Precision Diving

I got an email from a reader a couple weeks ago. He asked me one simple question, “Do you hate dive stores?”. I know that some of my posts may come across as being highly critical of dive stores. All dive stores serve a purpose in the diving industry, but certainly I don’t hate any one of them. Some are better than others. Below is a list of dive stores and charter operators, in my area, that I do business with. (more…)

Zebra mussels are a fresh water mollusk that have invaded the Great Lakes region. Originally discovered in 1988 in Lake St. Claire, these invasive species have disrupted the marine ecology. For divers, these creatures have helped and hurt our diving in the Great Lakes. Even boaters have been effected as boats that do not have the special paint on the bottom can attach zebra mussels to the hull. Many cities who use the Great Lakes for their drinking water source have been affected by the invasion of the zebra mussels. (more…)

I was reading a post on Scubaboard about DIR and the upline. One person argued that DIR divers were forbidden to lay one finger on the upline. I found this comment rather silly. If there is a DIR rule book, I’ve never seen it. So I doubt the argument forbidding DIR divers from using the upline holds much water. As we gain more diving education and experience, we should be moving towards a thinking diver and will start to see that there are some instances where divers to need to use the upline. (more…)

By reading the title of this post, you’re probably saying “What is this about?” Simply, it’s about how to carry a timing device. I’m not talking about a dive computer, depth gauge or bottom timer. I’m talking about a simple watch. We carry watches as a backup timing device in case our dive computers or depth gauge/bottom timer dies while on a dive. Technical divers will use watches to time their decompression stops if their bottom times do not show time in seconds or have a stopwatch function (like the UWATEC hockey puck bottom timer/depth gauge). Now I know your next statement, “I wear my watch on my wrist.” Certainly that is a logical place to wear a watch, but many times we don’t have that luxury. (more…)