Tridiving.com Suba Diving

Tom Trindell answers:

Tell him. Its the right thing to do. He’ll forgive you if you tell him the WHOLE story

Tom Trindell answers:

Book a Waikiki Trolley ride for Honolulu City Lights, or go to Ward Warehouse and buy Hawaii Food Bank fundraiser tickets for the shortened version of the City Lights trolley ride (on Day 1 or 2, as they sell out fast). Sure it’s hokey but we always get a group together and go. You can sing Christmas carols, see the decorations, and drive back and walk around City Hall to see the Christmas wreath contest entries (City parks, including Foster Botanic Gardens has sessions for people to gather and make wreaths to be entered).

December 29th- (AM) Hike Manoa Falls, USE CAUTION if it has been raining or IS raining. Flash floods and dangerously slippery conditions (as well as leptospirosis infection risk) increases with the “Winter” weather.

You might consider Kualoa Ranch, horseback riding, tours of film sites for Lost and other shows, barbecue, even paint ball or other outdoor games.

No golfers? Kaneohe Klipper Course has some great vistas though it will be mighty windy in the winter. So play Hickam AFB or something. Kaneohe Marine Corps base has some great beaches too.

If you are foodies and aren’t sampling these on your food tour, Chef Mavro’s and Alan Wong’s, as well as Roy’s, are all excellent restaurants.

Get to the North Shore to see the big surf, if you have the time and the inclination. If the big wave surf meets are on, you will see some amazing feats. Stay safe and stay far far from the water, the waves come in sets and the largest power right up onto the beach and pull in passersby.

You may find that Polynesian Paralysis sets in, and you just want to relax. Nothing wrong with that

Tom Trindell answers:

A few things you must not miss out on on a trip to oahu

1- go to duke’s restaurant and canoe club off waikiki beach and order the famous duke’s hula pie for dessert. Believe me, it will be the best thing you’ve ever eaten.

2- go horseriding at kualoa ranch- http://www.kualoa.com/tours/

3- take a sunset cruise

4- go snorkelling at hanauma bay, it is so beautiful

5- if you like shopping, dont miss out on ala moana shopping centre! Its a must! Its huge and have everything you could imagine.. A shoppers paradise

6-of course pearl harbour and the polynesian cultural centre

7- you could even try some parasailing which was lots of fun

8- go up to the north shore (there are many tours that run here) and see some huge waves, green sea turtles on the beach and swim in waterfalls

hope this helps! Have fun! Hawaii is awesome lol

Tom Trindell answers:

Please do not stress out about the swimming! Remember SCUBA is for your enjoyment with safety as the priority.

Depending on which organization you are doing it with, the requirements for swimming will differ. Some have more rigorous requirements than others.

You have PADI, NAUI, CMAS, ANDI etc to name just a few. By the sounds of it you may be doing NAUI.

However, I do not want to say that any organization is better than the next! They all have different methods, but the general aim is the same, to learn how to dive.

NAUI has stricter requirements for the swimming test than for instance PADI. But again, there are different reasons for each and these schools have developed over many years with thousands of instructors giving feedback. As usual, different people will have different opinions on each organization’s particular methods.

It is however important that you at least KNOW how to swim. After all, you will find yourself in an aquatic environment surrounded by water. It is only logical. Furthermore, depending on the dive site, you may encounter some current and relative fitness can only be to your advantage.

The instructor you have chosen will also have his particular “style” of teaching and his own diving “philosophy”. Have a chat with him or her.

You might even want to consider the organization that suits your needs i.e. Ask yourself how often you will dive in the future and whether you see it as a future occupation (a nice occupation!)

I include some web links of major organizations and you are welcome to mail them with your questions.

Have FUN!

Tom Trindell answers:

The majority of this gear should be used only after significant training. Your local dive shop should help you with that. It is also important that your gear be maintained — your life may literally rely on it.

-Buoyancy Compensators. This typically serves two main purposes (and maybe a third). First, it is a way to attach the tank to you. Typically a BC is a vest or includes a harness. Second, it has an air bladder that can be inflated and deflated to keep you neutrally bouyant (so you neither float nor sink when in the middle of the water column). This is needed because your bouyancy does change over the course of the dive. As the tank pressure is reduced, you become more bouyant. As you descend, your wetsuit is compressed which makes you less bouyant. Sometimes, the BC may also be used to carry the weights (called weight integrated) or have the octopus integrated into the BC inflator.
-Dive Computers: See gauges. Typically, this will include both a dive timer and depth information recorded real time. This helps avoid the bends. The air pressure can also be incorporated (but might not be).
-Scuba Fins: These greatly reduce the effort required to swim.
-Scuba Diving Gauges: These monitor four things. A compass provides directional information. A pressure gauge tells you how much air is left in your tank. A depth gauge tells you how deep you are. A bottom timer tells you how long you have been underwater. These are crucial: time and depth need to be managed to avoid the disease known as the bends. Air pressure is also crucial — without air in the tank, you have no air source.
-Dive Masks: This functions by creating a pocket of air in front of your eyes and allows you to see clearly underwater. (Note: It does not do anything to prevent pressure from being applied to the eye — they can handle the pressure).
-Scuba Octopuses. A spare second stage — see below.
-Scuba Regulators. This is what allows you to breath while underwater. The regulator has two stages — one reduces the pressure from over 1000psi to around 100psi (a bit of a fudge here) and is called the first stage. The second stage is attached to the hose and is what goes in your mouth. It reduces the pressure further and is a demand valve.
-Snorkels: This allows you to breath (while on he surface) but with your face in the water.
-Scuba Tanks: This is a metal cylinder that contains pressured air. A tank will typically hold over 3000 PSI.
-Diving Weights and Belts: The belt holds the weights to you. It is designed to be released in an emergency. The goal of the diver is to be neutrally bouyant. Because some dive equipment (wetsuit) and most people are naturally bouyant, some weight must be worn to be neutrally bouyant.
-Dive Reels: This is a specialized piece of gear that is used in a few different contexts. It can be used to mark a route underwater (most often in cave and wreck diving), or to help when setting up a search pattern. (Both caves and wrecks are hazardous environs where you cannot not ascend directly to the surface and where it is possible to be in zero viz from a silt out). It can also be used to help guide a surface float up.
-Spearguns : These are used to shoot fish (think of it as underwater hunting). Frowned on in most locations.
-Scuba Hoods: Since much of your body heat is lost through your head (and water sucks heat from the body even quicker than air), this can help keep you warm.

People snorkeling use a mask, fins and snorkel. Some also use a hood/wetsuit, weights and snorkel vest. A spear gun may be used as well. The rest of the gear is used only in diving.

Tom Trindell answers:

You have to hold the top of the mask down to your forehead. Then while holding the bottom portion of the mask a little bit away from your face, blow out from your nose.

This works air always rises. In this way, you put all the air in your mask, and it forces all the water out.

Tom Trindell answers:

The PADI OWD course includes 5 theory modules, 5 ‘confined-water’ training modules (CW1-5), and 4 qualifying ‘open-water’ dives (OW1-4). Each of these modules and dives has a set syllabus, and the OWD course manual lists all the required skills for each part of the course.

The written test is a multi-choice exam, based on all the dive theory in the course manual/DVD, and the RDP instructions for use. Much of this theoretical component can be completed online in your own time, but prior to sitting the exam, you should be provided with the opportunity to review any concepts you are unsure about with an instructor. The exam should (I believe) take place in a classroom environment.

Although the CW training modules can be run together into 1 or 2 training sessions, for maximum educational benefit, it should still (ideally) consist of 5 ‘mini-dives’, each with its own briefing, descent, skill demonstrations by the instructor (not a divemaster, and certainly not a DM trainee!), ascent and debriefing. With a large group, being taught ‘by the book’, it can easily take 2-3 in-water hours (or more) for all students to complete all the skill circuits, and will likely require at least one change of dive cylinders (one of the required skills on CW3 is ‘breathing from a free-flowing regulator for at least 30 seconds’, which can easily burn through a quarter-tank of air).

So be wary. If your chosen dive school is truly planning to ‘teach’ all the required CW skills within a single pool dive, and especially if there are multiple students per instructor in the pool, you are unlikely to get much (if any) feedback on your performance, and possibly also insufficient time to develop ‘mastery’ of the skills (as defined by PADI) through repetition.

Assuming that your dive centre is not planning to cut corners and short-change their students in this fashion (and the fact that they told you that you’ll be doing 5 OW dives), I suspect that one of those 5 ‘OW’ dives is actually going to be a second CW session, but conducted in a shallow ‘confined open water’ (COW!) environment rather than a swimming pool (which is allowed under the PADI standards). You’ll likely do the pool session in just your shorts, or a thin/shortie wetsuit, but use a thick(er) wetsuit for the COW session. If you have sufficient air left after completing the COW skills, you might be taken for a short tour, allowing you to log it as a dive. From memory, to count as a loggable open water training dive, at least 2 of the following 3 criteria must apply: (1) max. Depth >5 m (15 ft), and/or (2) divetime >15 minutes, and/or (3) >50 bar (750 psi) air used.

The 4 ‘official’ qualifying OW dives are designed to allow students to demonstrate their mastery of the required skills and theory, by applying them in open water. Apart from coping with real-world OW diving conditions, no new skills are introduced during this part of the course. Your instructor should brief each dive beforehand, telling you what you’ll be expected to (show that you can) do once you’re underwater.

All the best.

Tom Trindell answers:

The trusted authority for answering medical-related diving questions is Divers Alert Network. If you Google Divers Alert Network and marijuana you’ll get an educated medical opinion. You can always contact them and ask about “medical marijuana” and it’s effects.

Tom Trindell answers:

Do what you love, not what you will end up hating in life. If you have the opportunity to grab onto something you will love doing for a career in life go for it! Not many of us have this opportunity growing up and are not provided these lessons to seek out what we want with our careers.
If I could go back to change anything in life I would go back and re-select how I went about college and work to what I really wanted to do. I only did what I was told is accepted to do. All this time I have forgotten about me and my true desires.
It is not weird. It is you and what you want. I have several friends who have made careers in that field and one of them own’s their own aquarium shop with salt water fish, live rock etc. All kinds of other things after he retired as a marine biologist.
I have also had an uncle who did the scuba diving, but went the wrong direction for jobs there. He ended up having to work in sewer pipes under water that required scuba diving.
Honestly, I would go back to school for marine biology if I could. I would love to work with the mammals of our oceans etc.
Enjoy it and embrace this
Hope I helped.