100% AWARE

Posted on by jon

Project AWARE logo showing a diver and a shark

100% AWARE  — All Diver-level certifications I issue support Project AWARE

 

I’ve long been a supporter of Project AWARE.   They’ve done a great job encouraging conservation and promoting responsibility among divers for the underwater world.  Project AWARE recently relaunched, focusing on aquatic debris and shark conservation.

Aquatic debris is a tremendous problem.  A large portion of it is plastics.  Plastics that won’t biodegrade for a long time.  Plastics that can trap animals.  Plastic that might look like food, but when eaten can harm or kill animals.   Project AWARE has sponsored aquatic cleanups for a long time.   With their relaunch, Dive Against Debris has become one of their primary focus areas.

Debris washed on shore. Project AWARE actively supports cleaning up trash.

Debris washed up on shore after a storm. Project AWARE's Dive against Debris program helps aquatic enthusiasts clean up our water ways.

I’ve personally sponsored 6 cleanups in Utah.   Our first cleanup, in partnership with the Living Planet Aquarium, picked up 1380 pounds of trash from Bountiful Pond, near Bountiful, Utah.   Our second cleanup, along the Jordan River Parkway in 2004, collected 1550 pounds of trash.  Even in a land-locked state like Utah, our water ways need to be cleaned up.   Project AWARE’s Dive Against Debris program helps us do just that.

Project AWARE’s other key focus is shark conservation.   Sharks are endangered; their primary threat being man.   Sharks are sleek and elegant in the water.   They’re not the blood thirsty man-eaters that we’ve seen in the movies.   Sharks are an apex predator, staying at the top of the food chain.   They help remove unhealthy marine animals and provide balance to the ecosystem.    Unfortunately, they are collected as by-catch or caught solely for their fins for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy.   Sharks mature late in life, breed infrequently and have, relatively, few young.

When sharks are caught as by-catch (caught as part of normal fishing operations, but not the target fish species), they are often tossed overboard dead.   When harvested for shark fin soup, they are caught, fins removed and then often dumped overboard…still alive.   Either way, they are out of the ecosystem.   As an apex predator, that has long-reaching impacts.   That means there are more lower-level carnivores, which result in fewer herbivores.   The lack of herbivores means that there is more algae, which is at the base of the food chain.   Excessive algae can smother reef systems.   You can learn more about Shark Conservation in the new Project AWARE Shark Conservation Specialty Diver course.  You can also help conserve sharks by signing the petition on the right side of this page.

 

Project AWARE still has ongoing programs, such as the Project AWARE Specialty and Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation Specialty.    While these are both PADI Specialty Diver courses, they are also open to non-divers as well.   When I conduct PADI Instructor Development Courses (IDC), I include a Project AWARE workshop.   That typically includes at least one PADI Specialty Course and reviewing how to teach the Project AWARE courses.

 

 
Check out the this great Animoto film my friends at Project AWARE put together for me:
Jon Rusho, 100% AWARE
 

 

Scuba Diving Emergency Management

Posted on by jon

Scuba Diving Emergency Management

All of the tenets of Emergency Management apply to scuba diving:

  • Prevention/preparation
  • Mitigation
  • Response
  • Recovery

 

Recreational scuba diving has a good track record of safety.   That said, there are still a number of scuba diving emergencies that occur each year, many of which can be prevented.   As with any activity, being prepared is key.  How do we prepare to handle scuba diving emergencies?

  • In the Open Water Diver Course, entry level divers are taught how to assemble their equipment, do a pre-dive check with a buddy and to dive with a buddy.   The pre-dive check, checking BCD, Weights, Releases, Air and a final check of everything else, can catch a lot of problems.   Too much weight, not enough air, etc.
  • Also, in Open Water, entry level divers are taught how to adjust their gear underwater or deal with certain equipment issues underwater.   By learning what to do, a bit of extra water in your mask doesn’t become a source of panic.
  • Advancing on in education, through the Adventures in Diving/Advanced Open Water course, divers dive in different environments and practice new skills.
  • In the PADI Rescue Diver Course, divers extend their skills to handle scuba diving emergencies, starting with a review of what they’ve already learned in Open Water and Advanced.
  • The next step is to start paying attention to other divers behavior.  Do they appear nervous (talking too much or not at all), unsure of what they’re doing (fumbling with gear),  not ready for the dive (inappropriate scuba equipment), etc?
Divers doing a pre-dive safety check. Rescue Divers should make sure other divers do a pre-dive check to prevent problems.

Predive safety checks can prevent diving emergencies.

So far, that covers prevention and mitigation.   How do we respond to problems?

  • Like other emergency care, start with a scene assessment.   Are there hazards?   Is the diver missing and we need to search, or was the diver found unresponsive?
  • A Rescue Diver builds a tool kit of skills in the PADI Rescue Diver course: assisting from shore or a boat, surfacing an unresponsive diver, attending to an unresponsive, non-breathing diver at the surface, egress.
  • Rescue Divers also learn the basics of emergency management for a scuba diving emergency.   This can be managing the scene, working with other responders, organizing logistics for a search & rescue, etc.
Rescue divers practicing how to respond to a scuba emergency: assisting an unresponsive, non-breathing diver at the surface.

Rescue Diver practice: responding to a scuba emergency on the surface.

Since scuba diving is often done in remote locations, EMS isn’t readily available.   Additional training on how to handle scuba diving emergencies can make a big difference in outcome.   I highly recommend the DAN Training programs, including:

DAN First aid supplies including DAN Oxygen kit, bag valve mask, AED, pocketmask and other training aids.

Beyond the response to a scuba diving emergency, Rescue Divers also learn how to help the diver and themselves recover from an incident.   This starts in the response phase: if the injured diver can help with their own care, that gives them a sense of control which will help their recovery.   For the Rescue Diver, learning about how to handle their own stress after an incident can help them personally recover.

 

All of these skills are reviewed and practiced at higher levels in diver education.   Divemasters and Scuba Instructors need to be able to respond to scuba diving emergencies and manage them.

GoPro!

Posted on by jon

GoPro!   Become a dive professional and make the ocean your office.

 

What does it take to become a dive professional?   A deep commitment?  A love of the underwater world?   A desire to share the adventure of exploration?   All of that!

Let’s take a look at the career path options:

  1. Open Water Diver   (everybody has to start somewhere)
  2. Advanced Open Water (expand your skills…sample the things divers do for fun)
  3. Rescue Diver (learn how to prevent and respond to problems)
  4. Specialties  and Master Scuba Diver (while optional, highly recommended; explore those fun things in more depth)
  5. Divemaster–the first rung of the professional ladder.   Guide groups of divers and assist with classes.   Individual and group management skills.
  6. Assistant Instructor–learn how to teach in the classroom, the pool and in open water
  7. Instructor(OWSI)–take your teaching skills further and explore the courses you can teach as an Instructor
  8. Specialty Instructor–learn how to teach specialty areas of diving, sharing your passion with new divers.
  9. Master Scuba Diver Trainer(MSDT)–An instructor than can teach in five specialty areas and has shown their teaching ability by issuing 25 diver certifications.
  10. IDC Staff Instructor–an assistant to a Course Director; involved in all aspects of training new Assistant Instructors and Instructors.
  11. Master Instructor–demonstrated ability to teach at all levels, Open Water through Assistant Instructor and has issues 150 or more certifications at those various levels
  12. Course Director–Instructor Trainer, trains new instructors to teach scuba
  13. Specialty Instructor Trainer–a Course Director that can train new Specialty Instructors

 

As you can see, the path is as long as you want it to be and as varied as you want.   Start your adventure today!

Look at the 2012 GoPro schedule to see where you want to go this year.

 

Scuba Diving Courses

Posted on by jon

Scuba Diving Courses

 

As a Scuba Instructor, I love to teach.   Part of that love comes from the variety of scuba diving courses I can offer.   Here’s a small sampling of those programs

 

PADI Specialty Diver Courses–What are they?

Posted on by jon

Specialty Diver Courses

What are PADI Specialty Diver Courses?   When PADI developed their continuing education model, they realized that divers have a lot of varied interests.  For me, it’s underwater imaging (underwater photography and underwater videography) and dive safety.   To accommodate those interests, they started developing courses that go into more depth about a certain topic.   If you’re familiar with Adventures in Diving Program or Advanced Open Water Diver, you’ve experienced a sample of these specialty areas.

Garibaldi in the California Channel Islands

PADI has a multitude of Specialty Diver courses that can help you explore your interests in diving and the list continues to grow.   Here’s a short sample:

  • Altitude Diver
  • Boat Diver
  • Deep Diver
  • Diver Propulsion Vehicle
  • Dry Suit Diver
  • Emergency Oxygen Provider
  • Enriched Air Diver
  • Equipment Specialist
  • Fish Identification (AWARE FishID)
  • Digital Underwater Photography
  • Multilevel/Computer Diver
  • Underwater Naturalist
  • Underwater Navigator
  • Project AWARE Specialty
  • Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation
  • Search & Recovery Diver
  • Night Diver
  • Underwater Photographer
  • Underwater Videographer
  • Wreck Diver

 

Divers using a lift bag as part of the PADI Search and Recovery Specialty

In some cases, instructors can author (or be trained ) and teach PADI Distinctive Specialty courses.  For example, here are some PADI Distinctive Specialties I can teach:

  • AWARE Shark Conservation
  • Neurological Assessment
  • AED for Scuba
  • First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries
  • Oxygen First Aid for Scuba

The last four correlate to the DAN Diving First Aid courses I teach.   Take the DAN course and get the PADI Distinctive Specialty at the same time!

 

Specialties are typically designed to give you, the diver, a safe and structured way to explore the specialty area.   After the initial dive or two, I, as the instructor, usually back off and act as a resource rather than just tell you what to do.  That way you develop the comfort to continue exploring that specialty area of diving.   For example, the PADI Altitude Diver Specialty has two dives.   The first dive involves a good amount of pre-dive planning and we compare depth gauges during the dive.   The depth gauge comparison helps you understand why we dive conservatively.   On the second dive, you plan the dive and I’m there to help and answer questions.   It can vary between specialties, of course.

Specialties are not designed to make you an expert, though.  For example, the PADI Equipment Specialist course isn’t to train you to break down and rebuild regulators.   [That requires training from the manufacturer.]   We do look at how regulators are built and how they work.  We practice basic field repairs such as repairing a wetsuit or replacing an o-ring.   The PADI Equipment Specialist course is an excellent course for all divers, as it will help you with all of your equipment purchases, long-term equipment maintenance and basic field repairs.

PADI Specialties do have an important relation with the Adventure Dives in Adventures in Diving (Adventure Diver & Advanced Open Water Diver).   The first dive in a given specialty is the same as the correlating Adventure Dive.   That means that if you’ve completed any Adventure Dives, they can count towards the correlating specialty.   If you’ve completed the Specialty, the first dive of that Specialty can count towards your Adventure Diver or Advanced Open Water certification.

PADI Continuing Education Flowchart

Specialty Diver courses also count towards your PADI Master Scuba Diver rating.  Jump over to the Master Scuba Diver page to learn more.

 

Questions about PADI Specialty Diver courses?  Contact me!