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Share your thoughts, experiences or questions and participate in discussions over our favorite topic : SCUBA diving!

Safety rules in cave diving

by David Szerman on June 26, 2013

So now, you are convinced : you want to try cave diving !

But still some worries... Is it really safe ?

First of all, it is really important to start any initiation or training with a cave instructor.

Every cave diver uses the same set of safety rules and here are the main ones :

- Guide line : it is your best friend but also your worse one. Correctly put in place, it helps you (with some arrows) to find your way to the closest exit. But not correctly put in place or wrong diver trim, you can be trapped

- Lights : you do not dive with one light, nor with two lights but THREE lights. In case the main one fails, you can use the first backup light and swim to the exit. If the backup light...

Becoming a PADI Instructor

by Phil on June 24, 2013

So I've decided to finally make the leap to becoming a PADI Instructor. It is my nature to over-prepare for everything I attempt in life so naturally I booked my IDC/IE for December of 2013. I will be diving with The Rainbow Reef Dive Center based in Key Largo, Florida.I've been diving for four years now and have logged a couple hundred dives since then. I've been a PADI divemaster for going on two years now. I have been holding off on getting my instructor because everything I've read has told me that there is no money in it and it is hard to find a job. Although those claims may or my not be true; it has stopped me previously from pushing myself to the next level and I've felt a deep...

Beautiful scuba commercial by Swatch

by Ksso on June 22, 2013

Swatch really doesn't naturally click with scuba. And while I'm still trying to figure out what this new line of watches has to do with scuba - couldn't find depth rating or any scuba feature aside from the name of the watches (lionfish... ), I was awed by the video clip - it would have been an amazing clip for Diveboard !

By the way the soundtrack is "Underwater" by Mika (here on Spotify)

Tiny and awesome: Discovering Lembeh Macro Life

by Ksso on June 19, 2013

Khaled Sultani made that incredible video starring the macro life in Lembeh Strait . Lembeh is considered the "muck diving capital" and is probably the best place to be for underwater macro photographers. With a biodiversity like nowhere else combined with the friendliness of Indonesians, it's a place to pin on every diver's map.

Follow Khaled through this video and ... let's see how many species you can recognizem ! Hit the comments with your tags time:species !

Got Muck? from Khaled Sultani on Vimeo.

The Reel Thing

by Kernsart on June 06, 2013

Reels for diving, come in many shapes and sizes, along with many features and prices. Which one is right for you? I have always told divers when they ask me what to purchase,"Don't buy where you are, but buy where you see yourself going." There is a reason for this. If you buy gear suited for where your training level is, then when you move forward in knowledge, you will have to purchase better suited gear. If you purchase an air only dive computer, and want to dive Nitrox (enriched air) in the future, you either own two computers or one that is fit for your needs now and later.My feelings on the matter, apply to dive reels as well. I recently purchased a Rickly USGS HIF Type 1 Reels with...

Underwater AND... underground ?

by David Szerman on May 29, 2013

Ask your friends : where do you like to dive ?

Do they answer Mediteranean Sea ? Australian Coral Reef ? Bali ?

And why do they dive ?

To see small fishes ? Big ones ? Wrecks ?

How many among them are going to answer they dive in Lot (France) or Budapest for the atmosphere ?

If someone does, you surely met a Cave Diver.

More and more people are interested by the dark side of scuba diving (there isn't a lot of light underground).

But why should someone try this activity ?

Frankly speaking, do not expect to see any colourful fish underwater and, for sure, you will not see any coral reef there. ...

I can barely feel my lips

by Phil on April 29, 2013

I've been diving for around 4 years and I've logged hundreds of dives. I work part time as a Divemaster in Iowa. Iowa diving does not offer what people would consider 'warm water diving.' Warm water in the Midwest means around 70 degrees Fahrenheit maximum! On average when certifying students the water is between 45 and 70 degrees which requires two piece 7mm suits most of the season (I can only imagine the pain of those divers up north in Canada!)While a two piece 7mm suit will keep you fairly warm, one thing that is hard to keep warm is your lips. I was unaware of any solution to keeping my lips warm outside of a full face mask; which would require additional training as well as quite a...

Subsurface 2013 Underwater Photo Contest

by Elche on April 18, 2013

The divingiscool.com scuba diving magazine and its Hungarian

partner site, divecenter.hu organize picture of the month contests since 2007

and shootout competitions since 2009. During the last few years the

photographers sent hundreds of images to the picture of the month contests

and this traditional online contest is still going on with different subjects

every month. There is a video snapshot contest since 2010 as well. They felt

maybe they are able to organize a different kind of competition, an annual one

with modified rules and valuable prizes. After a few months of work the two

websites proudly announce a new international photo contest with 4200 USD in ...

Support Coralbot on Kickstarter

by Ksso on April 17, 2013

We first heard about the Coralbot about a year ago. Imagined by a team of scientists from the Heriot-Watt university, the projects leverages on research on swarm intelligence to provide an innovative solution to restore the function of reefs, both shallow and deep across the globe. They just launched a kickstarter project to raise 107 000$ to build prototypes to demonstrate their approach.

Coral-bots are a team of robots that intelligently navigate across a damaged coral reef, transplanting pieces of healthy corals along the way. The big job of developing and testing the robots at sea has already been done. All that remains is to embed the robots with computer vision to “see” healthy bits...

Testing the Cetatek Aquabionic Warp 1 fins

by Ksso on March 17, 2013

Cetatek was kind enough to send me a pair for their first product: the Aquabionic Warp 1.Yesterday I took them on a test drive with a buch of friends. Since my place is nowhere near a real see we had to make do with the local 20m/65ft deep pit so I couldn't try them out against a real current - but still got enough material to give some feedback on this piece of tech.

I've had the traditional Volo Race fins for years - a pretty popular model amongst divers since they're pretty cheap and yet going a bit beyond the cheap finns thing with some work done on impulse restitution which I found fairly efficient. But those finns have know to be very fragile and indeed you can tell the weak spots...