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7/2/2024 0 Comments Total Peace UnderwaterSo many of us divers got into scuba because we were looking for an adventure. An escape. A way to get away from the troubles we face on our earthly world.
It’s an escape from home and work, when we travel away to exotic islands filled with new cultures, new people, and new dive sites. We take up diving because we are looking for a fun sport or exercise. It’s an activity we can do with new and interesting equipment to learn. It’s is a physical activity where we can learn new skills and stay active and feel like we are doing something exciting with ourselves. Equipment moves us through the water. Equipment allows us to breathe underwater. Equipment tells us when we need to leave the water. And just like the baseball player needs the bat. And just like the musician needs the guitar. The scuba diver needs the fin to swim, the regulator to breathe, and the certification card to be a diver. So what makes one diver better than another? Better gear? More logged dives? More destinations visited? Does having the gear, the log book, or the C-card fulfill the quest for precision buoyancy control that so many divers long for? And what happens when all the cards have been collected? What happens when the log book is full? Does the perfect control finally come? Is peace of mind somewhere there to be found in the pages of the log book? Does that translate to our lives on land? Diving is life, life is diving. Not as a way of kicking water to propel yourself along a reef. Not as a collection of skills that need to be learned to stay safe underwater. Not as an activity to share with buddies and compare log books. But as something more spiritual in itself. Peace. Total peace underwater, which can ultimately show you the way to total peace in all of your life. Perfect trim, buoyancy control, and great kicks are not your goal. Nor is the best dive gear, or the log book full of exotic locations. The goal is not to have the most certifications or the highest level of certification. Your goal is total peace underwater. If you have Total Peace Underwater, you’ll also have the perfect trim, the precision buoyancy control and the magical kicks and everything else that you need as a diver. But not because that is what you are seeking. But because that is the result of being at total peace underwater. If you focus on your breathing and your peace of mind; then the skills and attributes of what you want to look like underwater will happen. They have to. They can’t "Not Happen" if your goal is total peace underwater. The goal is not getting neutrally buoyant but instead to be neutral buoyancy. The goal is not to stay in trim but to be the trim that the environment needs when you need to fix your trim for the environment. If you struggle with buoyancy and balance and trim, it is because you are focusing on these things, instead of being present in the art of diving. The art where finally becoming neutrally buoyant and truly at peace underwater is just the beginning. A rebirth where, now, you can really dive. You are buoyancy. You are trim. You are at peace. The skills we work on in The Essentials are not really diving skills at all. They might be to the new student, at that time. They are buoyancy work, and improving personal skills, and developing team skills and how to be in control enough to think and see more. To enjoy more. We do need to work on these as divers but they are not the goal. And as long as you still focus on them as the goal, you will continue to work on fixing something in yourself. We are not just diving underwater. But, diving into ourselves. Where what we really need is Total Peace Underwater.
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6/20/2024 3 Comments Never Become An Advanced Diver!I am going to tell you something that NO scuba instructor in their right mind would ever say to you. NO dive shop will ever tell you what I am about to say. It goes against everything the entire scuba industry has been working towards for over the last 50 years.
Never become an Advanced Diver! I know what you’re thinking. “But James, how do I get better? I need to take my advanced open water!” Most divers receive an invitation for their advanced class at the same time they are getting the congratulatory handshake for completing their basic open water dives. All it takes to be an advanced diver is 9 dives. But does that card really give you the confidence of being an advanced diver. What really does that term, advanced, even mean? I see divers of all different levels in the water and they all seem to struggle with the same few things. The Essentials of Buoyancy, Balance, Trim, and Propulsion. Which ultimately affects their confidence. These basic skills are the core to your foundation underwater and most certification card models are built around bypassing these foundational skills. Rather than building a strong base to build your confidence underwater, most divers are sold the idea that it is advanced specialty classes that will make them better divers. So, why then do I teach the Essentials to scuba instructors? Divemasters? Advanced Divers? To divers who are already certified technical divers? What is it that they are missing? It is not a high level secret skill. In fact, it is much simpler than that. It is a mindset. It is a commitment to keep the beginners mind. The problem we fall into with scuba is that we are tricked into an idea that we need to keep giving and receiving positive reinforcement. Handshakes, and shiny gold certification cards, and elegant wall certificates; instead of a prescription of long-term foundational practice. Deep rooted instinct and rote memory from a drowning repetition of our core fundamentals is the way to become an advanced diver. Not by taking quick classes that teach a few new fancy tricks to try at night, or while deeper, or while identifying fish. That is the fools way of advancing your diving. If you need training to dive a little deeper, you should get it. But keep your beginners mind. If you want to learn how to dive at night, yes… take a class. But keep your beginners mind. Never let your certifications let you think or feel that you’re better than you really are. Your proof will be in the water. When you don’t get anxious about a safety stop. When you don’t wonder if you’ve got enough air. When you never worry about where your buddy is. When you don’t have to hold on to something or kneel on something to stay still for a picture. When you don’t leave a trail of silt behind you. When you are truly ocean friendly. This is when you know you are advancing yourself, but you won’t need a card to tell you that. Because it can’t. It’s how you present yourself to the underwater world that shows how advanced you are. The True Advanced Diver will never let themselves admit to being advanced. They will never think that they don’t need to work on improving their fundamental skills. They know that it is not the advanced card that makes them advanced, but rather a calm and a comfort in the Essentials that makes them safe and confident. And that, makes them Advanced. 6/6/2024 1 Comment Fully EngageLife is stressful today. We are always under pressure to do more with less, and the stress seems to keep building year after year. Luckily for some of us, we have diving. A way to get away from it all. No emails. No cell phones. Just being underwater blowing bubbles. In our happy place. Free from it all, where our problems go away….
*Record Scratches* But wait! What if you run out of air? What if an O-ring fails?? What if you lose your buddy??? What if… sharks or something???? The reality is that we are always playing poker with the fates when we breathe underwater. You can open any scuba accident and incident report from any year and see that they are filled with fatalities from very shallow waters and well within NDL limitations. Dives that start off as a way to get away from it all, that ironically end with that very thing… literally. Dead. I challenge you to rethink your “get away from it all” mentality underwater, and instead to “fully engage yourself.” Go all in. Go 100% into what you are doing underwater. Things happen when we are diving. Weird, unusual, and unexpected things happen all the time. Usually, at the worst time. The accident isn’t even caused by that weird thing, but rather how the diver reacted to the situation because they were turned off and just blowing bubbles and enjoying the moment. They were not fully engaged with being underwater. Unfortunately, as divers, we can’t just quit and give up when things go wrong like you can in a driveway basketball game, or a bike ride, or family reunion cornhole match. For a diver, if the stress starts building underwater and the urge to quit and bailout of the game rises, it means there is a likelihood of a serious injury and possible fatality. Every foot of depth and minute of time that passes for a diver puts them further into a place where no matter how bad it gets; they must remain calm and clear headed. It’s a conundrum that divers face, where the time they could have an anxious moment that leads to panic will most certainly come at the worst possible time for a panic situation to occur. Even the most mundane and recreational of dives will have most likely invited some type of a decompression obligation that requires them to stay underwater and not do what they want to do which is quit and go to the surface and get out. In "The Essentials," I teach divers how to fully engage and how to take ownership of their diving. To know what your gauges will show before you look at them. To know exactly where your buddy is before you look for them. To start every dive always assuming the worst, so that you are ready to bring out your best. It is the opposite of every other class you’ve taken. It is the opposite of buying expensive computers and gadgets to make your diving easier and safer. Instead, it is learning to fully engage into the dive so that you are safer because you are fully present and aware. The Wrong WayLearning to dive is just like learning to ride a bike…. Meaning, all of us were taught the wrong way.
We all know the old saying about something being, “like riding a bike.” It means that once you know how to do it, you’ll never forget. It’s so easy, it’s like riding a bike. But can you remember learning to ride a bike? You were given a bike with training wheels. Maybe a helmet. Maybe knee and elbow pads if your parents really loved you. You we’re told to, “just pedal.” You spent months, years maybe, on a wobbly bicycle bouncing back and forth against training wheels to keep you upright while you tried to learn how to pedal up and down the driveway. That was wrong. When the day finally came for you to take the training wheels off, you still didn’t know how to ride a bike. You fell over. You had to relearn everything. Because riding a bike has nothing to do with pedaling, it has to do with balance. Years of practice. Years of waiting. Trying. Building up courage and confidence only to have it all come crashing down on you when you tried to go without the training wheels for the first time. You fell. Bumped your head, hurt your elbows and knees, maybe you broke a wrist. Because you still didn’t know how to ride a bike. The alternative to adding training wheels would be to simply remove the pedals. You would have learned to stand and hold the bike up with your feet. Take a few steps and glide. Then glide a little further and stay up a little longer. Step, step, step and then glide away on your bicycle until you got so good at gliding that adding the pedals allowed you to keep gliding around town. Going and going forever. That’s how you ride a bike. Balance. Control. Confidence. This is the problem with scuba instruction. The weekend class model that says if you buy enough fancy gear, diving is easy and anyone can do it. Let the equipment take care of everything. Underwater training wheels that tell you to keep breathing, never hold your breath, and you can always drop your weights and go to the surface. That is wrong. Human proprioception, the sense we have of how to move and hold ourselves, is completely different underwater. It must be learned correctly. A new instinct and understanding of ourselves is Essential to become a Confident Diver. Of course if you want to wear training wheels forever underwater, there is plenty of equipment to buy. Scuba is full of gear fixes for you to purchase. Swimming is too hard, try split fins. Afraid you’ll run out of air? Get a Spare-Air Pony Bottle. Don’t like choking on salt water? Buy this dry snorkel. Rarely do they get to the root of the problem, but there is always another gear fix. Mouth fatigue? You should have a custom molded mouthpiece. Too much gear? Get rid of a hose with this Alternate-Inflator regulator. Always losing your buddy? Try this underwater honker, banger, rattle, horn…. They are all training wheels. The alternative would be to learn the building blocks of becoming a confident diver. Buoyancy, Balance, Trim, Propulsion, Body Mechanics, Awareness. That’s how you dive. Balance. Control. Confidence. The ESM (Extreme Scuba Makeover) has become one of my most successful and popular classes. This one day experience takes you back to the beginning. To relearn and break down all of the necessary underwater body mechanics and awareness that you need to be a real diver. To understand what your body is doing, and why. To show you what you really look like underwater. The ESM is for any diver in any equipment configuration. The Essentials is the way you fully immerse yourself into this new way of thinking. It is an intense, multi-day, complete reprogramming. It covers equipment configuration, gas planning, dive planning, team awareness, underwater skills, propulsion techniques, and everything you need to get started on becoming a new diver. To become a thinking diver. A comfortable, competent, and confident diver. Take a look at the training materials here at the UTD Scuba Diving site. Are you ready to make a change this diving season? Contact me for a free 30 minute zoom call to discuss any questions you have about your diving. 3/6/2023 0 Comments Are you a “bad” buddy?Every certified diver knows about the buddy system in scuba. Some of us like it, some of us tolerate it, and others are out looking for a solo diver certification.
If you’ve ever been partnered up on a dive boat with a “bad” buddy, you know how frustrating it can be. If you’ve ever been partnered up on a dive boat and never heard from that person again, you might have been the “bad” buddy. The problem with the buddy system is that it isn’t really taught. It’s mentioned. It’s encouraged and required by most dive boats. It’s discussed in a classroom. But it isn’t taught. Being a good dive buddy takes training, work, and practice. It is not just swimming around the same dive site with someone else just in case they run out of air. A good buddy is an integral part of the dive system. No less important than having your regulator properly connected or having the right breathing gas. If you have an alternate air source but don’t have a buddy ready and aware to use it, it is useless. There is no reason to have a buddy with you if they cannot maintain buoyancy control, ascent rate, and depth awareness with you during an air share emergency. Having a buddy that is following a different computer with a different ascent schedule or decompression profile is the equivalent of not having a buddy. But all to often this is the case with the “Rent A Buddy” protocol you see on many dive boats. The standards say you must dive with a buddy, and that means you are assigned one if you didn’t book the charter with your own. Whether or not this buddy will be an asset or a liability is rarely of concern to the dive staff, they are merely following the rules. Unfortunately the rule doesn’t say everyone needs a competent and properly trained buddy, it just says you must dive with a buddy… any buddy. Most instruction focuses on teaching the student diver a list of personal skills and no time is really spent on team building. It is assumed that if you are certified to dive, adding a second person is only going to benefit and make the dive better and safer. But that is rarely the case. The term, Same Ocean Buddy, would not be in the vernacular of every diver throughout the world if there wasn’t a constant reality of being paired up with one. This pairing usually leads to two divers becoming untrained, unequipped, and unprepared solo divers. Furthermore, the concept of a solo diving certification typically requires following an instructor around on a shallow dive and carrying two of everything you typically only have one of. However, simply adding additional gear does not make the diver safer. Instead this redundancy becomes a mess of unnecessary excess where a competent team mate should be. Divers need to learn the basics of diving, just to get started. We need to understand this new environment we are in, the physics involved, the equipment needed, etc. Being in a three-dimensional world is something completely different for humans to experience underwater, that is foundational in your learning. Everything else is built upon that. How to breathe, stay still, control buoyancy and move efficiently are essential. After that we can start adding the new equipment we have for diving. How to use a regulator. How to use a mask underwater. Monitoring gauges. Deploying emergency equipment like alternate breathing sources. After the diver can control their own buoyancy and manage their emergency resources themselves, then they need to do it with someone else. A buddy. But they need to be able to do it together. You can’t do an air share with one diver losing buoyancy and going up while the other diver is losing buoyancy and going down. It doesn’t work and therefore the divers are not ready to be on their own in the open water. Even outside of the gas emergency, just making an ascent together as a dive team means the buddies need to be thinking the same thing, expecting the same thing, and doing the same thing. Otherwise they are not a buddy team, they are just two divers underwater at the same time doing two different things. That is not a team. The problem is that it takes time to get a group of divers to this point. Time that will generally exceed the amount allotted in a typical scuba class. Time pressures and the economics of a traditional “learn to scuba dive course” will continue to produce divers unable to fulfill their obligations as a dive buddy. As a community, from the bottom up, we need to make this change because they are not giving it to us from the top down. Good instruction is out there but it is up to the diving community to stop accepting the minimum standard and seeking only the cheapest price. Together we can change our own identity as confident scuba divers. To be seen as real divers. Confident, competent, and comfortable underwater, ready for our new environment. Are you interested in learning more about being a better team mate underwater? Consider the taking the UTD Essentials with me this summer. Get your buddies together and let’s turn you into a real underwater team of thinking divers. 1/3/2023 1 Comment BCD FailureEvery so often we get the reminder that diving is in fact still dangerous and we risk our lives every time we submerge. But for many of us, that is what attracts us to it. The idea that we are cheating science and evolution, that we are going where humans don’t belong.
Recently, I had an equipment failure and I thought some of you might find some value in hearing about what happened. I just got a new wing. My old buoyancy compensating wing finally wore out after 20 years. It was an old Halcyon Explorer 55# wing, but what I really cherished about it was the old logo Halcyon Patch that bore the old slogan, “The ‘Doing It Right’ Equipment Company. It’s a horseshoe style wing, which I actually still prefer. Nothing against the new donut style wings but I really like the feel of the horseshoe when diving doubles and carrying extra bottles for stage and deco. I’m probably one of only 10 people out there still diving a horseshoe style wing, but what can I say? I’m old school. Now truth be told, I didn’t get a brand new wing. An old buddy of mine who bought a bunch of gear for diving doubles a few years after I started was getting out of diving and he asked if I wanted any of his gear. His wing was only used a handful of times, maybe 5 or 6 dives. It was in beautiful shape and looked like it was new. Most importantly, it also had the old logo with the old slogan on it. I was stoked to get my hands on it. Well, a few weeks ago, my dump valve on my old wing with thousands of dives on it finally gave away. It ripped away from the outer shell material and it was time to part ways with my old faithful wing. Lucky for me I didn’t have to go shopping, I had a new one sitting and waiting. The next week, I was headed down to the Florida Keys to teach a class, we would be wearing doubles down there and I grabbed my “new” wing for the trip. Down in the basement with all of my extra gear down in my diving locker. I opened up a plastic storage box and there she was. My new girl. But I didn’t really do any inspection of it other than blow it up and make sure the inflator worked, that it was holding gas, and that the dump valve fired. The first few days of the class went well. The students were working hard and learning a lot. We were diving everyday, despite a small hurricane trying to disrupt our plans for a week of dive training in Key Largo. Later in the week, we were diving on the Spiegel Grove. Hurricane Nicole broke up on the coast north of us and the seas had calmed down except for some moderate winds and a tolerable chop. Much better than a few days before. I entered the water with a splash. A giant stride from the back of the boat with double 80’s on my back. The waves were choppy and the current was present but manageable, especially with the tag line floating off the back of the boat. I was resting on the surface and holding onto the line while I waited and watched for the other divers to enter. Visibility seemed good and the current would be easier to address underwater rather than on the surface. I signaled my team mate to submerge here and swim the short distance to the mooring line instead of getting beaten up by the surface conditions. As I lifted the head of the inflator and depressed the dump button, the gas started escaping and then the whole inflator came off in my hand. The corrugated hose separated from the inflator and all of the gas started to leave my wing. I quickly became negatively buoyant as I looked at my buddy who was directly in front of me with an expression on his face that clearly stated, “you have got to be kidding me!” This is the absolute worst time for a bcd failure. At the beginning of the dive, all of your bottles are the heaviest because they are full of gas, and now you lose your primary source of surface buoyancy. This is where years of experience and a trust in my diving philosophy came to my defense. Although the water was warm down there, I was diving in my Drysuit. For years I’ve taught the concept of weighting yourself for a balanced rig. Meaning you are never too light when all your gas has been used to hold your shallowest stops on the ascent, but also when your are at the beginning of a dive and everything is full of gas and you are at your heaviest, you can still swim your gear up. The Drysuit adds the benefit of being able to add gas, becoming backup buoyancy, without the need to have a redundant BCD/Wing. Back at the surface my buddy asked me what happened and if we needed to abort the dive. As I looked at the inflator I noticed that the plastic zip tie that holds the hose on to the inflator had broken off. It was old and sitting around for 15 years or so and when I lifted it up through the bungee to deflate it, it caught and snapped and then separated from the corrugated hose. I stuck it back inside the hose but could tell that it was very loose and would easily come right back out. I looked at my buddy and said, “No, give me a second.” I yelled up to the Divemaster on the boat who was standing there on the port side watching us, “Hey, do you have any tie wraps on the boat?” “Yes, I think so,” he shouted back. “Let me check.” A few seconds later he returned with a zip tie, “Yes, here you go. Do you want it now?” “Yes, I said.” He handed it over the side of the boat and I wrapped it around the hose and the inflator, inserted it through the small opening on the zip tie and then pulled tightly to secure it. SNAP!!! It broke in half. “Shit! Hey, do you have another one? This one just broke too.” A moment later he brought me a second one. I put it on a little more carefully and didn’t tighten it up so hard for fear of breaking another one. By now, I was confident that this quick repair job would do. Despite having the tail of the tie wrap dangling outward… a real Rule 6 violation I must say, considering my usually absurd adherence to being clean and tidy underwater. We did the dive and made it home safe and secure. Back at the house, I swapped the old, sun-beaten zip tie wrap for a fresh new one that was tightly secured and ready for the next day. It was a great talking point with the class. Failures do happen and they rarely send you an email to let you know when and where they are going to occur. BCD’s are full of potential failure points. The inflator alone has many more besides what I delt with. O-rings that seal off the dump button, the spring that controls it, the inflator itself sticking open while adding gas. Not to mention many divers have an easy-pull dump up at the shoulder, which is truly in the worst possible position for a failure when you are your heaviest. Retaining pins, cable assemblies, valve cores, gaskets, springs, o-rings… the more advanced the design, the more potential you will have for problems. Regular service of your equipment will help prevent a lot of these possible problems, but the potential for failures underwater will always exist. Diving is a dangerous activity and there is always a chance of things going wrong. For many of us, that was part of the attraction. It’s what got us excited to do it. To test ourselves against nature and defy what we knew of our own human physiology. Good equipment helps, but staying active and building a broad and extensive base of experience is what will really keep you aware and safe when things do go bad. Good training should include critical failures to get you ready for problems in the real world. Just practicing disconnecting and reconnecting an inflator hose underwater is the very elementary basics of knowledge. The next step is an educational model that introduces failures to you in a way that makes you think on the fly, solving your problems underwater, and learning how you react to these problems in real time. Of course, first you need mastery of the Essentials. Buoyancy, balance, trim, body mechanics, propulsion, awareness, and a deeper understanding of how your equipment works. Then you can start to train how “you” work. Learning yourself. Relaxing your mind so you can build confidence underwater. What do think? Have you had any scary moments with equipment breaking on a dive? Have you had any situations like this you want to share? Feel free to email me here or let me know if you want to set up a free live chat over zoom to discuss any questions or concerns you may have with your confidence underwater. James Mott [email protected] 11/12/2022 3 Comments The Infinite Game of ScubaWhen I think back on my diving education, most of the classes were very short and I never once had the feeling that I might not pass this class. Especially in the early days of my recreational training. Sure my cave class and tech classes were pretty demanding but I had moved on from looking for the big name agencies and was seeking out specific instructors, whom I knew would fully challenge and test me. I wanted that. I needed that.
The longest class I had taken was my Divemaster. Which was definitely long , over a year of internship, which was actually more like legalized slavery. It was never a pass or fail feeling but more like a prison sentence, I just had to do my time breaking rocks. Which for a Divemaster candidate is filling tanks, cleaning wetsuits, fetching coffee, bringing the donuts, setting up the classroom and training sites. But the long term approach gave me ample time to process a way of thinking. I had plenty of opportunities to observe, learn, ask questions and then let it absorb into my own way of thinking. Weeks or maybe months later I would see myself integrating these things into my own style, as I grew into myself as a diver. When I took my instructor class, I was very well prepared. I had basically become an assistant instructor over the last few months without having the actual card yet. A few of my fellow instructor candidates were nowhere near as prepared. They had been on the instructor fast path since their first Open Water certification and were being groomed to be the next, dip and dunk instructor for their shop. OW, AOW and a deep and night cert all in the next weekend, a rescue and a couple more specialties the next weekend, a weeklong Divemaster class, and BAM! Instructor Development Course. I remember doing skills at the Examination and there were candidates who had already been through the entire program who could not get neutrally buoyant. At all! Horizontal trim wasn’t really a concept in the mainstream community back in the late 90’s but they couldn’t do it in any position! How did they make it this far. Not to mention, they couldn’t fully flood and clear their mask without looking like they had just seen a ghost afterward. At the end of the day however, we all walked away as new instructors. At the same time I was training in martial arts. I walked into the school one day, much like many of us first walked into a dive shop. Eager to try and to learn. But the process was completely different. It was not a weekend of learning to punch and kick and then a weekend of advanced punch and kick takedowns. It was monthly dues and consistent training. Trying to be a little better every time I showed up. A little smoother, a little faster, a little less energy wasted. Along the way new weapons were shown, new styles, different instructors, different thinking. The focus was not on copying the lead instructor or completing any special level of training, but instead favored a long-term process of how to make this art unique to each of us. First you have to learn the skills of the art and then you can really start to learn the art. We didn’t have any belts at this school. You were either a teacher or a student. About 10 years later, I was asked to become a teacher. I learned then that as a teacher, I was always going to be a student of the long-game. It wasn’t about the belt or a certification, it was about building the best version of yourself. We just did it with an ironwood stick and a machette. Today I see many similarities in how I teach scuba. First you have to know how to scuba dive. Clear your mask, assemble your gear, share gas, navigate, manage a boat, etc…. But it’s after you have all of that smooth, clean and efficient that you really start to learn how to scuba dive. The advanced level is the very beginning. It’s what you have to know just to get started. Understanding the long-term infinite game of scuba will put you on the real path to learning. Learning to dive better yes, but just as much as learning something new about yourself. Immersing yourself in the art of scuba so you can see yourself differently. It might scare you at first. Most people rarely get a sight of their true selves. But those who seek purpose and are willing to get intimate with their diving will find a lifetime of value. Believing in this new purpose as a diver will let you transcend agency and certification level. Sure, you still need a tech card to get on a boat to dive a shipwreck in 180 ft of water using trimix, but this isn’t about that card. It’s about you. It’s about how you, do you. How you make this dive better than the last one, how you keep learning and keep improving every time. It is not about how you quickly become the best diver with the most prestigious log book, but rather how you continue to ebb and flow, struggle and grow, plateau and then climb again as a diver. As a person. Becoming a better diver takes time not just a class. It takes intentional guidance that is focused on the infinite dive, not one weekend at one dive site. Long-term coaching, like a professional athlete that still listens and learns from a coach decades into their game. Long after they know the skills of their game. You can learn a lot of new skills by taking one class but internalizing those skills, making them your own, and integrating them into your own game is an eternal process. My reason for starting Mott Underwater was to bring this value and purpose to diving. To give meaning to being a diver, more than just a log book. A purpose that will move your diving from a recreation that you participate in once in awhile and make it a lifestyle that requires commitment and intentionality. The value to you is the change in who you are underwater and eventually in your daily life. How you dive but also how you think and act. When all of this starts to come together and you can correlate your underwater behavior on land, then you are on the path. Back at the beginning, to see it all over again, even clearer than the last time. We’ve all been there. Standing on the boat or at the shore next to our gear and then you hear it… Hisssssssssssssss….
Oh no! What do I do? Help! Is it safe to still go diving? The sound of an air leak on your equipment can easily trigger fears and anxiety, particularity about the unknown. This is especially exaggerated if the leak was not heard but instead discovered after entering the water. A small leak becomes a frothing and bubbling nightmare. The chaos of the bubbles can easily lead to fear about the dive and whether or not it is safe to enter the water. With a little knowledge and understanding, you can easily determine the usability of your scuba equipment. What might have seemed like an immediate dive-ender can often be fixed right there on the dive boat. Here are five leaks that you may have experienced before that don’t have to end your day of diving. 1 BCD QD The leak- A common leak is at the o-ring connection under the quick disconnect fitting on your BCD inflator. Every time you put your equipment together and take it apart, that connection is subject to a lot of pulling and pushing and twisting. The connector fitting on most inflators is screwed into the inflator body with just little bit of torque past hand tight and sealed by an o-ring. This fitting can come loose and the o-ring can slip out of its groove and cause a loud and intimidating leak when the low-pressure inflator hose is connected and the gas is turned on. The fix- If your inflator has air spitting out around the connection, disconnect the low-pressure inflator hose and see if the leak stops. If it does, look at the base of the connector fitting and see if the o-ring has pushed its way out, or see if the fitting has loosened up and is spinning out. If so, back it off and make sure the o-ring is ok and not torn or badly worn and then either replace the o-ring or if it’s still ok just re-tighten the connector back into the inflator and reconnect the hose. No more leak? Then you are good to go. You just saved your dive. 2 First-Stage Yoke/DIN Connector The leak- You put your regulator on you cylinder and turn the valve knob open, only to hear a rush of hissing air coming from your regulator first-stage. Oh no! You turn the air off and it slowly stops. Open the valve again and the air starts shooting out again. Help! What do I do? The fix- Don’t be intimidated by the air leak and instead investigate the source. Slowly open the valve just a small amount, enough to hear and feel where the gas is escaping from. Many regulators have an o-ring at the base of the yoke or din connection going into the first stage body of the regulator. Sometimes when you are disassembling your equipment, if you haven’t completely purged all of the gas out of the regulator before unscrewing it from your tank, the leverage needed to take it off can break the seal at the first stage body o-ring before it breaks the seal at the tank valve o-ring. So, try to loosen that yoke or din away from the regulator. Inspect the o-ring. If it is ok, put it back in and re-tighten it. If it is worn or torn replace it and re-tighten the connector. Reconnect the regulator to the tank valve and slowly pressurize the system and listen for any leaks. None? Presto! You’re back in the water. 3 LPi Hose End The leak- Returning to the BCD inflator. Sometimes divers pressurize their regulators before connecting the inflator hose to the inflator. When they grab the pressurized hose they hear a soft leak escaping the quick disconnect end. Oh no! What do I do? The fix- Inside the quick disconnect end of your low pressure inflator hose, is a spring loaded valve the screws down into the hose. When connected to the inflator on the BCD, this spring is engaged to allow air to flow to it when the inflator button is pressed. Normally the valve is sealed inside the hose but over time it too can loosen up. If this happens it will leak out of the end of the hose when pressurized but not connected to a fitting. There is a specialty screwdriver that someone on the boat might have or you can fuss with it a bit and get it screwed in enough to stop leaking. Lastly, this leak is only going to be a problem if the hose isn’t connected. 4 Hose End at 1st Stage The leak- This could happen as soon as you pressurize the regulator or it could happen in a sudden and frightening “pop” of air shooting out of the top of your regulator. As long as their is gas in the cylinder, this leak will not stop and it can be unnerving. Oh shoot! Is my dive day ruined? The fix- Turn the air off and purge the system. There should be no air leaking and then slowly turn the air back on and listen for the leak. You can rub your hand around the first stage where the hoses come out and see if you can feel the escaping air. Aha! It’s coming out right at the hose port of your alternate air source. Turn off the air once again and purge the system clean. Grab the hose and try to turn it off, counterclockwise and see if it starts spinning off. Sometimes from carrying them around and knocking and bumping into things these hoses can work themselves loose. Once again inspect the o-ring, replace if necessary and screw the hose back in all the way. Slowly pressurize the regulator by turning on the tank valve and listen for the leak. Hey, it’s gone. You fixed it! Let’s go diving! 5 Leak at Pressure Gauge The leak- This one can be tricky because a lot of divers have their submersible pressure gauge contained inside of a rubber or plastic boot that also houses their computer, depth gauge and maybe even a compass. If your gauge is leaking air, right at the bottom of that boot or it is coming out of the swiveling end of the hose underneath the pressure gauge, your leak is easily fixable. The fix- The spg has a brass tube with two small o-rings on it that seal one inside the gauge and one inside the hose which allows the gauge to spin around on the end of the hose. These o-rings can collect salt and sand and corrosion and can easily start to leak. By turning the air off and purging all the gas out of the system, you can then disconnect the spg from the hose, pull out the air spool and check the o-rings. They might just need a little clean up, a dab of grease or possibly new o-rings but once they are back in place, reconnect the hose, slowly pressurize the regulator and listen for leaks. You can also drop the pressurized gauge into a rinse bucket to see if there are any bubbles escaping. If not, you are good to go! Air leaking out of your scuba equipment can be scary but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re done diving for the day or that you need to buy new gear. A little bit of patience, awareness and investigation might show you the problem isn’t so bad after all. Of course if you’re still pretty new, asking a Divemaster or maybe another seasoned diver to assist you in your discovery is a good idea. You’ll find that the more diving you do, eventually you will have to deal with a leak from time to time. Don’t panic. Stop, look and listen. You just might find yourself finding the leak and making the fix yourself. Have you experienced any of these before? Any others you’ve dealt with yourself and you saved a dive? Let me know. Send me a message and tell me the story. 5/24/2022 0 Comments SuperDiverWhat makes you great underwater? For so many divers, their time below the surface ticks away breath by breath or minute by minute as the limits for no-decompression obligation dwindle. Like a nagging babysitter, the dive computer beeps, buzzes, or flashes a warning at you. It reminds you that it is time to go home, that the fun is over. Often this worry of overstaying that countdown takes away from our enjoyment of the dive. Or worse yet, is the complete abandonment of care because the current view is too spectacular to care about remaining gas or decompression times. Divers underwater can easily fall victim to the technology that carries them away from and back to the surface, never really understanding the matrix of numbers that lie upon the face of their gauges. 100 feet of seawater is a mark. For some it is a goal. For others it is a limit. A fear or a euphoria may occur when the depth gauge approaches the three-digit number that certain divers use as the measuring stick for success. But is just going to depth the real mark? Is the deepest diver on the boat the best? What makes one diver in deep water better than another? Having the right equipment is a good start. Below 100 feet of water on a single tank is possible for a quick dip but not for spending any real time on a real dive. Having the right amount of gas in reserve for an emergency at the deepest part of the dive is the first step in smart planning. Knowing that we are humans underwater and need to breathe to survive, we must make the assumption that we could lose that possibility with an equipment failure. Diving deep and then making a mistake or having a problem that results in having to bail for the surface, is not the sign of underwater greatness. Having the ability to solve major problems underwater in a controlled manner is. The right training for the environment is also a key indicator. Just going to depth because your dive computer keeps recalculating the no-decompression limit is not the way to go deeper. The advanced diver is one who can determine their time and gas limitation prior to entering the water. They know beforehand what they need to take with them to do the time they want to do at the depth where they want to go. And they take that with them. Gaining experience can be productive but it can also be reckless. Just pushing past limits in a quest for ego fulfillment can lead to a dangerous place. Moving too slowly and not challenging ourselves can leave us stagnant and not ready for the next deeper move when the opportunity comes. Having a mentor to guide you through the increasing challenge to your skill level will keep you in the zone of improving your performance. Getting more comfortable with your skill and ability is essential. That’s where you put in the hard work of improving buoyancy, balance, trim and propulsion techniques. Not just learning how to do a better frog kick but training to excellence the ability to integrate any kick necessary at any given moment, without thought, just execution. This is a foundation that the great divers have taken many years to build and it’s why they can adapt to many environments and different situations. Because their minds are free from being concerned with performing these skills and tasks. They are in the moment, in flow, in the zone. It takes a lot of committed practice, not just learning once. Confidence is indispensable. Without it, everything else is a mirage. The best equipment with all the certification cards will fall apart in the water if the diver has not built that essential foundation. Without the balance of skills and equipment, challenges and perfection, training and experience, the diver will always struggle with confidence underwater. Some divers hide from it and others push past it, just to keep going. Deeper. But the answer to the greatness of a SuperDiver is in their comfort, ability, and confidence. Confidence in their equipment, their dive team, and themselves. What do you think? Let me know. Send me a message and let’s discuss your needs underwater. 1/3/2022 0 Comments Resting Trim What is that one thing you see in other divers that you desire? Is it their fancy, new, feature-packed, full-color dive computer? The limited-edition, titanium-coated, ruby-encrusted regulator? Maybe their 6-pack abs while donning their wetsuit?
I guess I can understand the fit abs;) Of all the tips, tricks, and skills that I teach, the one that most divers ask me to help them with is the quiet calm of “Resting Trim.” This skill, when fully internalized will give you the calculated control in the water that so many divers long for. I am delighted when I see divers moving underwater with grace and fluidity. This can only be done with proper buoyancy control and the ability to remain infinitely still in the water column. This characteristic has become a focus of my training, a core value that I help guide my students to learn and help them to master. Buoyancy control is nothing new to scuba diving. We have been wearing BCD’s underwater for half a century now. It has been a part of scuba education and a required basic skill for certification for decades. So why then is it still something so rare to see? Please, let me take a moment to clarify. Buoyancy is not pivoting on your fin tips. It is not floating in the buddha position, or swimming around for 20 minutes without crashing into the bottom. It is not something you get by letting air in and out of your BCD. Buoyancy control is a never-ending quest for the mastery of breathing, balance and trim. From the very beginning of the dive all the way until the last breath has been taken underwater. Never for one second or one breath do we ever let ourselves regress back to losing that control. It takes strong determination and will to achieve this level of perfection and ultimately peace while diving. It is a flower that needs to be tended to and cared for on every dive. It starts with a lot of work but ends in complete rest. This is the secret of buoyancy control. It is about your resting trim. Any diver in the matter of a few hours of instruction can learn to put gas into their bcd and let gas out in order to prevent violent destruction to themselves and the environment, but that is only the very beginning. True buoyancy control requires a balance of your equipment so that it works in your favor to maintain your horizontal trim. Trim that is controlled with awareness, breathing, and body mechanics rather than perpetual swimming. This is the next wave of change that divers need to take control of. Resting trim is your ability to maintain neutral buoyancy, holding horizontal positioning, eliminating extraneous movement, staying in one place without touching any part of the environment other than the water you are immersed in. Resting trim is beautiful to see and you will not forget what it looks like when you see a diver that has mastered it. It is graceful and artful. And if you struggle with it, it will make you hunger for it. Resting trim is how you approach a delicate subject and take a picture of it without selfishly interfering with the environment for your own personal gain. It is how you and a dive buddy effortlessly communicate with clear and understandable messaging, free from confusion. It is how you make a free ascent without the need to hold tightly onto a line, how you can problem solve on that ascent in mid-water, how you clear a mask on the edge of a wall without losing your control of depth. Resting trim is how you stay calm, collected, and confident in all of your diving without worrying about “what if.” Because mastering your resting trim puts you in a place of control and awareness that will ready you for engaging in an unexpected situation. It is the position you will need to know intimately and trust when you need to act on any situation. So again, what is it that you see in divers that you want? What skill do you lack that you desperately want to add to your diving ability? As I’m sure you’re beginning to understand from most of these emails, it is rarely a product you can buy and add-on. Instead, good diving takes time, practice, and patience. Your resting trim is what will identify you as a confident diver. Thanks for taking the time to read this, let me know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns. Thanks to my dive buddy, podcasting partner, and photo guru, Brando, for the top photo of my resting trim on a recent ascent at Gilboa Quarry. |
James Mott
James has been a PADI instructor since 1998 and was one of the original 10 instructors for UTD Scuba Diving in 2009. Archives
June 2024
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