Get ready for dive season

So far this month, I’ve talked about diving fitness and how to get to or stay on top of your game. If you’re like many divers, you have a dive season. You’ve probably had a period of non-diving and now you want to get ready, right? Let’s take a look at four things  you should do to get ready: Physical fitness, diving skills tune-up, emergency procedures and local orientation with a PADI Pro.

First of all, let’s get back to physical fitness. Being physically fit and getting rid of the extra weight are good for you regardless. For scuba, it’s really important. You’ll be better able to handle your kit and you can probably trim down on how much lead you need in your weight system. On the decompression side of things, fat tissue has been linked to decompression sickness. Reduce the fat, reduce some of the risk.

Next, think about your skills. When were you last diving? When was your last scuba class? Remember, the PADI Open Water Diver course isn’t the end, it’s only the beginning of your education. Taking classes can help you brush up on skills and learn new skills at the same time. If you’re not really interested in more training right now, you should at least consider a Scuba Review or Scuba Tune-Up.

Confined Water Skill practice

Scuba Review is a short review session with an Instructor, Assistant Instructor or Divemaster. You’ll go over the basic knowledge you learned in Open Water Diver including the dive environment, scuba equipment, dive planning, etc. Then you’ll get in the water to practice skills—the most important part. In the pool, you’ll practice:

• Assembling your kit
• Pre-dive check with your buddy
• Entering the water
• Five point descent
• Mask clearing
• Mask removal and replacement
• Regulator recovery and clear
• Skin diving skills
• Alternate air-source usage & other emergency procedures

Unfortunately, if your initial training wasn’t the best, you might feel a bit uncomfortable with these skills and may not want to do them. Let’s look at why you should be proficient and comfortable with the skills.

Mask skills are important because you’ll probably get some water in your mask for one reason or another. I’ve been diving for well over twenty years and I’ve never had my mask kicked off, so I don’t consider that a reason. I have had to adjust my mask strap underwater, so I had to take my mask off. I’ve also had some photos taken of me without my mask.

What about your regulator? Again, you might need to make an adjustment or you might just want a good picture of your face and not some large piece of plastic or brass.

Emergency procedures are essential to practice and be proficient with. Problems don’t occur often and most can be prevented. But if you couldn’t prevent a problem, being able to respond quickly can prevent a problem from becoming a serious accident. Know where your alternate air source is. Know where your buddy’s alternate is. Know where your buddy is—stay close. Same Day, Same Ocean is not a good buddy procedure. Remember, you’re there to have fun together and help each other out.

These divers are diving in a remote location and should probably have an extended amount of emergency oxygen.

Okay, you’ve gone through a review and you’re ready to dive. Is it a site you’ve been to before and you know? Or, is it a new site? If it’s new to you, consider getting a dive professional to give you a guided tour. They might charge for it, but it’s well worth the money. Having someone show you the best way to enter and exit a dive site can make the difference between a good dive and one that you don’t enjoy. They can also point out the cool things to see while on the dive.

Ready? Go Dive!

PADI Master Scuba Diver: How to get there

In my last post, I talked about being at the top of your game. One of the ways to get there is through the PADI Master Scuba Diver program. Let’s look at what it takes to become a PADI Master Scuba Diver.

A PADI Master Scuba Diver has:

• Completed PADI Open Water Diver (or equivalent)
• Completed PADI Advanced Open Water Diver (or equivalent)
• Completed PADI Rescue Diver (or equivalent)
• Completed five (5) PADI Specialty Diver courses
• Logged at least fifty (50) dives

PADI Continuing Education is key to staying at the top of your game

For the first three requirements, it’s optimal to complete the PADI programs, but if you’ve completed equivalent training with another agency, that’s okay. The requirement for five PADI Specialties have to be PADI programs.

Now, let’s think about what all of these certifications mean and how that puts a PADI Master Scuba Diver at the top of his/her game. In Open Water Diver, you learn the basics of diving safely. This is really a license to learn and definitely not the end of your education. In PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, you’ll complete five(5) Adventure dives. These are the first dive of the correlating PADI Specialty Diver course. Two of these dives are Underwater Navigation and a Deep dive. The other three Adventure dives can be tuned to your interests and what is suitable for the local diving environment. For example, Altitude adventure dive is common in the Intermountain West, Boat adventure dive is common in coastal areas, Dry Suit adventure dive is common in areas with cold water, etc. Think of Advanced Open Water as a sampler of the specialty diving areas, so you can try something before jumping into the full PADI Specialty.

Your next step can either be into the PADI Rescue Diver course or continue with PADI Specialties. In the PADI Rescue course, you’ll learn how to prevent and respond to problems. You’ll learn about the psychology of rescue, how equipment can be an issue and techniques to calm a panicked diver, help a tired diver, search for a missing diver and how to provide care to an unresponsive diver. Part of the requirement for PADI Rescue Diver is to also complete a CPR and First aid program. This will often be the Emergency First Response course, taught in tandem with the PADI Rescue Diver course.

Looking at Specialties, remember that the Adventure dives you made for Advanced were the first dive for the correlating PADI Specialty Diver course and they count towards the Specialty. For example, if you were to just take the PADI Altitude Diver specialty, it requires two dives. If you completed the Altitude Adventure dive as part of Advanced, you only need to make one additional dive, not two, to complete the PADI Altitude Diver Specialty. Some specialties require more than two dives. Underwater Navigator requires a total of three dives. You complete one as part of your Advanced course.

Another way you can approach this is to complete five PADI Specialties. If you include the PADI Deep Diver Specialty and the PADI Underwater Navigator Specialty, you can earn the PADI Advanced Open Water certification. Or, maybe you want to explore other areas of diving that you didn’t look at in Advanced and you want to earn some different specialties—that works, too.

Beyond the training requirements, you also need to log at least fifty(50) dives. Those dives can include your training dives, but you should also dive for fun. The dives you log as part of training only amount to about 19 or 20 dives, so you’ll need another thirty dives. You can definitely get those by taking more courses, but it might be better if you go dive with your buddy and practice what you learned in your training. Make some night dives, practice your buoyancy control, go on a live-aboard boat diving trip, practice identifying fish. You took the training to see what divers do for fun, so go live the adventure and have fun.

Now that you’ve completed PADI Master Scuba Diver, you’re an ideal buddy. You know your basic diving skills, you know how to help other divers, you’ve practiced specialty diving skills in at least five different areas and you’ve a significant amount of diving experience.

Want to do more? Sometimes it looks like PADI Master Scuba Diver is the end of the road, but it’s not. Nor is going down the professional path towards PADI Divemaster. You can do both. In fact, I highly encourage all PADI Divemasters to also become PADI Master Scuba Divers. Why? PADI Divemasters that are also PADI Master Scuba Divers become not only ideal buddies, but ideal instructional assistants because of their experience in Specialty diving areas.

Ready to take that step towards PADI Master Scuba Diver? Drop me a line and I’ll help you start planning your path towards PADI Master Scuba Diver.

Top of your game: How to get there or stay there

Training and practice, essential elements to get to or stay at the top of your game

Most of us want to do well at whatever interests us. For a cyclist, that may mean being able to ride the STP, a 200+ mile bike ride from Seattle to Portland. For a runner, it might be able to run a marathon. For a diver, we all want to be proficient in our diving skills and be able to dive safely. So, how do you get to the top of your game in scuba? Is it training? Or just diving a lot? Or watching how other divers dive? Asking divers and dive professionals for advice? All of these are important and they’re interrelated.

Training provides a structured approach for you to learn and practice new skills. You benefit by having professional guidance and supervision, which can reduce the learning curve if you were just trying to do it on your own. All divers need to start out with some basic training on equipment, skills and knowledge about diving. After that, taking additional training expands your knowledge and skills, opening up new realms of diving.

Practice your skills to stay at the top of your game

Training helps, but if you don’t dive often, your skills will decay. Depending on your experience and training, you might need a refresher after 3-6 months of inactivity. We learn to dive so we can have fun and explore, so you need to dive for fun and practice what you learned in your training.

Watching other divers can be good and bad. If you’re around proficient, well-trained divers, what you see is probably excellent. Unfortunately, some divers have some bad habits that really shouldn’t be mimicked. Look for divers that appear calm and are comfortable with their scuba kit.

Asking divers and dive professionals for advice can help you avoid pitfalls. Don’t reinvent the wheel; ask for advice and learn from what other divers experience. This can be advice on what equipment to buy, techniques for entries & exits, how to get your camera or DPV into the water, etc. If you’re on a dive boat, chances are there is a divemaster overseeing the dive. They may provide a briefing, but if you have questions, be sure to ask them.

Getting to the top of your game will probably require you to train and get experience. The PADI system of diver education makes the training progression easier.

Open Water Diver → Advanced Open Water → Rescue Diver

During that progression, you’re introduced to specialty areas of diving in Advanced Open Water (your instructor may have introduced you to some specialty areas during your Open Water course, too). If you found areas you really enjoy, you should consider taking Specialty Diving courses in those areas.

PADI Continuing Education is key to staying at the top of your game

At the top of your game, you become the ideal buddy. Someone people want to dive with. That ideal buddy is a Master Scuba Diver. A PADI Master Scuba diver has training through Rescue Diver plus five Specialty certifications and has experience of at least fifty(50) logged dives. In my next post, I’ll discuss more about the PADI Master Scuba Diver rating, how to get there and dive into the various Specialty areas that are available.

Divers Alert Network Instructor Qualification Course (IQC)

In a recent post, I talked about the professional opportunities for DAN Instructors and how that can bolster your diving resume and enhance your professional diving career. Let’s take a look at what goes on in the DAN Instructor Qualification Course (IQC).

The DAN IQC has a modular format. There is a core module that all instructors need to complete, either online ( no additional cost) or in-person with a DAN Instructor Trainer. At the start of the DAN Instructor Qualification Course, your trainer will present the mini-core presentation.

The Core and Mini-Core modules discuss the various DAN diving first aid courses, Standards and Procedures for conducting DAN courses, Good Samaritan laws, disease transmission, equipment safety and how to conduct and market DAN courses to your divers.

Diving Emergency Management Provider: Neuro, O2, CPR, HMLI

For each of the DAN courses, there is an IQC module specific to that program. Those courses include:

• Emergency Oxygen: oxygen first aid for scuba diving and immersion incidents
• First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life injuries
• Neurological Assessment
• Basic Life Support and First Aid
• DEMP, Diving Emergency Management Provider, a composite of the above four programs
• Basic Life Support-Health Care Professional with First Aid: training at the healthcare-provider level, including 2-person CPR and providing care to children and infants.
• Diving First Aid for Diving Professional: The professional version of DEMP, including more information on blood-borne pathogens (required in some occupational settings) and other advanced topics. Meets OSHA guidelines
• Dive Medicine for Divers: advanced knowledge development for divers that want to learn more. [This program may be phased out as the content is moved to other DAN diving safety initiatives.]

Tools of the trade for a Divers Alert Network Instructor

For each module in the DAN Instructor Qualification Course, there is a common format:

• Review of the course material
• Discussion of teaching techniques for the course
• Candidate-delivered skill presentation
• Written Exam

If you’re not already currently certified as a provider in the course you’re training for in the DAN IQC, your instructor will integrate knowledge development and skill development at the provider level during the DAN IQC module. Your teaching presentation is evaluated on a simple scale. Areas evaluated include introducing the skill, demonstrating the skill, having students practice the skill, problem solving and debriefing. The written exam covers material presented in the provider course.

What materials do you need?

There is a core section that includes general standards and procedures and an appendix including commonly used forms. For each DAN IQC course module, there is an instructor guide, reference copy of the provider manual, slate(s) and a USB thumbdrive that includes presentations and a copy of the instructor guide. As materials are updated, you’ll be able to download revised copies of the instructor guides from the DAN website.

Who can attend a Divers Alert Network Instructor Qualification course and become a DAN instructor?

• You need to be a dive leader (instructor, assistant instructor, divemaster, divecon, etc) with a recognized scuba training agency.
• You need to be a current CPR & First Aid instructor, unless you’re completing the Basic Life Support and First Aid IQC module.
• Be a DAN member

To maintain your DAN teaching status, you need to maintain your DAN membership and teach the programs you’re authorized to teach.  More details on this will be provided in the IQC Core and Mini-Core modules, suffice it to say you need to teach to stay current, otherwise you might need to attend another DAN Instructor Qualification Course to regain your teaching status.

DAN Instructors are on the front lines of diver safety. Take an active part in making scuba a safer sport and having more trained responders: Become a DAN Instructor!