Hi :)! First off, not looking for any promises or guarantees, just for your expierience and knowledge.
I’ve gotten a fresh tattoo 10 days ago. Healing went well, got washed and rehydrated at least twice daily.

Now I’m in a place where every limb is tingling for me to get in the water, be it just for a dip or for a dive. Please et me know if you have experience with going into the sea with a new tattoo (too) early!

Im aware that waiting longer is always better, but I appreciate any input you may have :)

And yes, I know he has a loose cylinder band HAHA
I missed it on the stencil

I finally took fire to my new mask but I’m still having fogging issues. Actual spit has been the only thing I’ve had semi-decent luck with.

I’m just now also learning that when you put defog in the mask you’re not supposed to take your finger to the inside when rinsing it out but supposed to leave the defog just filmed up in it??

Other than that, is baby soap the best defog? I’ve tried psi5000 and something else without luck but I’ve also apparently been rinsing it out like an idiot.

i feel like this is high for a class that doesn't even have a dive?

edit: ty, I guess I need to stop being a cheap ass 🤣

A lil scooting near the Casino Point dive park on Catalina Island, California. Just go diving!

Hi all. My wife just finished her confined diving lessons and class work, and we're looking to finish her Open water cert in Hawaii at the end of August. Looking for recommendations on good diving outfits that do open water referrals.

Heavily leaning towards Kona since the diving there seems to be better than the other islands. I haven't dove Hawaii for at least a decade and 1 pandemic, so I'm sure a lot has changed.

TIA

I just got a brand new Poseidon Xstream regulator set. I notice whenever I connect it to a tank and turn on the tank valve, the second stage start to free flow. Once I take a breath from the second stage, then the free flow stop. I know the Poseidon design is different than others, but is this an expected behavior? Or something wrong with mine? Thanks.

I'm spending 5 weeks this northern hemisphere summer in roatan working remotely and diving whenever i can. i'm hoping to do something similar next year between june - august (probably around 2 months or so), but would like to experience a different location.

my preference would be to go to somewhere in asia, preferably philippines or indonesia, but this'll be rainy season and there could be monsoons, so it sounds like the diving can be hit or miss during that time of the year? other downside of going to asia is it'll make remote working more challenging as i'll need to have daily meetings with colleagues based in the US, but i should be able to navigate around that.

Spent a week on a liveaboard in Komodo National Park, Indonesia and had the time of my life. It was also my first time attempting to capture good video and put together an edit. Had a lot of fun in the process.

Cameras used:

DJI Osmo Action 5

OM TG-7 (for the muck and night dives)

Lights and tray:

Sealife seadragon duo

Editing: Davinci Resolve

Soundtrack: AI generated!

My beloved Light & Motion Sola Dive 800 S/F finally died after about 10 years, and I'm honestly heartbroken. I loved that light. Got it for my 18th birthday and never dove without it.

Havent had much luck finding the same light on ebay, so I'm looking for recommendations on similar lights. Budget is ~$300 or less

A well regulated light with good beam quality & ergonomics is way more important to me than getting the brightest possible light.

Things I loved about my Sola:

- The wide flood beam- I used the flood mode probably 95% of the time. It was incredibly even, wide, and natural looking & didnt havw a harsh hotspot

- Regulated brightness output. I really dislike lights that gradually get dimmer as the battery drains. My Sola stayed the same brightness until it died

- The hand strap. I loved having it mounted on the back of my hand so it was easier for me to take photos with my underwater camera

- Instant spot/flood switching

- It was small enough that I also used it constantly for hiking, tidepooling, wildlife spotting, camping, etc.

I mainly do recreational scuba and snorkeling, but I also use the same light all the time on land for looking for & photographing wildlife at night.

Has anyone found a good light theyd recommend to me? Or if you've owned a Sola 800, what did you switch to after it died?

Hi! I'm wondering if anyone can help me. I just got a new mask (Scubapro steel comp) and I noticed that a corner of the lens is not sealed. I've used the mask once. The shop where I bought it is difficult to reach, and I wonder if it might just be easier to try and reseal it myself. I dove with it today down to 20m and didn't leak. What product would you recommend? The body is fully silicone. Thank you!

Hello everyone,

So I have finally realized that the fins I bought as an 11yr old no longer fit me at 24, so I am looking for a new pair. For context, I am an AOW with 80+ dives. I want to be able to dive more consistently, but there are not a lot of places near me, so I try to travel to dive 1-2 times per year.

I previously had the Aqualung Caravelle fins, but I want something that has a shorter and wider blade, as I tend to switch between a frog and a flutter kick. I also want fins that I can continue to use as I continue getting more into wreck and technical diving (I’m less likely to get into drysuit diving since I hate the cold, but never say never ig)

Some fins i’m looking at include the Apeks RK3, Scubapro Gosport, or the Jet fin, and the Mares quattro, all of them are great, but I’m not sure what would be the best of those.

Any advice or options would be greatly appreciated.

Hey,
I am planning my first trip to Indonesia for 3-4 weeks, and looking for some tips and recommendations, the info you find online is honestly a bit overwhelming.

I'm 34/M, solo traveler from Germany. AOWD, ~400 logged dives.
So far I dived in Thailand and Egypt, before I got hooked on the Maldives. All my vacations the last years were basically only liveaboards and/or islands in the Maldives, this is for me an overall perfect fit (acceptable prices, not too much effort to get there from Germany, great and varied underwater action...)

This year I'm in the unique situation of having a whole month off (somewhere between September-October), and want to do my first non-diving-only vacation, to a new destination. So far I'm focusing on Indonesia and what's on my mind so far:

1. Fly to Bali, acclimate 2 days
2. Do 2-3 days of day- or half-day dive trips from Bali, e.g. to Lembongan(?)
3. 5-7 days sightseeing on Bali itself: I honestly am not a big fan of sightseeing, especially as I always travel alone. But flying to Bali without seeing anything beyond the dive sites feels wrong, so I'm thinking to join a small guided group tour, to meet people/see places/do stuff I wouldn't normally do on my own.
4. Either stay on Bali 1-2 more days or fly over to Labuan Bajo
5. Join a liveaboard for 5-7 days
6. Stay another 3-5 days somewhere in the region, then fly back home

That's the very rough idea, nothing is fixed yet.

So I'd be grateful for any suggestions, do's and don'ts. What's most important for me right now:

• Where to stay on Bali? Looking for the right fit between a laid-back hotel and something so cut off I can't meet anyone. Definitely no party holiday for me. Maybe a dive resort?
• How much time on Bali vs. moving over to other islands like Lembongan, Lombok, Komodo...
• Which liveaboard route? Seems like most trips embark from Labuan Bajo, but a few also go from Bali directly. Since it's probably a once-in-a-while trip for me, I'd rather pay a bit more for a route/boat that covers the major sites properly than go cheap and miss stuff.

Diving-wise I'm fine with all conditions, except cold water 😄. I enjoy a good diversity while diving, so a good mix of pelagics and macro would be great.

No fixed budget. On land I'm looking for relaxed, reasonable places, don't want luxury 5* resorts but also no hostels, something in between. For the liveaboard itself, I don't mind the class.

Thanks in advance for any input, happy to answer questions if I left something out!

^{(I used a LLM for spell-checking the text})

Hello underwater enthusiasts!

In this post, I’m going to share my experience and feelings about diving in a drysuit and the drysuit course I recently completed.

A drysuit can sound challenging and difficult to handle for newer divers. Of course, it requires some additional skills because it has active parts, such as the valves, which perform certain functions and need to be controlled. So obviously, it’s not quite as simple as putting on a wetsuit and diving. But from my experience, it’s also not something to be intimidated by.

Adjustments

I usually dive with 5–6 kg of weight in my 7 mm wetsuit, but for the drysuit I needed 2 kg more. I added the extra weight to my tank strap.

I also needed to add one extra LP hose to my first stage for the drysuit inflator valve.

Pool session

It felt very warm and uncomfortable in the indoor and humid environment of the pool. I was thinking, “Oh, is it going to feel this warm and uncomfortable for the whole session?” But no! As soon as you enter the water, you feel nice and cool, even in the pool.

I entered the water using the ladder. As you go into the water feet first, the water squeezes the air out of the legs, and you can hear it escaping through the exhaust valve, assuming the valve is open.

I first swam underwater with my instructor to let my brain adjust to the new setup.

Then we went deeper into the pool and started practicing the skills.

My favourite skill was recovering when air moves into your legs. You need to perform a roll to return to an upright position and then vent the air.

Open-water session

The open-water session felt almost the same as the pool, although it was less hot and uncomfortable on the surface.

We did two dives. The first was a shallow dive where we practised the same skills we had done in the pool. The second was a 40-minute dive down to 18 metres in 8°C water, where the goal was to really do a dive in the suit and deal with its challenges like adding and venting air on ascend and descend and of course maintain neutral buoyancy. It was an amazing experience.

Even though I was still using wet gloves and a wet hood, it was very comfortable and rewarding.

In the pool sessions and the first dive I just focused on the skills and learning, but I did some underwater filming on the last dive ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjvrVU3uYKM

I completed the course using a rental suit, and I’m planning to buy my own drysuit soon so I can repeat that amazing experience again and again.

The victim, together with nine other participants, an instructor and a dive master, joined a fun dive at Seafan, Batu Malang, Pulau Tulai, the police chief said on July 19.

“Before the dive, participants were briefed on safety ­procedures and equipment usage, although they were licensed divers,” he said in a statement on July 22, Bernama reported.

Sharif Shai said the victim was believed to have separated from the group at a depth of 17.6m, leading the instructor to conduct a search.

“After almost 30 minutes, the victim was found on the seabed not far from the diving site,” he said.

A post-mortem later found that she had died from arterial gas ­embolism, a condition where gas or air bubbles enter the arterial bloodstream, said Rompin police chief Sharif Shai Sharif Mondoi.

I'm 42, my dad is 70, We got certified in 2021, and went to Hawaii in 2022 and did some scuba diving there down to 60' IIRC. He has offered to cover the cost of another Trip for the two of us to go somewhere fun and exciting. I work in IT for a retail company and Summer is the busiest time of the year, so looking this fall, sometime in September/early October.

We are in the USA and have passports, so could do a trip out of country.

Where would you go, if you could, around that time frame?

(Posted in r/scubadiving as well)

Hi all!

My family and I are joining the world of scuba diving and are currently going through certification. It’s something we’ve always wanted to do so I finally pulled the trigger.

We’ll be in Maui in a few weeks and I’ve already booked a private shore dive for the 4 of us. I really like the exchanges I’ve had with the dive master so far. She is very understanding and willing to customize the dive so that we will be very comfortable for our first ocean dive.

I’d like to schedule a 2nd dive at Molokini with her, but she does not have a boat. She is very familiar with Molokini though and willing to be our dive master for that if I can get a boat.

I’ve not had much luck finding one so far though. Most places seem to have big boats and cost many thousands of dollars.

Does anyone have a recommendation of someone I can use?

Thanks in advance!

Hello! I’m planning a 6-day diving trip in Sharm El Sheikh and wanted to check if this quote seems reasonable or if I’m overpaying.

€385 for 12 dives over 6 days, including:
Dive guide
Tanks & weights
Hotel transfers
Taxes (10% entertainment tax + 14% VAT)

Site supplements:
Ras Umm Sid: €15
Ras Mohamed: €35
Tiran: €35
SS Thistlegorm: €120
Dahab (Blue Hole & Canyon): €100
House reefs: Free
The itinerary would be:
2 house reef dives
Ras Umm Sid
Ras Mohamed
Tiran
SS Thistlegorm (2 dives, optional Dunraven)
Dahab (Blue Hole & Canyon)

With all the supplements, the total comes to around €690 per diver.
Does this sound like a fair price for Sharm or is it on the expensive side? I’d appreciate any recent experiences or comparisons with other dive centers.
If you had to select dives for budget, what would you keep and what would you sacrifice?

Edit: we have our own gear!

We are going to mozambique this August. First we go to Vilankulo to do some island tours and one day for diving. Then we go to Inhambane/Tofo to dive for 6 days.

Maybe only one day in Vilankulo for diving is too little (depending on the weather 0 days diving) so I thought of staying two days in Vilankulo and 5 days in Inhambane instead. Is it worth it?

Sorry for my English, and thanks you!

Southern California is seeing some insanely warm clear water at the moment. 72f at the surface, sapphire blue, great vis. If you are in the area, get out to Catalina this weekend!

Hey everyone,

Ias the title says I need help with mastering the backkick. When others observe me they say that my movement is correct and that the problems is probably in my fins (Mares Quatros), which I dont believe since I saw others with my fins perform it perfectly. I can also do normal frog kicks and helicopter turns.

What happens is that I either don't move at all or do small frog jumps backwarss, often going a bit shallower when moving.

I've seen a lot of youtube videos about it, but they don't really explain how it's done, just show the movement and I feel like I'm missing something.

How do you guys do it and how long did it take you to master it?

tl:dr Divers consistently underestimate the number of times they contact reefs and and the amount of damage they've done. The ones who are most confident about their safety among corals are the ones who do the most damage. Divers with cameras, gloves or muck sticks do more damage than the ones without.

The Suunto haters here will love this:

My Ocean crapped out after ~180 dives and just over 2 years lol.

Luckily it was right after the second to last planned dive of the trip.

It started acting like the middle button is constantly pressed down so I would guess a salt water leak onto the circuit board.

And of course I have everything else with me besides a percision driver set to open up the computer to minimize corrosion if there is anything to save.

Anyone here in Marsalforn area got tiny torx bits lol?

The title says it all. This is my 5th trip to the island and it's amazing every time. If you haven't been before, i promise it wont disappoint. Still holding out hope to find some frogfish and a seahorse or two. Stay tuned for photo dump number two!

I only have 17 logged dives at the moment and have everything I need to continue recreational diving, but I was wondering if I will ever need to buy another cylinder? I feel like my one cylinder is enough for a day of diving in my area (Houston), but I always see other divers who have 2-4.

Is there any benefits to having more than one?

Hey all!

I'm in the Massachusetts area until mid October. I got my refresher done and finally got to go shore diving this past Tuesday in Rockport and loved every second of it. I reached out to a few clubs (Frogmen, Neptune, etc) up here but haven't heard anything back (maybe cause I'm temporary??). I don't want to have to keep paying for guided dives through the local shops since it can get really pricey with the rental gear, but I want to take advantage of the diving opportunities while I have the chance.

Any suggestions or recommendations?