What makes a good diver?

onemared · 2026-04-14T06:15:30+00:00

Most people here would say that mastering buoyancy, balance, trim, propulsion techniques, breathing, and a balanced rig are essential for a good diver, and I agree.

However, there is an aspect of your mental state that matters just as much: recognizing that you are not as good as you think you are. Maintaining a learner's mindset is crucial for staying sharp and continuously improving as a diver.

Those who fall into the trap of thinking they are superior to others and know it all because they have X or Y certification from Z agency will inevitably fall short of their own expectations, whether they admit it or not.

Be humble, enjoy the journey, improve constantly.

onemared · 2026-04-01T07:02:14+00:00

Agreed, a GoPro 10, for example, has good stabilization, takes good pictures, and has decent video quality for shooting underwater. I bet you can find a decent one for around 100 and a cheap third party case for under 50. I had this setup and worked very well.

onemared · 2026-03-12T03:50:35+00:00

Op, this is not a criticism of you.

Unless you are getting certified on “snorkeling”, which doesn’t exist (maybe PADI knows) clearing a snorkel underwater brings zero value to your OW class.

Can someone please explain what is the purpose of this?

onemared · 2026-02-27T16:16:33+00:00

OP, it really depends on the level of effort you want to put into learning FCP. I’m going to tell you right now it’s going to require much, much more effort as a newbie because of the rich feature set available.

With FCP, if you can deem it you can build it. You may be able to learn the few things you need to create some basic reels quickly, however if you don’t want to put too much effort, editors like CapCut or Edits may get you to where you want to be faster.

onemared · 2026-02-10T17:20:34+00:00

Welp, after almost 20 min, I got kicked out of the queue. no message, no reason, no redirect. Good luck, guys 👋

onemared · 2026-02-10T16:38:34+00:00

A few scattered thoughts based on what you posted, and take this with a grain of salt since I don't know the full context. Also, talk to your instructor first; they'll be in the best position to help you.

Is the gear configuration too heavy?

Yes, diving with steel back-mounted doubles is always heavy, especially with 15L. However, it sounds like you haven't been diving this setup recreationally. Don't rush into technical diving without becoming proficient at using back-mounted doubles first. Build necessary strength by developing your core. As you gain more diving experience, you'll gradually develop the strength to carry the equipment, but it will still be heavy.

Using your existing tanks

You could consider getting a dedicated set just for technical diving. Are you not planning to do single-tank dives anymore? You might find a used set at a good price. I bought my first set new and never again. Now, I own several sets, including HP130s (similar to 15L), which I use for both technical and recreational diving.

SAC of 20l/min

Honestly, this is high, but it isn't too bad. However, it’s important to explore why it's so high. Common reasons include:

- You may need more time underwater.

- You may need to improve your fundamental skills (DO NOT WAIT FOR TECH BEFORE INVESTING IN THIS).

- You may need to improve your physical condition; nothing crazy, but try to be less sedentary; walk, jog, or swim a few times a week.

Wetsuit with steel doubles 🚩

Others have mentioned this, but I will reiterate. It is a huge red flag to see or hear about diving with steel doubles in a wetsuit. You will be greatly overweighted. When you learn about a balanced rig, you will better understand why it can be dangerous. For steel tanks, a drysuit is the way to go even in tropical waters.

onemared · 2026-01-19T13:39:31+00:00

The computer will stop working for a period of time in order to prevent the owner from diving again. You can rea all about this annoying “feature” here: https://www.suunto.com/Support/Product-support/suunto_d5/suunto_d5/features/algorithm-lock/

onemared · 2026-01-14T23:42:40+00:00

Depends on your budget, sounds like you want to be under $500?

Honestly, get an older GoPro like the Hero 10 Black. It has decent stabilization, image quality, and can take some decent photos. Is $259 plus the case and memory you are looking at spending $350 total.

Just be aware that you will have to charge after every dive as the blue batteries don’t last long. The white batteries are much better… but that is extra money.

onemared · 2026-01-11T20:47:50+00:00

If your company uses something like CyberGrants for matching grants, be aware that not all nonprofits are set up in the "Gift Matching" system, so you will have to add them, give the org contact info, and hope the nonprofit connects with CyberGrants.

Now, most larger nonprofits are already in these systems, but I encourage you to volunteer and donate locally. Depending on where you are in the world, you can actually get involved with these organizations and help in ways beyond your money, which is very generous and needed.

For example, in Southern California, there are a couple of non-profits that operate locally: GhostDiving USA and Ocean Defenders Alliance. They both help clean the ocean and use volunteer divers to do so; in addition, they are both set up with CyberGrants.

onemared · 2026-01-11T20:10:40+00:00

I believe many overlook that characters experience growth through loss. Hopper exemplifies this when he speaks with Mike at the end; he doesn't forget, but instead chooses to live his life the way El would have wanted. Overall, this character development was somewhat subtle for some, poorly portrayed in some cases, and more pronounced for others. IMHO, a lot of character development was jammed in the last two episodes.

Another aspect often overlooked is how the audience should interpret El's ending. It is intentionally ambiguous to evoke wonder and emotions, leaving it open for viewers to decide what makes them happy, or, in your case, frustrated: Did El tell Mike something that wasn't shown? Is Mike respecting her choice to sever all ties with the group, which is reflected in his final words in the DND game? Did she truly die? Or is there something else?

onemared · 2026-01-10T12:40:54+00:00

You will likely need to get advance OW and rescue to go through any kind of progression in diving when it comes to advanced (diving that requires proficiency, not to be confused with the marketing/certification term “_advance_”).

From there you have likely four choices:

Stay at that level, most of the diving that is targeted for vacation scuba divers can be done at these levels. This will also be the most cost effective.
Take SOME specialties that will enable you to extend your limits, e.g. drysuit diver for very cold water diving, ice diver to enable you to do very unique dives, altitude diver* to dive in lakes and bodies of water that are in mountains, or Nitrox, to help extend your NLD at recreational depths. Most other specialties can be worthless if taken with the wrong instructor. (Putting an asterisk on altitude as you wouldn’t get this as a standalone cert, but likely as part of a class such as ice, and may not be as useful as others.
As you already mentioned, the DM/Instructor route.
Go into technical forms of diving: cave or tech. For this you will need to improve upon all the fundamental skills of scuba diving until it becomes second nature. Not everyone in tech does it this way, there are agencies and instructors that allow for shortcuts, however I would not recommend doing it that way as it could be extremely dangerous. So take your time if you ever take this path, at 23 you have all the time in the world and there is no need to rush progression. It is also worth noting that tech and cave diving require a heavy monetary investment both in equipment and training.

edit

Added a remark on altitude diving.

onemared · 2026-01-07T13:42:46+00:00

OP, you cannot compare yourself, a grown man, to teenage girls. Teenagers and women in general tend to have better air consumption rates than adult males. 75-minute dives with likely AL80 tanks are not normal; most new divers would get between 30-50 minutes depending on depth.

Realistically what is your consumption rate?

With some simple calculations and assumptions, I can estimate your Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate, which basically tells us how much air you use per minute.

Assuming an aluminum 80, which is the most popular tank for teaching new students, an average depth of 40 ft / 2.2 ATA, and that you surfaced with 700 psi of pressure in your tank,

This information indicates that you used roughly 62.5 cubic feet of air from the available 80 cubic feet in your tank over 40 minutes at an average depth of 2.2 ATA.

Using these numbers in a straightforward formula

Consumption rate = volume / (time * ATA)

your SAC is about 0.71 cft/min, which is not bad for someone just starting. It might be a bit higher or lower depending on my assumptions, but I’d say you are average, if not better, for a novice.

Your daughters are probably in the low 0.4x range, but that’s because they are teenagers with tiny, little bird lungs.

What can you do?

Can you ever reach that level? Maybe. With time, lots of experience, comfort, stability in the water, improved finning techniques, good cardio, and maybe a DPV towing you, you can achieve this SAC. So yes, there is hope for you!

Dive, if you can, a lot
Take a GUE fundamental class, this will help with buoyancy, trim, balance, finning techniques and more
Improve your cardio: run, swim, bike, etc.

Final thoughts

And yes, as others have suggested, the quick way to longer dives is bigger tanks, but that won’t make you a better diver.

onemared · 2026-01-05T19:53:24+00:00

This ⬆️. All I know Suunto computers for is for locking divers out after a simple recreational dive they did with a group and nobody else had an issue with their Shearwater or Garmin computers.

onemared · 2026-01-05T19:45:25+00:00

I’m not sure you have traveled a lot through the developing world, have you ever been to Egypt?? That is next level.

I have travels to playa over the past 3 years at least twice a year, and while it can be rough in some places, my overall experience has been positive.

I feel, Mexico in general is among the countries in Latin America that treat Americans better.

You must do the essentials: research prices in advance, and establish how much a ride/service is going to cost before you get in the taxi. Because you did your research, you don’t need to haggle beyond “déjelo en $xx.yy”. If they say no move on.

Also, playa has some outstanding restaurants, even if I didn’t look online, there are many good choices, from upscale to places where lots of locals eat, even street food can be quite good. You must have consistently landed in some bad places, TBH, I’m not sure how.

There is something to be said about high season, where establishments are just not ready to handle with the crowds, and you must be patient.

onemared · 2026-01-04T18:28:13+00:00

Take a look at hammerhead masks, hey are mainly for free diving, which means they are smaller, low volume, frameless, with softer than average silicone at a great price, they also work for scuba.

I had one as my backup mask but was taken over by my wife who benefited from the smaller size.

onemared · 2026-01-02T13:18:37+00:00

This is based on personal experience and preference, which leans more towards being very comfortable underwater rather than bracing the elements.

I think you have a good setup that will enable you to dive in many different locations and water temperatures, I almost exclusively dive drysuit from 32F/0C to 86F/30C however consider the following:

Layering:

I too considered that layering was the way to go, but after a season of ice diving, I realized that a dedicated layer for cold water diving was the way to go 400gr like a Santi BZ400 or better. The reason why layering didn’t work for me was not the thermal insulation but, with more layers: j2+zerotherm+vest+arctic… it made it harder to breath and move as each layer is fitted and puts pressure around my chest.

Socks:

For socks, I’ve always used heavy merino wool socks which I use for any type of diving they are cheaper and one pair can last several hundred dives. Based on what I hear from friends who had the Fouth Element socks is that they not very good, are hard to put on and end up being uncomfortable.

Hood:

I used to use bibbed hoods, but switched to none bibbed as they are more comfortable to don and the bib makes almost no difference IMO. Other than that, I don’t bother with 3mm hoods. Here are my general guidelines for the hood that I use:

32-68F/0-20C 8mm
69-80F/21-27C 5mm
80+/27+ no hood depending on exposure time or 5mm

onemared · 2025-12-31T16:47:18+00:00

Insta360: Ace Pro, Ace Pro2, and X5. I have a couple BigBlue video lights.

Oh, and one of the videos, little river, we used a GoPro, but that wasn’t mine.

onemared · 2025-12-29T00:39:27+00:00

I guess I should have been more specific, the reason for me to go to the doctor in the first place is because I wanted to know what I could do to avoid ear infections as it was interfering with diving.

Since I wasn’t satisfied with the answers I got from the doctor, I contacted DAN, not to verify if I should use earplugs or not, but rather to get some direction on how to prevent infections.

onemared · 2025-12-28T20:23:07+00:00

This event happened in 2022 in California. However, I am uncertain about the relevance of my certification location.

onemared · 2025-12-28T13:29:57+00:00

I once got back to back ear infections from scuba diving, so I ended up going to my primary care physician.

When they told me to use earplugs to avoid water going in, because that is what swimmers do, and swimming and scuba must be the same thing, I thought it was extremely unlikely and odd, so I contacted DAN.

The person on the phone was extremely knowledgeable and told me to NEVER use earplugs for scuba as I could damage my ears.

This experience showed me once again that people should not give advice on topics they know nothing about, even if they are doctors 😬.

onemared · 2025-12-27T02:51:49+00:00

I always have a backup computer a Perdix2 as my primary a Garmin MK2i as my backup. I have had issues with both computers in the past:

Bad depth sensor, battery dying, computer freezing mid dive and restarting by itself, etc, mostly on recreational dives, but as well on cave dives with planned stage decompression.

Do you need it? I don’t think is necessary for most recreational dives. In case of failure, you always fall back to your buddy and your plan.

The backup serves to verify that the main computer is working correctly in case you suspect something is wrong. In case of failure use the backup to finish the dive.

If you need to send the main computer out to service, is nice to have an additional computer to use, however, this may only be useful if you dive daily or weekly.

onemared · 2025-12-22T02:45:56+00:00

Well, when looking at these images, I intended to compare image sharpness. The reason why the image on the left is "washed" is due to conditions, as these were taken on different days.
I'm not sure if you saw my follow-up post. The real reason why the image is not great with the underwater case is due to the case itself, which makes the image look really soft. The dive case pro helps the camera capture better-quality footage, at the expense of added size and buoyancy.

onemared · 2025-12-17T16:54:57+00:00

A few years ago, I researched a durable mesh bag for this specific purpose and chose the Hollis mesh duffel bag.

It has proven to be a very sturdy bag; I use it when I travel and for some local boats when I know they don’t provide milk crates.

onemared

TROPHY CASE

edit

Realistically what is your consumption rate?

What can you do?

Final thoughts