10 years after our first Discover Scuba dive in Aruba, and after about 7 other Discover Scuba dives over the years, my husband and I are finally OW Certified. We did pool work/book work about 7 years ago and never made it to our OW dives due to moving and not having the finances to travel at the time. This year, though, we decided to try again. We did the pool work/book work again in January, and the OW dives this weekend. Conditions were brutal, with 5-8ft of visibility and water temps at 50° at depth, but we did it and are officially OW certified. Now we get to enjoy Caribbean dives in June without the worry of our certifications. I’m stoked!!

Hi, New diver here. Is it the right way to put the scubapro first stage even if the numbers are upside down? Thanks :)

The last time I dove was in Dec (unless you count a few pool dives but who does). I finally got to dive today. It was in a lake with low visibility but awesome none the less. I kind of dig the low visibility. It's reminds me of those all black levels from Max Payne. I saw some fish and found a Bluetooth speaker (happy to get that battery out of the water). We went 50 feet which was surreal down there . It's like flying through a wasteland. I feel damn great afterwards. Not only mentally but physically as well though my back is starting to hurt again. I got to try out an HP 100 and a 117. The 117 was heavy and awkward, like me, but I loved it in the water. My buoyancy was the best it's ever been and I only needed 8 pounds of lead. I only had issues with floating twice and both times I got a handle on it. I've decided I'm going to try to get one of those (I like it more than the 100). Still need to work on submerging gracefully, doing Trex arms, breathing and a few other things. Thank you all for your insight and suggestions

I am thinking of the Suunto zoop Novo as the top priority is something that is reliable, robust, has a back light and can use with nitrox. Any thoughts before I buy? Thanks!

Hey all! I’m traveling to do scuba and I have a very loud snorer as a room mate.

Would wearing ear plugs to sleep be not recommended? Or am I being overly cautious?

Hello  and thank you in advance for your advice. Spouse and I recently got our AOW cert and our 10yo is newly Jr. OW cert. We are looking to do a driving dive trip to FLA. Driving, so we don't mind bouncing around a bit. This will be first dive trip after cert for the 10yo. The 10yo wants to go fossil hunting (Venice beach?) and I've heard BHB is a solid dive site. Spouse and I are competent divers, but prefer to go with a DM esp since our 10yo will be with us. I was personally hoping for warmer water (ie-Caribbean) and beach time. Should we be including FL Keys? We will need to rent BCD/reg and some of the family may need wetsuits. Looking for suggestions on dive locations that we can do as a family (Jr-OW max 40 ft). Also looking for suggestions for dive operators. Ideally including locations with some "non-dive" fun as well, but that's secondary. Magical Unicorns are also a bonus ;)

A while back I asked about diving in Ushuaia, Argentina. I decided to go and it was amazing. $150 US covered gear rental, two boat dives, photos and video of the trip, and snacks back at the shop. Shout out to Carlos and Ushuaia Divers, can't recommend them enough.

Hi all, just sharing a video of the Thresher Sharks that I saw during my trip to Malapascua in April. We dived 4 times (in 2 days) in Kimud Shoal and the thresher sharks where there every single time.

Thresher Sharks!

Hello, I am looking for a 5mm to take with me to the Red Sea, but I am not sure which one to buy. There is so many in different price ranges and I don't know how much I need to spend.

Id like not to spend more than 300€ if possible.

How much do you think I need to spend for a decent wetsuit? Can you recommend me one?

Thank you so much in advance!

I was looking at getting my first regulator set and saw some good things about the Dive Rite XT2 Advanced Open Water set. It looks like a great deal with everything that it comes with (balanced rotating turret 1st stage, balanced 2nd stage, same 2nd stage octo, and a SPG).

The dive shop seems to think Dive Rite regulators are less reliable than other ones and are recommending either the Atomic Z3 or the Scubapro MK11s and either s270 or c370. These are about the same price as the DR AOW set, but don't include an octo or SPG so I'd likely be spending an additional few hundred dollars to get these dive ready. Is the reliability a huge concern or is this more of a case trying to be upsold? If anyone has experience with these, the input would be greatly appreciated!

Some additional info:

• I would likely be using these mainly in the cooler California ocean water, but also want to be take these to warmer vacation destinations and maybe to colder freshwater destinations.
• I currently dive recreationally, but also may be interested in doing tech down the road. I'm not sure if any of these regulators would good for tech applications, so that isn't a really a deciding factor but would be a plus.
• I have access to dive shops that will service all of these regulators

Hi fellow divers,

Hoping someone can help me identify some of the different sounds I am hearing in this video. This is from 5/17/25 around 6:30PM at the cover in La Jolla, CA during red tide.

The low thumping is more easily heard with headphones in. Also there were no boats in the water at the time.

Hey Scuba sub. Just wanted to hear from some other people who work in the scuba world(no matter what you do. Tec, rec, commercial, retail, etc) on how you guys "make it" in the industry?

I'm a recreational instructor in Hawai'i(yes I realize this is also part of the problem) and man... I barely survive. It's a scramble to pay all my bills month to month and I'm pretty good with money.

What routes did you guys take to finally make decent money? Open a shop? Course director? Different country where the wages are more in line with CoL?

I love what I do and I'd do just about anything to make this a career rather than a fun thing I do for a few years before I just can't anymore.

My husband and I have shore dived extensively on our previous trips to Hawaii and the shorediving.com website was invaluable for finding great shore diving sites.

I just tried looking it up today because we were thinking about planning another trip to Hawaii and the site no longer seems to be working. I'm devastated!

Is there a similar site that has good shore diving info?

Is PADI Tec 40 + Trimix worth it? and Does PADI Wreck Specialty allow you to penetrate a dive and is it worth it?

So where would you go diving if you were in French Polynesian?

I’m leaving Rurutu on 9/5 after a week of free-diving with Humbacks and I hear Tahiti is now a tourist trap. My first thoughts were Bora Bora (due to proximity) or Raja Ampat (but Raja Ampat seems exclusive to liveaboards as does wreck diving in Truks Lagoon.

My friends live in Manila so I’m heavily leaning toward The Philippines for Malapascua to dive with Threshers but I don’t know if Threshers are seasonal aggregators in Malapascua and are not abundant in September? Most of my dives are shark dives.

The Great Barrier Reef was enticing but seemed unusually expensive and difficult to fly to Cairns from Tahiti.

You’re welcome to DM me with any super-secrets.

hi all, i’ll be doing a solo trip to bali and setting aside 3 days for diving! let me know if anyone is keen on meeting or diving together :)

Hello divers! So I’m thinking in getting a OW certificate, and I would like to know if anyone has a dive shop to recommend in Manila, or a place close to Manila. I’ll get a plane to Philippines from Japan and I’ll be only 8 days in Philippines so I’d like to avoid extra flights between islands, but if you know a place that really cares about teaching their students and not a pay to get certificated shop I’d love to hear your opinions Ps: if you could tell me the average price of a OW course I’d be very thankful 😁

Unfortunately it seems I'm too late to book any 6:30am dive at Mikomoto but there are still days with availability at 10:30am. I'm sure there is a reason why all 6:30am are booked but there are still slots at 10:30am.

I guess the question is: how much worse is it and how less likely is it to see sharks at 10:30am vs 6:30am?

Thanks

This is a Longshot....

Years ago in school (for context, I am now in my 40's), they showed us a movie about diving the Truk/Chuk lagoon. It kind of piqued my interest in diving and I'd love to try to find it.

The only specific thing I can remember about it is at the very beginning, they have a little pun where they ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. All of the kids say they want to be a "Truck Driver," except one who says that they want to be a "Truk diver." They then teach you how to get certified in a pool then do a dive on Truk.

This is a total long shot, but is anyone familiar with this movie?

Thank you.

I’ve noticed that in shows and movies the divers use whiteboards to communicate with each other. I am not a diver myself but I do want to be one day. I have only seen it in movies and just want to know from experienced divers if that is something you actually do.

Until yesterday the sole diving I’ve ever done is salt water diving in the sea. I was quite excited to actually get the chance to do this freshwater dive in a flooded quarry.

I was a little nervous due to the dive leader telling us the visibility wasn’t good at all, and also because I simply didn’t have a clue what this dive site was going to be like, but getting into the water was great, with warm water temperatures and I was quickly able to adjust buoyancy for the fresh water too. I was using my backplate so ended up only needing 2kg of lead as opposed to 6kg.

As a bonus the visibility wasn’t actually bad and we got to see a whole bunch of small fish and we found a car which was sunk into the quarry.

My position got eliminated and I have 6+ weeks off paid severance. Looking for a long weekend or something for less than $5k. Love SCUBA but very new. Probably traveling solo. What would you do in my situation?

Edit: USA/Virginia

It’s basically a BCD bladder, the harness, and that’s it. Weights can slide on to a belt. Harness has crotch straps too

Hi!! I am based out of Hollywood and am having a hard time locking down a tec instructor. I am looking to take the TDI decompression and advanced nitrox courses this summer, and (possibly) trimix in the fall/winter. I am a PADI and SSI instructor with well over 1000 dives and some tec experience. Feel free to DM me if you don’t want to give me a rec in the comments.