Dive Planning - Did I Miss It?

As usual, I came without a plan to post. I guess I will just write and see what ideas pop up.

Okay. Lets talk about planning! A dive!

Face it. Students are taught about dive planning. "Plan your dive and dive your plan." But in reality, they don't plan ANY dives. It's the instructor who does all the planning.

After your certified, if you go out with a group, someone with more experience or the divemaster of the resort plans your dive.

This leads to a very "fuzzy" understanding of what dive planning really is and why you do it.

Trust me. I've been there. In the beginning I thought Plan Your Dive meant, yes, I plan to go dive in that body of water there.

There's more to it than that.

But I think somewhere along the way we are doing a disservice to dive students. Mostly it's "This is where we are going. This is how long we will be down. This is how deep we will go." But WHY? We have to let them know why we plan the way we do, and they have to see that modeled. So they can do it for themselves in the future. So they can question a dive profile that seems a bit, well, off the chart.

Ahhh. Diving "off" the table. There's another post for me to share another time :)

SCUBA and the Economy

money photo courtesy of penywise morguefile.com
scuba gear photo - jdurham morguefile.com
For more FREE scuba photos, check out jdurham on morguefile.com


I have to admit. I am a bit worried about our sport and its continuation to grow. Scuba is a very expensive sport due to necessary equipment. With the depression (can I say that word?), people will not being looking to spend money for fun and enjoyment. And if they do, it will be much cheaper things, like movies, Wii, etc. But maybe I am wrong.

In the last few years, meaning 2 to 10 or whatever, the increase in the number of people who have learned to dive has grown A LOT. When we started diving, there weren't many people going out on the boats at our favorite resort (Couples).

A few years later, it was hard to get a spot on the boat sometimes. They had too many people taking their discovery dives to take certified divers. While inconvenient for us at times, it was great for the sport.

Now, as we are (yes still) getting ready to be divemasters, I WANT people to be knocking down the doors to learn to dive, because then I get to dive too! (not that I can't dive anyway, but it just gives more meaning to diving)

Our favorite resort doesn't seem to be fairing well in the current economy either. They are really pushing hard and have extremely low prices right now. But who can go? I'm worried that any minute the bank might close!

I guess those with lots of money will still be learning to scuba dive. But maybe not so many middle class like me anymore. Maybe I am wrong though. And I hope I am. Maybe a lot of people are making "learn to scuba dive" their new year's resolution!