Malta, which is reachable by budget airline and has a strong diving economy – check out the Lonely Planet to Malta and Gozo. Plenty operators to choose from, but remember to factor in a dive-free day before flying home.
Also, you really should consider UK waters – my last dive was first weekend in December in the Forth and it was fine – just remember that you’ll need to be wearing a drysuit and that buoyancy control in a drysuit is a skill in itself.

matt – I’m doing the BSAC OD crossover at the moment and as far as I can see it’s pretty much PADI OW + rescue diver, the only real difference being that they use printed tables whereas PADI now use the electronic planner.

Just so that you know the AOW is one course made up of 5 elements priced complete

I was planning on the AOW course this year, but a nightmare project at work and a lack of cash got in the way 🙄 The OP might want to consider one for the same reasons I was thinking about it:
1. Well-recognised worldwide
2. Cheaper than doing 5 dives separately

Another suggestion – not as good diving as Egypt, but possibly cheaper and definitely better culturally, would be the Girona area north of Barcelona, I did some diving there this year and it was excellent. The Mede Islands are a marine reserve. They’d also be doable (money and time permitting!) as a long weekend prior to an Egypt trip, you could do an AOW course in a couple of days and that way make the most of your Red Sea diving.

well think this is decided. Trip to Egypy 2nd week in OCtober with a view to doing AOW whilst we are there. Now to decide where in Egypt and who with. Trimix is already assisting! Oh and to think about elements to AOW, want to do something useful rather than photography!!!

Not read the whole thread, has anyone mentioned Kenya?

Very underrated drive resort. Most people who have been there rate it with the best resorts in the World.
I went to the Turtle Bay Beach Club and dived from the hotel’s own Dive club.

Excellent inshore and off shore sites suitable for beginners to more advanced divers. Warm seas and great sea life. Chance of seeing a Whale Shark as well! 🙂

Matt24k: Interesting that the Maldives have legislated computers. Is that an industry code of practice, or is it actually “law”? I remain somewhat cynical of computers – we can’t use them at work due to the commercial legislation requiring very conservative tables (DCIEM), and limitations on Repetitive Group. Computers don’t produce a (DCIEM compatible) RG, so we’re stuffed :-).

Last recreational dive I did was a holiday back to the GBR 6 years ago (first recreational for 15 years then!). Comparing my work tables to the computers was interesting – I’d completely blown myself into deep deco on my tables, but the computer was still totally happy! We ran a few computers through a square max no-deco profile DCIEM dive (21m/35mins from memory) in the chamber a few years back, a couple of the ‘puters reckoned we still had 10-20mins (okay..), but one still reckoned we had two hours in the water before deco (sorry, can’t remember which brand)!

I’m looking at buying one at the moment (for recreational diving) and it’s surprised me how much the marketing for them is about “features”, “ease of use” etc., but no mention of the algorithm used, or their safety/level of conservatism. I still can’t see how a computer can be “safer” than square profile tables – you’re spending more time at depth – even with progressive deco – it might be “safe”, but it physically cannot be “safer”!(too much conservative allowance in tables? – but they’re, well DCIEM anyway, tested on field divers until microbubbles form). Mind you I still remember seeing a diver in Townsville buying the PADI tables over US Navy ones (same price) on the basis he got longer on the bottom…

Interested to hear you view from the rec. side of things. Obviously they make diving “easier” – as you don’t have to do all the working out pre-dive – just dive till you run out of air or the computer says time up :D. In the commercial situation we’re not trying to squeeze the maximum out of each dive on an expensive holiday, I suppose…

Bampot

DCIEM are (as you prob know) one of the most conservative tables out there, so if you’ve been used to diving within them and their limits then you’re obviously going to feel uncomfortable with anything more agressive. IIRC the old RNPL/BSAC tables were 30m/20min and 21m/45min with massive restrictions on repeat dives, so I had the same trepidation when my first dive computer was telling me how much longer I could stay in the water. IMVHO DCIEM is “safe” in the same way that wearing full body armour for riding round the park is “safe” – deco models are built to a given level of risk, with DCIEM being at the low end of the scale. The tricky bit is knowing where any other deco models/computers are, and deciding whether you want that level of risk.

To get any real information/control about the algorithms they use you probably need to look at the more technical end of the market – stuff like Shearwater Research, VRx, Liquivision etc. They’ll mostly use a Buhlmann model with Gradient Factors for controlling deco, with options to switch to other algorithms like VPM-B or RGBM. If you’re interested in deco it’s worth reading up on the background to those models – I really liked the VPM-B & RGBM deco models even though the profile they give feels ‘wrong’. The downside of these computers is that they are more expensive than the usual recreational computers, but if you want to have informed control over what its doing then that’s the way to go.

has anyone mentioned Kenya?

Dived there a long time back (maybe mid 90’s) and remember lots of turtles but not being particularly impressed with it beyond that. Somewhere south of Mombassa IIRC, probably in June or July.

My conern is that the Dive Centre would allow sharing but it appears that this seems fairly common in Thailand.

It’s common all over the world. I’ve never liked the idea and got my own computer very early on. To be fair, if you are –
– diving in calm water with little current
– only doing one or two shallow dives each day
– go no deeper than your buddy

the risks are minimal. The dive guide will have a good idea of the overall position of the group based on his own no-deco time as well.

Matt 24k – Maldives diving (IME) tends to be deep and in strong currents so a very sensible rule. We dived there on a liveaboard doing 3/4 dives a day and you were pushing the no-deco limits on the computers on every dive after the first one of the day.

Bampot – as far as I can work out the reason the marketing focuses on features is because there is very little innovation in the algorithms. There’s about 3 different ones used by different manufacturers but they don’t change over time and don’t change between models. A 10 year old bottom of the range Suunto will give exactly the same dive profile as a brand new top of the range (which is why second hand ones don’t sell at a big discount).

The Zoop is fantastic value – Katie bought one last year – it’s all any recreational diver is ever likely to need. The only particularly useful piece of advice on computers is to dive the same brand as your buddy as you don’t really want to be diving different algorithms.

Dived there a long time back (maybe mid 90’s) and remember lots of turtles but not being particularly impressed with it beyond that. Somewhere south of Mombassa IIRC, probably in June or July.

Worst time of the year to dive in the area. Best time is from November to April.
Best spots are North of Mombasa in Watamu Bay, which is a marine reserve. Rated as one of the best places in the World to dive.

Think we’ve decided Egypt now but thanks anyway!

Suprised no ones mentioned this place!

Welcome To Muff Diving Club

I’ve dived Barbados and Hawaii as tourist dive things before I got qualified. Since qualified I’ve been to the Maldives and Grand Cayman. Cayman is great as there’s so much that you can do straight from the shore – no need for a boat. Highlight though has to be drifting along a 30 metre high wall just watching everything and using no effort. Brilliant diving in the Maldives.

Misali Island off Pemba near Zanzibar is supposed to be good diving. I snorkelled there and it was cool. Beautiful, fascinating part of the world too. Very undeveloped – depends whether that’s a good thing in your book.

I do fancy the Maldives at some point but we shall see. Egypt we’ll do out AOW then potentially Thailand again in 2013 .. or even Maldvies! mmm but that’s a LOOOONG way away yet!

Worst time of the year to dive in the area. Best time is from November to April.
Best spots are North of Mombasa in Watamu Bay, which is a marine reserve. Rated as one of the best places in the World to dive.

Looking at the map maybe I was to the North – then went up to Malindi and tried (and failed) to get to Lamu.

I didn’t have much cash at the time so only did a couple of dives and suspect rough seas meant we were only diving inside the reef.