The Professional Association of Dive Instructors (PADI) is probably the largest scuba certifying agency on the planet. A less respectful interpretation of the acronym, shared by many scuba divers, including PADI members themselves is, ‘Put Another Dollar In’!
They are a business that needs to make money to work and do so very successfully. To do this they produced an organization that protects its members. If a dive instructor, or divemaster, is reported for any scuba-related wrongdoing, but can show they were following PADI guidelines, then the PADI legal team will pull out all stops to defend them. In almost all cases they will win.
If a PADI instructor or divemaster has ignored PADI guidelines, they are on their own and will even have their membership revoked. Whilst scuba diving is an extremely easy pastime to learn and enjoy, it is still rightly seen as an ‘extreme’ sport for all sorts of reasons.
The PADI training manuals are among the best, in my opinion, and a phrase emphasized in Chapter One of the Open Water Training Manual that I used sums up, for me, what scuba diving should be about: ‘...visiting the underwater world is both a privilege and a responsibility...’
On a Saba dive site I choose to do a Giant Stride Entry from the side of the dive boat.
A clumsy step up (fins don’t make for easy walking), steady yourself, right hand holding your regulator in place in your mouth, extended fingers keeping your mask in place. Your left arm across your chest keeping your secondary reg and Buoyancy Control Device inflator in place for when you splash in. (After 2300 logged dives, I am quite happy with my buoyancy control and weights, so enter with my BCD) empty.)
Then, for the first time in a year, that exaggerated 'giant' stride from the dive boat, so the scuba tank is clear, that brief drop, and suddenly I am back in the underwater world I have missed so much.
No descent, as almost immediately I popped to the surface, a safe signal to the divemaster, then back to the boat to retrieve my camera for the dive.
Once a divemaster has his group in the water, the usual procedure is to fin to the mooring line as a group. It gives divers a chance to get comfortable, check their equipment, and be ready to descend.
He received an okay from each member of the group, showed them his thumb-down descend signal, and it was time to go diving.
Because pressure increases rapidly as you descend, one of the most important skills to learn is equalization, or ‘clearing your ears’. It’s a simple skill to learn but if you don’t get it right, every time, it’s just as easy to harm your ears.
As an aside, when I was a divemaster in Turks and Caicos I once perforated an ear drum. Nothing wrong on the dive, it was not during the descent and I’m not sure when it happened, only that when I returned to the dive boat, my right ear was whistling! It was never painful but did prevent me diving for six weeks! I still remember the Brit doc who saw me and what he said. Basically, he said we had no idea what we were doing. Because we spent so much time underwater, our eardrums were like ‘wet tissue paper’ and ready to pop anytime. I’ve never forgotten that and, so far, have not perforated an eardrum since.
So I’ve always used the simplest technique: pinched my nostrils on the surface, gently blown, so I feel it in my ears, then descend slowly repeating it all the way down.
And that first descent, on that first dive each trip, is always the same, it feels like coming home. Equalizing feels natural again so quickly, and as you float downwards, almost weightlessly, you have time to view the world you are descending into and begin to anticipate the wonders you are about to see and explore.
I’ve dived the same sites in Oman, Turks and Caicos, and Saba many, many times and am frequently asked if I ever get bored with any of them. That’s a question from someone who has not yet realized just how vibrant and alive the underwater world is.
I have never repeated a ‘same dive’ on any of my 2000-plus dives!
The marine life, corals, fish species, and macro life never remain static or the same. With students, the reward of seeing their training skills improve is reward enough, with finally certifying them a bonus.
And if on any dive boat with guests I have welcomed, if there have ever been one or two who I would gladly never see on my dive boat again, they are long forgotten, totally overshadowed by so many really lovely folks, all brought together by the same love of our underwater world.
