A Tribe Called K2 Buhl-oog!

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Safety should be your priority when it comes to SCUBA diving. I would like to identify many general points to consider we have to have before during and after a diving trip. It is important to understand that dives are dissimilar and diverse depending on where you are diving, sea conditions, number of divers, experience and other points to consider. What I am recommending you are basic concerns I feel significant even for the most advanced diver. take a look at your hardware regularly at home.

BC and Scuba Diving regulator must work completely at all times.

Your Scuba mask and Scuba fins should fit completely.

If you have doubts about your equipment do not use it, call us at K2 Scuba (818 982 2652)  and have it evaluated.

Do not take risks. Never go SCUBA diving alone. The buddy system is basic to enjoy a safe dive.

If something occurs you have someone beside to you to help.

Bring a sound signaling device.

This is awfully helpful so your buddy can hear you.

There are many options ; one is a signaling device. Communication is crucial.

Exercise regularly.

The more physically fit you are , the more that you will enjoy a diving trip.

SCUBA diving can be demanding.

Keep a diving logbook. Whether it be Dive Log Software or something you write in.

It is vital as a reference.

You need to know before hand each detail of your diving trip, and stick to it.

With this you are letting people know you are being safe when scuba diving. It will also inform when you’re leaving and returning from your trip. Know each destination before you arrive and try to learn what types of sea life are present in the area.

If you lose your chum or group search for them for a minute and if it’s not possible to locate them, resurface. you need to finish your dive with 500 p.s.i of air in your tank.

Do not touch or annoy the animals or plants, you may be bitten or stung and some are very threatening.

If you are caught in a current, don’t battle against it, float, and make signals.

Do not dive if you are not sure that you can manage the situation or sea conditions.

I’m hoping this information proves to be useful and as a reminder : Use your commonsense, nobody knows your boundaries as you.

I haven’t even mentioned the scuba safety gear that cave, ice, and deep wreck divers require — multiple tanks, cave reels, spare masks and regulators. The term itself suggests the use of scuba safety equipment due to the activity’s nature. However, scuba safety should be a primary concern for both beginners and professionals. Scuba safety remains the same for each dive! Scuba safety begins with education, but common sense always helps!

Knowing and using these simple scuba safety hand signals can save you or your partner.

Do not push or rush things, diving should be a relaxing and fun activity. Oh, and there are no Scuba Police, you don’t need an instructor to dive at night, or deep or anything else.

Keep your money in your pocket and find a more experienced diver to teach you the ropes!

Join Technical and Advanced Wreck Dive Instructor, Richie Kohler, and Master Instructor John Flanders with the Academy of Scuba as you learn how to wreck dive in San Diego’s World Famous Wreck Alley
Over a two day period (July 25 and 26, 2009), you will be exposed to expert wreck diving instruction and techniques.  

You will be doing four world famous wreck dives over two days in Wreck Alley and have over 6 hours of classroom instruction from Kohler and Flanders.  You will build a “concrete” foundation in deep, wreck and NITROX diving.  At the end of the course, you may qualify for your TDI Nitrox certification and your SDI Wreck Diving Specialty certification.  

Best of all, your dive education foundation will be laid by the most progressive wreck divers in the business.  Join Richie Kohler, John Flanders and their staff for a weekend of fun and excitement. Folks, this is a chance of a lifetime, and my friends John and Richie will knock your socks off with both personality as well as mad skill!

Learn more at http://www.wreckalley.com

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*LDS- Local scuba Diving Instruction and Equipment specialty Shops

We can and should have both! Treat your clients as you would your friends and they will keep coming back and supporting your business. If you treat your clients like customers/meal ticket, they will be suckered only once and then leave the sport or go somewhere else.

I have seen, heard, and experienced the fleecing of us, the people who patronize you.  The difficulties that you are having financially does not give you license to take advantage of our ignorance when foisting  equipment upon us, up-selling training that is silly (an underwater photography merit badge) or convince us we have to collect cards to be a better diver.

If you took care of us as friends, went diving with us and not constantly reaching into our pockets, a rapport will be formed so that when a financial debacle like this hits, I will be more inclined to support you.

At this writing, seven local dive shops have closed their doors since  October 2008.  My thought is that a broken and lack-of-customer-care dive shop can operate and even thrive during good times, but when the consumer dollar tightens, or new blood stops coming thru the doors. . . they will perish.  This is probably part and parcel of what has happened.  And methinks, a great many more will fall before this financial meltdown recovers.

Give your clients the best service, give them more than they expect, and train them properly and fairly and they will be yours forever.  Your business and personal life will be the better for it and the SCUBA industry as a whole will not only thrive, but grow and expand rapidly.

Signed,

An Educated and Conspicuous Scuba Diving Consumer

My background is in aviation. I have been a pilot, technician, inspector, trainer, instructor and manager. One thing I know after 14 years doing this flying thing is that standardization is the life of the industry.  It has lead to sharp decreases in accidents made flying easier and more accessible to the general public.  Why cant this be so for SCUBA and more importantly, why hasn’t it been implemented yet?

I have recently had the revelation that all of SCUBA should follow a standardized system for equipment and training. This would be a huge benefit to the industry in many ways. Lets take a look at how this could work.

First, standardized equipment would allow for the newbie coming into the sport to feel that they are not getting taken with extraneous “stuff” for the sake of a bigger sale. This was my initiation into the sport and should not be for anyone else if I can help it.

Next is safety. If all gear is the same, in the same place, and looks the same, then we all could rest assured that what we will need in an emergency will be where we expect it when the time comes to find it. Simple concepts with huge ramifications.

I am a fairly new diver. I have just enough “training” to get myself the confidence to get myself, and others into trouble. Luckily, I am also fairly self aware and have recognized the above mentioned shortcomings. I have found that SCUBA is a highly unregulated (I will get to this in a minute), rogue, and often shady industry (I will discuss this further also).

SCUBA was one of my BIG dreams from child hood. It was also the last to be checked off the list and, for me, the most enjoyable and relaxing. Having acquired several aviation licenses and recognitions including pilot and maintenance inspector licenses and been employed in the aviation industry, I found that the last one had to fall…SCUBA!!

I found my SCUBA school at a travel and leisure convention and accepted a training offer that I couldn’t refuse. $150! What could I lose? A lot as it turns out. It, of course, is not written that they expect you to buy all of your gear from them right away at exaggerated retail prices. The instructor I had was very good and caring and took great effort to take care of his students but was also a loose cannon.  Bored with teaching, he soon found himself unemployed after a quick Mexico run for a girl while the boss was away on business. This left me without an instructor I knew or trusted to finish up my last boat dive (beach diving was not part of the curriculum for some reason…hum!!)

I ended up with some numb nut who was probably an extra in fast time at Ridgmont High and never grew up. Needless to say, my final boat dive was neither extraordinary, nore was it a learning experience. All this after spending alot of money on equipment that was functional but not standardized and didn’t it fit my needs (another issue with SCUBA today. Standardization of the equipment is crucial to aviation cockpits and should be so for scuba. Both are potentially life threatening endeavors).

As a newbie to the industry, it is my feeling that there needs to be standardization for the basic diving rig. This would serve two functions. 1) The new initiate to the sport will feel more comfortable with the purchase of gear and more confident that they are purchasing something that will last them throughout there training and serve them in the type of diving they plan to do most. 2) It will provide a safety feature for the buddy diving. Knowing where your equipment is one thing, but knowing where your buddies gear is located is crucial!! If you both have the same rig or same configuration, this will be a no brainer.

As for the shady side, there will always be crooks, grifters, and cons out there. This is becoming more and more evident in the financial markets every day. This culling may filter down to the scuba world as the money supply gets tighter and more scuba shops go out of business. Only the strongest, most innovative, and most client focused will survive. This is where building and becoming a scuba community will be the standard for the future of the sport (Friend first, meal ticket second might be the future). Being treated fairly, giving the information readily, training, and support systems to keep the new and initiated in the water are the best ways to keep learning, upgrading, and active in SCUBA.

I hope that the industry figures out these concepts before the diving community becomes nothing but the old timer crags that have faught over the scraps of the sea floor since its inception.  I tip my hat to these brave men as they have pushed the bounds so I can be a safer diver and have fun toys to play with safely in the water, but their needs to be a revolution in diving.  Lets start here.

~Michael