One of the pleasures of running this site is that I get to hear from a variety of divers all over the world. At times these divers disagree with me, and I certainly appreciate hearing the different point-of-views these fellow enthusiasts have—even when I think they are wrong!

In my article on instructor certification, I said the following:

The level of experience you quickly achieve moving through the professional ranks comes along with a level of comfort in the water. This level comes much quicker than just through regular diving.

I have heard some disagreement with this statement and it has been misconstrued to mean that somehow advanced certification should serve as a replacement for dive experience.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, I will say that the experience obtained through focused training, like that received during certification (or at least should be), has far greater benefit than general diving experience, and when used in conjuction with regular diving, can greatly accelerate how quickly your diving skill progresses.

Just a number

One reader of the aforementioned article pointed out, supposedly as evidence of my lack of experience:
“I notice you do not include your dives logged thus far.”
This is true, and for good reason. Logged dives is just a number, and has little correlation with practical diving skill.

For example, I remember distinctly a boat dive in Bonaire. On board with our group was an older gentlemen who had been diving as long as diving was a public activity. And his gear looked like it. He was the complete opposite of the diving newbie with all new, shiny, top-of-the-line gear but ziltch logged dives. I expected to be impressed with his comfort level underwater.

This man might have been one of the most awkward divers I have ever seen. He was all over the reef. Constantly. His buoyancy control was non-existent. Any turn he made looked like a clumsy seal on land.

According to the logged dives=experience crowd, this man should have been one of the best divers in the world. What’s going on here?

Talent is overrated

The book Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin is a pretty well-known piece of popular non-fiction. The basis premise is that what we refer to as talent is not achieved through in-born ability nor general experience, but rather through deliberate practice. Colvin describes deliberate practice as

Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day.

I argue that the same can be said for diving experience. While there are some with a more natural affinity to the water, this mindset more than makes up for it on the medium- and long-term.

I don’t consider myself the best diver; maybe slightly above average. And I certainly don’t consider myself better than most divers with >5000 logged dives. However, I would put myself up against most any divers with 4x the number of logged dives that I have. The difference is that I have exercised deliberate practice as part of my dive training and continue to use it as part of my general diving experience.

Deliberate practice

How does deliberate practice work? This article gives a basis rundown in four steps:

• Motivation. The task will require effort and you must have the motivation to do it.
• Incremental. The task should build incrementally on what you already know, so that you can understand how to do it easily.
• Feedback. You should receive immediate feedback about your performance.
• Repetition. Either the same task, or a similar task should be repeated.

Sounds a little like well-designed scuba training, doesn’t it? I don’t think this is a coincidence, and is the reason I made the statement quoted at the beginning of this article.

The good news is that advanced training is not strictly necessary to engage deliberate practice, it is simply a convenient vehicle for providing the necessary environment. The idea is that while diving you should challenge yourself in a way that directly utilizes the dive skills you wish to develop. The main catch is you will need the internal motivation to get better: there is no external motivator like completing certification to push you to improve.

The number one skill certified divers usually need to develop is buoyancy control. If buoyancy control increases linearly with the number of dives, it does so at an incredibly slow pace, in my opinion. A more effective approach, and probably the one you employed (even if unintentionally) if you consider yourself an exception to the previous statement, is to consciously measure your skill in some way and take definite steps to improve it.

For example, instead of counting down the seconds in your next safety stop, what would happen if you picked a visual marker then focused on maintaining an even level with this marker? Or keeping an eye on your computer and maintaining 15ft / 5m plus or minus some small deviation? When this gets too easy you can try doing it completely upside-down. I’d wager a guess that most above-average divers practice these types of skills already, even if they don’t think of it as any special sort of training. They are unintentionally engaging deliberate practice, and reaping the benefits.

Exercises like this one fulfill the requirements, assuming you have the necessary motivation to actually attempt it. It is incremental, in other words, you have all the necessary knowledge to perform the exercise. You receive immediate feedback since it’s obvious when you fail. And lastly there is repetition, since you have at least 3 minutes at the end of every dive to practice.

The sad truth

I can understand how my statements have been misinterpreted. The fact is that much dive training in the world, through all agencies, is sub-par. This was driven home during my instructor examination, where I expected all divers to have fairy polished diving skills and good buoyancy control. I was disappointed with the level of awkwardness a noticeable percentage of participants had in the water, and expected much better from soon-to-be instructors.

A big part of this comes down to instruction, both in the immediate training received as well as the mentality of the instructor. I would be willing to bet that a student of Duane over at Precision Diving, even with only 25 dives under their belt, are looking better in the water than most divers with >100 dives. This is because they have a) received quality instruction, and b) had the idea imparted that certification is only the beginning of their training, and that they should continually improve (the former can be surmised from reading his blog, the latter I am inferring).

As an example, he requires all of his students to perform the requisite skills at neutral buoyancy, not sitting on the bottom as is usually done. This is clearly above the minimum instruction standard of “how not to die underwater”.

Out of proportion?

Am I making a a big deal out of nothing? Does it really matter that Jane Diver with 100 dives looks like a “average” diver with 400?

It does matter, for the simple reason that advanced skill increases comfort level in the water. This has a myriad of benefits, beginning with an overall improved dive experience, allowing a diver to reduce air consumption as well as spend more time observing nature rather than awkwardly adjusting equipment. There are also environmental advantages, since comfortable divers also spend less time crashing into reefs.

As a diver, try to think about how to utilize deliberate practice as part of your general diving experience. If you’d like to hear about some specific methods, feel free to contact me and I can write about it in future articles. If you are an instructor, think about how you can incorporate principles of deliberate practice into your courses, as well as how to encourage your students to continue self-learning even after certification. The oceans and your fellow divers will thank you.

Ever since I was a kid, I hated opening my eyes underwater. The burn of chlorinated, or worse, salt water, had me squeezing my eyes tighter than a duck’s butt. At least you knew I was never cheating at Marco Polo.

As I grew older and started wearing contact lenses, the situation most certainly did not improve. If I opened my eyes while wearing contacts, they’d certainly pop out, right?

Fast forward a few years. As part of the circuit of skill demonstrations required for PADI divemaster certification, you must swim a large circle with your mask off. Uh-oh.

Now as far as skills go, this is an easy one. I thought I could give it a go with my eyes closed, squinting occasionally to get a peek of where I was going.

Off comes the mask and off I go, swimming my big circle. I get to the “end”, replace my mask, and open my eyes, expecting to see an approving look from my instructor.

Nothing. That’s all I see. Turning around, I found everyone a good 10-20 feet away, wondering what the heck I was doing.

Eventually I realized I was going to have to open my eyes to complete the skill. So I did, and I realized something: It’s not that bad. It doesn’t really burn. Your contacts don’t pop out. You can’t see too well, but you can get around ok (at least swim a big circle). It’s not that bad.

I wouldn’t do it all the time for fun, but if you’ve been holding out on opening your eyes underwater because of contact lenses, give it a go. It’ll be just fine.

This is useful if you’re a beginner doing mask removal and replacement exercises, and want to be able to look to orient your mask and mask strap. Even more so, this is helpful if you are an instructor who needs to demonstrate these skills while keeping an eye on your students. Otherwise, it’s just useful if you want to cheat at pool games.

Photo by nikozz

Snorkels are considered a core piece of scuba gear. Mask, fins, and snorkel: the three items every beginner starts with. We take this for granted, and dive away with those plastic tubes strapped to our head. After a while, though, we start to question the utility of a snorkel. When diving the smooth Caribbean waters, for example, is a snorkel really necessary?

At this juncture, there are a few paths the blossoming diver can take:

• Keep the snorkel. Your first option is to heed your training and continue to dive while wearing a snorkel at all times. Sure, it can be uncomfortable in a current, but you rest easy knowing it’s always there.
• Exchange the snorkel for a pocket snorkel. Your next option is to remove the snorkel from your mask. Aaah, how liberating! There are times when you may need a snorkel, so for those situations you carry a foldable pocket snorkel in your BCD pocket. In an emergency, it’s only a zipper away.
• Ditch the snorkel. Look out, divers, this future tech diver means business! The last option is to ditch the snorkel completely. I don’t imagine anyone throws their snorkel away, but rather keeps it in their gear bag and wears it on a case-by-case basis. Choppy waters with low viz? Bring the snorkel. Bonaire shore dive? No thanks.

If you find a snorkel uncomfortable, I think carrying a pocket snorkel is your best option. I don’t own one (yet), so I wear a snorkel based on the dive conditions. However, be aware that some dive operators may not let you in the water if you don’t have a snorkel. For this reason, you should always carry a snorkel with your gear.

What do you think? Are snorkels for sissies, or would only a fool go in the water without one?

Photo by chrisada

I randomly came across this interesting device. It’s an ear dryer, for drying out the insides of your ears after swimming or scuba diving. It even warms the air it blows into your ear canal.

I was a little surprised to see this device selling for $100 USD. Who would pay that much for this, especially when you can make homemade swimmer’s ear for a couple of bucks?

I started reading the comments on the sales page and it hit me. If you suffer from chronic ear infections, then anytime you come out of the water you are potentially facing doctor visits, medications, and other miscellaneous expenses—not to mention, no more diving until it clears up. This pretty much eliminates swimming or diving as a hobby for you.

Enter the ear dryer. For $100, you take a few minutes after each dive to clear out your ears. Presto! Your chances of ear infection are drastically reduced. If you fit into this category, then I imagine this is a great little device.

Peeing in your wetsuit, it’s right up there with death and taxes as one of life’s certainties. Even so, our civil sides don’t like to talk about it; especially that great feeling it gives you on a cold dive. It warms you right up from the inside out—or does it?

I’ve been reading that despite what you might think, peeing in your wetsuit will not actually warm you up. What happens is that the warm urine opens up the blood vessels near your skin’s surface. These blood vessels think they are no longer cold and relax. Then, shortly thereafter, the warm pee gets washed away and cold water returns. The blood vessels are no longer constricted, so they very quickly allow your warmth to be taken away before they realize it’s cold again and constrict.

This constriction, by the way, is what leads to numbness. It’s your body’s way of protecting its vitals, by restricting blood flow to the less-important extremities.

This peeing myth was certainly news to me. It’s something to remember next time I’m tempted to pee in my wetsuit on a cold dive. But hey, who am I kidding? I’m gonna do it anyway.

Few things ruin a dive as quickly as a poorly-sealed mask. I had this problem the other day, and it disrupted my dive by being distracting and making me run through my air supply by constantly clearing it.

I started playing around with something that I think helps a little. Next time your mask is leaking water, instead of clearing it as usual, exhale a little stream of bubbles out your nose. Sometimes this will keep a small leak cleared by forcing the water out of the mask.

This approach managed to keep my mask clear without costing my air supply. I have to exhale anyway, so I just exhaled at the same usual rate but out of my nose instead of my mouth.

This may not work with all bad seals, but I imagine if the problem is at the bottom of your mask you may find it helps. It’s certainly better than repeatedly stopping to clear your mask.

Note: This post applies only to males.

I always see male divers wearing bathing suits or board shorts under their wetsuits. This requires awkwardly stuffing all the excess fabric into the wetsuit legs, and not to mention, the suit tends to ride up. I did it once for my Open Water certification and hated it.

There are options, however. Even if you would never wear it otherwise, I highly recommend wearing some kind of form-fitting lycra swim material. This doesn’t have to be the legendary Speedo briefs; I wear something similar to these Speedo jammers and think they’re great. You can also get the square shorts for something smaller than the knee-length jammers, but with more coverage than briefs.

I went to a local dive store this morning and picked up one of these neoprene mask strap covers. As soon as I got home I put it on my mask. Sitting in my kitchen with bone dry hair the mask slipped on and off painlessly.

This should prove incredibly useful, especially as I begin my divemaster training, where I will constantly be removing and replacing my mask. I wish I had bought one when I originally purchased my mask. I couldn’t find a plain one with no words or pictures, so instead put it on my mask backwards where all you see is plain black.

Anyways, I highly recommend picking one up. It’s an incredibly inexpensive way to increase your comfort level.