Throughout our diving careers, we are admonished to ascend slowly from our dives. Ascending slowly is so important that most dive computers are programmed with ascent rate monitors that beep obnoxiously (and sometimes embarrassingly) the moment a diver exceeds the computer's designated maximum ascent rate. Dive training organizations repeat information related to safe ascent rates time and time again during scuba certification courses. PADI, with its love of acronyms, even came up with a sticker and T-shirt campaign for safe ascent rates - "Be a S.A.F.E. DIVEr - Slowly Ascend From Every Dive". After being exposed to all this hoopla about ascent rates, a student asked me an intelligent question, "What about descent rates?"

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While driving a friend, a novice diver, to a dive site, she said something so shocking that I almost pulled over. "So, just to be clear," she asked, "when I want to go up I push the inflate button, right?" My friend had completed her open water certification some time ago, and had already enjoyed several recreational scuba dives when I caught her error. Frankly, I am disgusted that her instructor never explained proper use of the buoyancy compensator's (BCD's) power inflator to her. Unfortunately, she is not the first certified recreational diver that I have encountered who was confused about proper buoyancy control. Read More...

I began my career as a scuba instructor at a monstrously large all-inclusive resort in the Riviera Maya. Teaching vacationers to dive in the warm Caribbean water seemed like a dream come true. There was only one problem with the job - the free pool demo. "Demo," as it became known among the dive shop staff, happened twice a day for marathon, two-hour sessions. Dive instructors paired off into teams and traipsed about the pools trying to entice vacationers into trying scuba diving in the pool for free. It was a sales tool used to promote open water courses and discover scuba diving experiences, but more importantly, Demo was a chance for us to gossip, mooch free sodas off the bar, and oogle the tourists.

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Sirens howled and I smiled. The classroom erupted in a flurry of chaos as we flung our books aside (a little too enthusiastically, I admit) and squirmed under our desks.  Growing up in California, the elementary school's earthquake drill was my favorite part of the month.  It all seemed like a game - exciting, but unnecessary, until one day we experienced a real, and rather major earthquake. Most divers have had a similar childhood experience, perhaps a fire drill, and will agree that reviewing emergency skills periodically enables people to react appropriately to stressful situations. So why do divers not apply this knowledge to scuba diving more often?

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