What are things you wish you could tell your past self (SCUBA RELATED)?

[Bob DBF]

Dive More!!!!

 

[ajtoady]

99% of the time it's not a gear problem! Rather a skill problem! You don't need a BPW to dive properly and all other brands other than the ones your LDS sells, ARE NOT JUNK!!!

 

[Centrals]

This is a recreational sport.
1. One step at a time.
2. Think carefully if you want to buy equipment. This is a mine field.
3. Can be very additive.

 

[Pressurehead]

You have done the perfect trim , all the kicks and turns, in and out of caves [wet rocks], wrecks etc, some stuff is done in caves a wrecks for a reason , but for recreational diving in open water ,Now tell your past self why do the same? Diving is three dimensional, you do not have to be horizontal, I spend plenty of hours In bed horizontal.
I am not a frog, kick the way you want without touching anything and silting up.
And enjoy yourself [as I do now], life is too short.
Spent too much time doing skills and and not enough just having fun.

 

[Wibble]

You have done the perfect trim , all the kicks and turns, in and out of caves [wet rocks], wrecks etc, some stuff is done in caves a wrecks for a reason , but for recreational diving in open water ,Now tell your past self why do the same? Diving is three dimensional, you do not have to be horizontal, I spend plenty of hours In bed horizontal.
I am not a frog, kick the way you want without touching anything and silting up.
And enjoy yourself [as I do now], life is too short.
Spent too much time doing skills and and not enough just having fun.

But once you've 'invested' in developing the skills, diving's so much easier.

Maybe it could be summarised as be good in the water, you don't have to be perfect in the water. Although if you are, it does impress those who aren't!

The flappy leg uppy downy kicky thing is just slovenly.

 

[rx7diver]

Don't step into "technical" diving! Just don't!!

I have always wanted to fly small, single- or double-engine, private airplanes. In fact, I had my first "Discover Flying" flying session (with Ann Arbor's Michigan Flyers) the same term, in 1992, that I walked into my southwest Michigan LDS that taught Great Lakes deep shipwreck diving. Ultimately, tech diving won the battle for my limited disposable $$$ and limited spare time.

I love diving. However, I still lament not learning to fly.

rx7diver

 

[Lorenzoid]

Hey, Self of 20 Years Ago, you know those sinkholes in Florida you played around in recently? Well, underneath there--and much of north Florida--the ground is riddled with water-filled caves that people actually scuba dive in. It's not like you think. There are rooms large enough to park an airplane! Not only that, you don't have to be a Jacques Cousteau or a Neil Armstrong--they're now training ordinary divers to do this. Not only that, remember how PADI said you'll explode like a goat if you exceed the edges of the tables? Well, that was sort of BS. In the last 10 years or so they've started training people--again, regular Joe Divers like you--to safely dive longer and deeper. They call it "technical diving." So don't wait a dozen years to get on this path, like I know you would have done had I not told you all this!

 

[formernuke]

Go right for the bpw and cold water regs. Get the custom drysuit sooner.

 

[Mouth Breather]

As others have said now, etc.

But... don't put so much emphasis on the quality of the instructor...no really...get what you can out of the training and practice, practice, practice.

 

[Pressurehead]

The flappy leg uppy downy kicky thing is just slovenly.

Oh No , Mike Nelson was doing it all wrong in "Sea Hunt", he is the reason I wanted to be a diver never missed a show, he was my hero [in black and white], what a 'let down' .
Credit to Lloyd Bridges.
Started as a free diver, works for me.
Such fun.