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All due respect, jbd, but I always caution about removing the weight-belt UW. While in this case it might work (no suit, supposedly not overly obese victim), removing a weight-belt on a diver UW might worst-case result in a polaris-ascent: think neoprene dry-suit diver using his suit for...

Being confused while in the midst of other divers bubbles is not that unheard of, so I am not sure that's got something to do with it. As to what else it may be, I do not have any good guesses with the information you provide. Could be the air, could be the suit - although hard to tell without...

Hmm..... You should *not* need to add extra weight. One of the great challenges (and great confidence builders) is to do this exercise neutrally bouyant or, at least, correctly weighted. Needing to be overweight to do a "demonstration quality" skill means that you'd also have to have your...

I've had a (bad) buddy going OOA, and he ripped as if his life depended on it (well, it sorta did) the primary. I do not know what was worst on him: going OOA, realizing that he'd broken protocol, the fact that he'd forgotten his training - or the shame that he'd completely ignored the briefing...

I can on a good day get into a full lotus position when in my undies. There's no way in **** I can do so when clad in a 5mm neophrene drysuit.

To quote an IDCS who worked with us during my IDC: "If you can hover in one position, you can hover in all positions - now, show me". He was, of course, right: dead-turtle or horizontal or lotus isn't a hovering/bouyancy issue, it's a trim/balance/equipment-issue. I tend to let my students...

When was position added to the Padi std's for the hovering skill for the IE? I recall years back in my own IE, where we [the candidates] seemed to make a point out of hovering each in our own favorite position: buddah, horizontal, vertical, dead-turtle [that guy didn't do it intentionally, but...

That's easy: that smell of neophrene is unmistakable....

Wait, I do refer to my spouse as the "NDSU" - Non-Diving Spousal Unit - in casual conversation. But you know you overdo it when you're together at a gettogether with other divers, and the NDSU auto-introduces as "Hi, I am Thomas' NDSU". No, I am not making this up...

Hmm.....I hope...well, think, that Santa will bring me a few jolly good days off to spend with my loved one (no -s...) -- that's all I really want. Having spent 150+ days on the road for work, and the rest of the year with 15h+ workdays, just some time together and away from the office will be...

Howdy folks, This european is heading west -- specifically to Vancouver, BC -- for a week in early november. It's mostly for work, but there'll be a few days off with time to do "stuff". A quick look at the map reveals that there's water around Vancouver, which of course indicates a possible...

Books....the kind of stuff that people read at airplanes, then forget such that you can stuff them in your carry-on when deplaning and then later in your drysuit pocket for deco. It does add an interesting factor to dive-planning: one now has the choise of either planning the deco according...

Hey....I've seen hollywood-movies too, and I've read about bears on the Internet, so doesn't that make me a true expert....? ;) No, you're right: only bear I've ever seen was behind bars in the local zoo, and he looked like he'd want someone to end his misery....felt sorry for the fuzzy...

Sorry to say it, but this sure sounds like the quick-path to a Darwin-award to me.... ;)

As for taking cold med's....a question was asked "we're told not to do it in class, but in the real world do people do it?" The answer is, probably, that there are some who do. There're also people running their bikes at 200mph without a helmet while drunk. Does that mean that it's a smart...

That's strange. The procedures from ScubaDiver -> OW are straightforward to do, both administratively and technically. Sounds like you did well in finding another dive shop, though. The first one you talked to seems lacking in both the competance and customer service departments if that...

I'd say "AVOID" rather than "BE VERY CAREFUL" to the "having other people handle my gear. In the end, my life depends on it, and I do NOT trust other people with my life. It's the bottom line. I make it clear whenever I book anything that I am buying a taxi-ride and (perhaps) some local...

I generally "sell" packages of "course + 5 excoursion/training dives", which means that an OW or AOW diver from me has ~10 OW dives prior to certification. The excursions happen with me, typically between the second-to-last and last certification dive, but are not training dives as such...

Not directed at you, Hank, but that'd be really really bad dive-planning anyways: to have loads of hang-time and no surface support. If the boat has disappeared while submerged, then unless you've got really really good vertical viz, how will you know at depth that the boat is "nowhere in...

Yeah, it would be nicer if the rest of the world would catch on to the 21th century and go metric ;) (Especially for gas-planning....)