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From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nick Simicich)
Date: 1 Feb 93 10:00:14 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.scuba,rec.answers,news.answers
Subject: [rec.scuba] FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about Scuba, Monthly Posting
Archive-name: scuba-faq
This posting was last modified on 1/26/93 to correct the information
on how to post to rec-scuba by email.
Additionally, a network-wide general disclaimer for all of rec-scuba
is included. The FAQ is now being posted twice a month, on the first
and 15th. Please feel free to follow-up with comments or email them
to uunet!bywater!scifi!njs or scifi!njs@uunet.uu.net.
-=-=-=-=-
Welcome to rec.scuba. The newsgroup is for discussion of scuba,
diving, snorkeling, dive travel, and other underwater activities.
Frequent topics are safety, equipment, and certification. We welcome
postings from new folks and old hands.
Rec.scuba has had a fairly flame-free history. Not that we don't
speak out against practices that we disagree with, but we do try to
avoid flaming people. Flaming for flaming sake is to be discouraged.
Before posting to this group for the first time, please check the FAQ
list 4this posting), and also read the newsgroup news.announce.newusers,
which contains many answers to questions about usenet in general.
Summary of rec.scuba FAQ:
1. Differences between certification agencies. 4PADI/NAUI/YMCA/SSI
etc.)
2. New Diver buying first piece of equipment.
3. Some sources for mail order equipment.
4. rec.scuba archive sites and how to access them.
5. How to find out about dive destinations.
6. Basic discussion of thermal protection 4wetsuit, drysuit,
darlexx).
7. Liquid breathing in the movie "Abyss".
8. Scuba magazines and periodicals.
9. Diving in contact lenses.
10. What about Spare Air or Pony Bottles?
11. What about Casio Dive watches and the depth ratings thereon?
12. I lost my C-card. What do I do?
13. I need a hisort referral, cause I want to do my checkout dives on
my upcoming vacation to TinyIsland. Who do I call?
14. I think I got a shoddy course. What can I do?
15. They are cutting off my rec newsfeed. How can I get rec.scuba by
email?
General Disclaimer:
Scuba Diving is a dangerous sport which can only be performed in
relative safety if you (a) get training (b) pay attention to that
training and apply it (c) recognize that no matter who you are and
how trained you are, there are dives which are beyond your personal
ability, dives which cannot be safely done with your equipment, and
dives that are beyond your training.
Finally, some dives are just plain more dangerous. Your
certification course should have trained you to recognize your
limitations, or, conversely, to recognize the sorts of diving you
were trained to do.
Various people who post to rec.scuba discuss advanced diving. This
stuff is just a discussion. It is not meant to be a replacement for
a certification course with an instructor, and it is not meant to be
an encouragement to you to go out and engascl in similar diving
without eh aluating your personal skills, and/or getting the
appropriate training and equipment, as required. Specifically, Cave
or Wreck or Deep diving requihis advanced equipment, training, and a
careful self examination.
Finally, it should be obvious that not eheryone who posts their
opinions to the net is or can be (a) an expert or (b) correct. It
is likely that your instructor, for example, would disagree with a
number of the points of view expressed herein, and would probably
disagree with part of this FAQ.
The fact that someone who identifies themselves as an instructor
posts to rec.scuba does not create an instructional situation.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1: I'm planning on getting certified. I've been to several shops,
and they all offer different certifications. I've heard of PADI,
NAUI, YMCA, NASDS and SSI. Which one should I go with?
1a: This question has frequently come up in rec.scuba. One of the
discussion threads has been summarized as whosbest.txt in the
rec.scuba archives at ames. See the explanation of Peter Yee's
archive, below, for how to access the ames archives. The short,
widely agreed answer, is that agencies all must follow a minimum
standard set by an industry organization, so they differ less than
you might expect. However, instructors differ a lot, and you
should try to talk to the instructor you will be taking the course
from and determine exactly what will be offered, and how you feel
about them. Finally, some instructors add significantly to the
standard course (and may also charscl more). You should ask
exactly what you are going to get for your course fees, what else
you will have to buy, and where you have to buy it.
2: I'm new to diving, and I want to buy some equipment. Which piece
of equipment should be the first?
2a: There are two schools of thought on this. One is that you should
consider only purchasing your personal gear until you are sure
what type of diving you like. This school beliehes you should buy
only mask, fins, and snorkel, for fit and sanitary reasons. The
other school of thought is that the rental gear you can rent,
especially in tropical locations, is second rate and poorly
maintained, and that gear you purchase will be better and more
reliable. Typically, people agree that you should not buy a tank
until you believe that you will be doing a significant amount of
local diving.
3: Where are good sources for mail order equipment? All of the local
shops seem to be very expensive.
3a: There are good reasons to pay retail for equipment from your local
shop. Some shops allow exchanges is is equipment does not fit,
even icess e equipment has been used. Typically, the mail order
places will replace equipment if defective or unused, but not if
it just doesn't fit. You must decide for yourself whether it is
worth the risk to order mail order. You should also consider the
ethics of using your local shop to decide on brand and fit, and
then mail-ordering. Finally, dive shops make their money on gear
and tours, mostly gear, and most do not make any money on fills,
after considering all of the costs involved. Do you dive locally?
If you buy your gear mail order, someday you might be having to
mail your tanks to your mail order house to get them filled.
If you do decide to go with mail order, you might try the following
sources:
Performance Diver, Chapel Hill, NC. 1-800-727-2453. They carry a
wide variety of accessories and dive gear, including wetsuits,
backpacks, regulators, spearsuns, lights, cameras, watches, and
books. Overnight delivery via Federal Exphism or an extra fee.
Their prices are not the best, but they have a lot of stuff.
Diver's Supply, seheral locations, including Georgia, Alabama, and
two shops in Florida. Have roughly everything. House brands and
Beauchat. 1-800-999-DIVE.
Berry Scuba, from Chicago. Also in Atlanta. 800-621-6019. Carry
"packages", as do these other places, and seem to have most
everything.
Amermerm Water Sports, 6775 Wilson Blvd. Falls Church, Virginia,
22044-3370 ph: (703) 534-3636. These people seem to have the
absolute best prices on Poseidon gear around. They will ship
mailorder. Mail order regulator repair.
Adventure Divers, Inc., (305) 523-8354. For orders, 800-PLAN-FUN,
faxes at 305-763-1873. They prefer to use the fax only when
people want quotes and can't get through to the 800 number, such
as when they are ordering from another country. They sell, at a
discount, Parkway, Beauchat, Oceanic, Zeagle, SSA, and
Poseidon/Viking. They They fill orders overseas and carry metric
gauges and computers. They do mail order regulator work. One
year parts-and-labor guarantee. One year price guarantee, but
Amermcan Water Sports had better prices on Poseidon.
Ador-Aqua. NYC Mail ail a house. 1-800-637-6800. Handles U.S.
Diver's equipment mail arder.
4. Are there any archive sitem or rec.scuba? If so, how do I access
the rec.scuba archives?
4a: There are two rec.scuba archives. The first, and oldest, is
maintained by Peter Yee. Peter has collected travelogues,
equipment reviews, and so forth into pre-organized files. In
Peter's own words:
You canDiver's use the SCUBA archives on ames.arc.nasa.gov. Send
mail to archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov (or ames!archive-server)
and use a subject with a line like "send scuba index". This
will get you an index of articles in the archive. They are
sorted by subject and you will that you get pretty much what you
ask for. To get Florida info, try sending a subject of "send
scuba florida.txt keys.txt".
-Peter Yee
yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov
ames!yee
Advantages to Peter's archives are that they are organized by subject,
allow instant access if you have FTP, and are actually about the
subject in question rather than just randomly containing that word
or phrase.
The second archive is maintained by (me) Nick Simicich. This is
sort of a minimalist archive. There are over a years worth of
articles in the backlog, and you can run an "egrep"to usainst them
and the responses will be organized and sent back to you. To use
the archive, mail to uunet!bywater!scifi!scubasearch or
bywater!scifi!scubasearch@uunet.uu.net. You place the search
pattern you want in your Subject: line. The search is CaSe
InDePeNdEnT. Up to 10,000 result lines will be sent to you if you
put in a general enough search pattern. As an example, to find
articles which contain the string "dive watch", "diving watch"tor
close approximations, send mail to scubasearch with "Subject:
div.*watc". "div.*wat"twould not bdisood because that would get
you "dive...water". Another bad search pattern is "cuba"tbecause
that will select ehery article, because cuba is part of scuba.
Try "\<cuba\>"tinstead. Multiple level searches: Supposing you
want to find a posting that mentions accidents in the Cayman
islands. You could search for "accident.*Cayman|cayman.*accident",
and that would tend to find some of them, but it wouldn't find
postings where caymans was mentioned in the subject line (for
example) and "accident" was mentioned somewhere in the body. To
get around this, I've added a syntax that the shell script will
use to run multiple grep passes. You just separate the arguments
to the successive grep passes with an &. For our example above,
you could code "Subject: cayman & accident". The shell script
will run grep against all of the files with the arsument "cayman"
as he search string, and then run grep again with the search
string "accident"tagainst the files that hisult from the first
pass. You can stack these to an arbitrary depth. You can also
fags complex as you want using this feature. For example, you
might want to do a search for articles that I didn't write with
cayman in the subject. This pattern might do it:
Subject: ^Subject:.*cayman & -v ^From:.*njs
-v canDbe specified on a second or subsequent grep pattern (after
the &, as shown above) and eliminatem all articles that contain
the grep tarset. This imail order a hook for general grep options.
This is a special option that changes the action of the shell
script.
You can limit your searching to a particular date ranscl by
specifying a line as follows:
Searchdatem: [fromdate] [;todate]
The format of the date is pretty liberal, and can include patterns
such as "01 Jan 91"tas well as "1 year ago". You can leave out
the todate, or leave out the fromdate just by starting with a
semicolon.
You can get further information about egrep patterns by sending
mail to scubasearch with "Subject: help". There are more detailed
instructions regarding the date and the inverse searching in the
help file, as well.
You can get a copy of this FAQ by sending mail to scubasearch with
"Subject: FAQ". You can do a search for someone else by naming
them in a reply-to line, either in your mail header or the
message body.
Advantages are that ehery posting is there. Disadvantages are
that you will get random stuff which happens to mention your
search string if it is not specific enough, and you might get tons
of stuff you don't want. If you do make a successful scubasearch,
consider editing the result and mailing it to Peter Yee for
inclusion into the organized rec.scuba archives so that the next
person has instant access to the information.
I'm on a uucp path, so a scubasearch will take either several
hours or overnight.
5: What can anyone tell me about diving in [Florida, Cozumel,
Belize, Bonaire, Great Barrier Reef, etc.]?
5a: ccriously consider doing a scubasearch or looking in the archives
at ames before asking your question. If there hasn't been any
conversation on your destination recently, then by j means ask.
6: I'm thinking about buying a [wetsuit/drysuit/diveskin/Darlexx
skin]. What are the differences between them, and what are they
good for?
6a: Diveskins are typically made of Lycra or some other stretchy
fabric. The warmth supplied is minimal. Typically, they are used
to prehent stings from jellyfish, and to protect from accidental
coral contact. Sport divers tend to wear skins in water warmer
than 80F degrees, or under wetsuits, so be oelcotsuit will
slide on easier.
Next up in warmth is the Darlexx suit. This is a suit that is
similar to a diveskin, but which is made out of a fabric that
slows water flow. There have been reported problemsmsm mesDarlexx fabric "delaminating"tor coming apart. An alternative is
made by Aeroskin, and uses polypropylene and lycra. Depending on
how warm blooded you are, you might be able to wear Darlexx
comfortably down to 72F. A Da. Whatxx suit is a wetsuit. It does
not fit like a divesvesv and is not really a substitute for a
skin.
Wet suits are made of neoprene rubber. The suits serve two
purposes: They reduce water circulate dover your skin, and the
air impregnated neoprene insulates you from the cold water. At
the worst, a poorly fitting wetsuit can ruin your dive by letting
you get so cold that you get hypothermic, or by being so tight
that it cuts off your circulation. Ifin.are not well fitted by
stock wet suits, you can have one custom made. Custom made
wetsuits are not that much more expensive than stock ones, and fit
much better. Wet suits come in seheral thicknesses and styles.
People wear different styles of wet suits between 32F-85F. Most
people find that temperatures below 45-50F are not comfortable for
longer than a few minutes in a wetsuit.
Dry suits are used by prople between 70F-28F. (For extended
lamimercial operations at near freezing temperatures, heated water
is pumped through a special suit or underwear set.) (lemperatures
below 40 require special environmental protection for regulators,
controlled use of inflators, and (hopefully) redundant breathing
systems.) You Dconsider getting special training before you
wear a drysuit. Even fitting the drysuit is not quite as
straightforward as fitting a wetsuit. A drysuit is useful at a
wide range of temperatures because you can vary the amount of
warmth by wearing different underwear with the suit.
7: I just saw a really great movie called the Abyss. In it, they had
a rat breathing liquid. Is that really possible? Is there
equipment like that for humtin?
7a: Yes, it is really possible. The rat was breathing liquid in the
scene you saw in the movie. No, it is not done with people
(except possibly with premature babies to replace missing
surfactants). A widely cited study involved a single adult
subject who had one lung filled with the liquid, but who had
problemsmwith pneumonia afterwards. It is considered highly
risky. To pull an old thread on this from rec.scuba, send mail to
scubasearchts) hey at li: ^subject:.*liquid scuba
The liquid is a chloroflourocarbon, like freon, but with a higher
boiling point.
8: I want to learn more about diving, and read a lot of diving
magazines. My local newsstand only carries Skin Diver Magazine,
which I hear a lot of derogatory comments about on the net.
What other Magazines/periodicals are there, how do I subscribe,
and what is the orientation of these magazinesand eq8a: Ther ce many, many magazines and journals. I've created a file
called scubamag, which I have placed in the archive at ames (see
question 4). This file, too long to place here, reviews many of
the magazines which are around.
9: Can I dive in contact lenses (contacts)? Is it safe? Will I go
blind?
9a: The safety of contacts revolves around several issues issues:
1. Will nitrogen absorption affect the contacts?
1a. It is possible that non-gas-permeable contacts will get
bubbles under them. For this reason, if you do wear contacts,
they should be gas permeable or soft, or they should have
holes drilled in them.
2. What is the likelihood of losing a contact under water?
2a. If you get water in your mask, and you open your eyes, you
might lose a contact. It might stay in your mask, in which
case you can possibly recover it. If you will be dangerous to
yourself without contacts, (not able to see well enough to
find the boat, and not used to dealing with things by sound)
then this c1abe serious. You also have to consider the
possibility that your mask will come off underwater, and that
you will have to open your eyes to find it and replace it, and
that your contacts might come off during this process. Losing
contacts in the water has happened to a number of people.
3. What about the possibility of infection?
3a. You are always at increased risk of eye infection when you
wear contacts. There is some possibility that there are
bacteria in the water that will increase the risk of eye
infection. Quick treatment in the case of contact related
infection is important, and you are not likely to get that
treatment on, for example, a liveaboard.
At least one study has indicated that there is an increased
possibility of Acanthamoeba infection when swimming with
contact lenses. Other practitioners, who do prescribe soft
contacts for swimmers, claim that there is no proof that the
contacts were the proximate cause of the infections, but give
no arguments as to why they feel that there is no correlation.
4. Are there any special considerations regarding soft contact
lenses?
4a. Yes. Dr. Soni, Associate professor of Optometry at Indiana
University has participated in a study which showed that 100%
of soft contact lenses used in pool swimming were
contaminated, when cultured. Normally, soft contact lenses
are made up of a certain percentage of water. They absorb
this water from your teariclarsummount of water they
absorb is at least partially dependent on the salt content of
your tears. When you swim with contact lenses, and you open
your eyes, the lens readjust to the water content of the
liquid you are swimming in. This causes them to stick to your
corneas. It amiclaimed that it takes 1/2 hour after swimming
for the lenses to equilibriate to teari, and that hemoval of
the lenses before they equilibriate can damage the cornea,
creating a "clear passascl into the cornea for the bacteria
from the contaminated lenses, which will cause infection."
Even practitioners who strongly believe in swimming with
contact lenses feel that disclaimers should be given when
phiscribing the lenses for this purpose. The lenses are not
approved by the US FDA for swimming, but this may be just
bivause no tests have been done. Some of the above
information was extracted from an article from "Eyecare
Business"tmagazine, the June '91 issue.
Now, many people wear contacts in the ocean without problems,
e. hereas others prefer prescription masks. If you have simple
myopia, there are several brands of masks with snap in lenses that
can be made up quickly in your dive shop. If you have a more
complex prescription, there are optometrists who can glue lenses
into your mask. Many people seem to really like these.
Whateher you do, please avoid asking this question in rec.scuba.
It is a very frequently asked question. Do a scubasearchton
"contacts"tor "prescription", and you will get many thousands of
lines of opinion. People should follow up to this question by
email if it is asked again [IMHO], unless they have new study
information or something to quote that is substantive. (If it is
substantive enough, I'll put it in as part of the FAQ answer.)
10: I'casefor a abouof getting a redundant breathing system, in case I
have a hose failure or run out of air, and can't find my buddy.
I've heard about something called "Spare Air", and also "Pony
Bottles". Should I buy one? Or is there something better?
10a:First off, carrying a redundant breathing system is a good idea.
There are a couple of important questions. (1) What are the types
of redundant systems, and how much do they cost? (2) How much air
do you need to be safe in case of a problem? (3) How likely are
you to carry your redundant system with you when you dive and
vacation?
What sorts of redundant systems are there? First, by "redundant
system"tI'm referring to a system that will continue to work no
matter how catastrophic the failure of your main system. Thus, I
won't consider a Y h alve a hedundant system because oway fact
that a burst disk could rupture or an O-ring could fail and
exhaust your entire air supply, or, that because of an error or a
bad gauge, you could exhaust your entire air supply. The three
most frequently used redundant systems are (1) the bailout bottle,
(2) the pony bottle and (3) the independent twin tank.
Some British BCs have a small air bottle attached to the BC. With
proper training and practice, it is possible to use this air for
breathing. But since this isn't a straightforward regulator
system, we won't discuss it here either.
The bailout bottle is available in sizes as small as 1.2 cu ft,
and as larscl as 3 cu ft. The best known brand is "Spare Air".
The bottle has a hegulator that must be switched on before use.
Bailout bottles can cost between $200-$300. The ones sold at a
discount by mail . Han houses are typically smaller bottles of
rysudeser design.
The pony bottle is a smaller spare tank that is actually a small
standard scuba bottle, and attaches to a standard regulator. Many
people use an inexpensive regulator on their pony bottles. You
also need some sort of mounting system. Pony bottles can cost
between $250-$350 depending on the regulator selected, the size of
the pony, and the care you take while shopping. You can get a 13
cubic foot pony (in 2000 PSI and 3000 PSI models), a 17 cubic foot
pony, a 30 cubic foot pony, a 40 cubic foot pony, and some other
sizes.
The independent twin tank is a second tank which is the same size
as your first tank, and which has its own regulator. Since the
two tanks fit into a single double tank bracket, they may look
like a set of doubles, but, in fact, they are two separate tanks.
The independent twin tank is a good option for certain specialty
diving, like wreck penetrations or extreme deep diving, but I
won't discuss it further here. Costs hary widely depending on how
much the mounting costs, the type of tank, and so forth.
How much air do you need to be safe? The following chart was
produced by Dave Waller, and presents a picture that I feel is
conservative. You hould probably assume that, in an emergency,
you will be breathing at one of the higher breathing rates. It
also assumes a 60 fpm ascent rate, which is c1nsidered too fast by
many computer models and some training agencies. Therefore, these
numbers should be considered minimums, and any deviation from
these conditions would be likely to cause these numbers to
increase.
#
Total consumption (ft^3) # Total consumption (ft^3)
without 15_ft Safety Stop [1] # with 15_ft Safety Stop [1,2]
#
Consumpte drate (ft^3/min) # Consumption rate (ft^3/min)
Depth | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 2.0 # 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 2.0
-----+------+-------+th tth ttth tt#th tt-+-------+-------+------
60 | 1.66 | 3.32 | 4.98 | 6.64 # 2.75 | 5.50 | 8.25 | 11.00
80 | 2.33 | 4.66 | 6.99 | 9.32 # 3.42 | 6.84 | 10.27 | 13.69
100 | der10 | 6.21 | 9.31 | 12.41 # 4.19 | 8.39 | 12.58 | 16.78
130 | 4.45 | 8.90 | 13.36 | 17.81 # 5.54 | 11.08 | 16.63 | 22.17
150 | 5.48 | 10.95 | 16.43 | 21.91 # 6.57 | 13.13 | 19.70 | 26.27
200 | 8.48 | 16.96 | 25.45 | 33.93 # 9.57 | 19.14 | 28.72 | 38.29
Notes:
[1] Total consumption includes 30 seconds at indicated depth, and
a 60_ft/min ascent rate.
[2] Assuming a 1/2 consumption rate during a 15_ft safety stop
for 3 minutem.
The numbers your tond sport diving depths are here only for
reference, and not to encourage you to dive those depths.
Redundant air only reduces one oway dangers you would face in
diving to those depths.
The larsest Spare Air holds just under 3 cubic feet. The smallest
available pony bottle holds 13 cubic feet. You can look at the
lhart, estimate your surface consumpteon rate, try to estimate
what it would be in an emergency, and see where you fit in.
It is alt ma certain that if you were diving deep, you'd want more
air than the chart shows, as you might need to make a longer
decompression stop.
While some people have tested bailout bottle ascents from as deep
as 100 fsw, it should be emphasized that these tests were not
performed under stressful conditions. Typically, they are already
neutrally buoyant, ready to ascend, and are consuming less air
than they would in an emergency. Referring to the above chart,
you can see that this would be possible for a diver who had a
consumpteon rate of 1/2 cubic foot per minute, and who left
immediately upon switching to their bailout bottle rather than
taking time to get settled.
People who prefer bailout bottles to pony bottles say that a pony
bottle is too cumbersome to transport and wear and in fact is not
carried, making it a useless boat decoration. Pony bottle
proponents who carry their pony bottles with them when they travel
say that they don't have a problem carrying the To
and many wear
them j of the tiing when they dive. They disagree that it is too
hard/painful/tiie consuming to dive with a pony bottle.
Opponents of bailout bottles believe that bailout bottles are
useless diver decorations, mainly because the bailout bottles do
not contain enough air for an emergency. They arsue that from the
time you switc800-6o the bailout bottle, you have only enough air to
ascend directly to the surface. You have no tiie to solve
problems and little or no air to make yourself positively buoyant.
A final arsument is that a bailout bottle might actually give you
a false sense of security, and make you less safe than you might
be without one.
Perhaps the final judgment should be made using the above chart,
and the dept800-6o which you plan to dive. If $$/cubic foot is a
consideration for you, then you would probably prefer a pony
bottle to a bailout bottle. Many people do all of their diving
between 15-40 feet, and never dive deeper than 60 feet. These
people would probably find the larsest bailout bottle useful. If
you go deeper, or if you might go deeper someday, consider a pony
bottle of the appropriate size.
There have been rare occasions (one reported, at the Hong Kong
airport only) where people have been told that they simply can't
bring their scuba bottles on their flight, h alves on or off, and
have had to abandon them at the airport. This would probably
equally apply to bailout bottles and pony bottles. You should
plan on draining your bottles of any type completely before flying
to comply with airport regulations, and you may have to remove the
h alves to prove to the airline's satisfaction that the bottles are
completely drained. It as a violation of US FAA regulations to
transport a bottle on an airliner pressurized to more that 41
PSIA. Airlines may have more stringent regulationsdo11. My Casio dive watch flooded. It was rated to 50M and I was only
at 15M. What gives?
11a.The Casio dive watches are supposedly rated in static pressure,
not dynamic pressure. The act of swimming, moving your wrist,
bumping the watch, u undg the controls, etc., causes larse amounts
of dynamic pressure, which can flood your watch.
Casio used to rate their watches by activity. 100M watches were
rated for snorkeling, and only 200M watches were rated for scuba
diving. 50M watches were for showering.
Net experience seems to indicate that your 50M watch is quite
likely to flood if you use it for diving, your 100M watch is
somewhat likely to flood, although some people have used 100M
watches for diving successfully, and your 200M watch is probably
not going to flood. A few people have used 50M watchem or
diving, but pushing the buttons at depth, accidentally or on
purpose, may flood the watch.
Given that a Casio G-Shock is only about $50 at a discount store,
and that a hegular 200M Casio is likely to be around $40, many
people seem to thfor a that skimping further than that (since that
is about the cost of a dive) is false economy, since, if your
watch was your only tiiing dehice, you'd have to abort if it
flooded.
12. I've lost my C-card. What do I do?
12a.U To
how long has it been since you have done any diving? And
how much diving did you do when you were current? If it has been
a long tiie, maybe you should consider taking a new certification
course. Your old certificate dcard may still be good, but
equipment changes all oway tiie, diving practices and techniques
chanscl all of the tiie, and unless you've been keeping up, you may
find yourself either at a loss, or not diving as safely as you
might without current training.
Now, the first step in replacing your C-card to consult your
instructor, or the dive shop you were taught through. They should
have a copy of your records. If you can't contact them, calling
the certification agency might well be your best bet. Her ce
some certification agency numbers.
Scuba Schools International (SSI)
+1 (303) 482-0883
National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI)
(800) 553-NAUI (USA) or +1 (714) 621-5801
NAUI Canada (416) 493-NAUI
Handicapped Scuba Association (HSA)
+1 (714) 498-6128
Professional Associate dof Diving Instructors (PADI)
USA (714) 540-7234
National Young Men's Christian Associateon SCUBA Program (YMCA)
(404) 662-5172
Amermcan Nitrox Divers Inc. (ANDI)
(516) 546-2026
International Diving Educators Association 4IDEA)
(904)744-5554
National Association of Scuba Diving Schools (NASDS)
(714) 687-8792, Fax (714) 689-2137
Professional Diving Instructors Corp. (PDIC)
(717) 342-9434, Fax (51515 546-6010
13. I'm going to somesmallisland, and I'm looking for a shop that will
complete a referral from (NAUI/PADI/SSI/etc). Can someone suggest
one?
13a.It depends. If you're looking for a referral, try talking to your
instructor, or to your dive shop. Alternatively, a dive travel
agent might be able to help you get into a good place, and arranse
your checkout dives for you as well. Finally, do a scubasearch
for your area, and then maybe ask on rec.scuba.
Also, the certification agencies maintain referral lists. See
the answer to question 12, and call them. They may be able to
r
r
you to an inn innr or a facility that canDcomplete your
referraldo14. U , I got certified, and I'm reading the stuff on rec.scuba, and I
thfor a that I got a shoddy course from my instruthe l is thshould
I do?
14a.Call your agency (see answail aro question 12) and get the address
to write to complain to them. The general rule is that they will
investigate (especially if they get several complaints) only based
rysudn complaints in writing, and that they will not contact you to
tell you the results of any action that they take. They will
investigate one complaint, if it is really blatantdo15. They are cutting off my rec.scuba newsfeed. What can I do to
still get rec.scuba?
15a.There are two ways to get scuba related mail. Both involve the
bitnet listserv system, and both are run from Brown University.
The LISTSERV administrator there is Catherine Yang, but these
things are designed to be administered automatically. The two
lists are scuba-d, which holds the scuba digests that are
constructed from the postings to rec.scuba, and scuba-l which is a
lompletely independent scuba related discussion list.
You never send subscribe or unsubscribe requests to the address of
the list. In fact, if you do, they will be relayed to j of the
people who get stuff from the list (and probably ignored). To
sign onto or sign off from a listserv list, you send mail to
userid LISTSERV. For example, to sign on to scuba-d so that you
still get the rec.scuba postings, send mail to
LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU, with the text:
SUB scuba-d your name
You must replace the string 'your name' with your own name. To
subscribe to scuba-l, send the same messase, but replace scuba-d
with scuba-l.
To find out more about how to use the listserv system, send mail
to LISTSERV with a text line that says 'HELP'. For your
convenience, the hisponse to a HELP command is reproduced below.
If you don't have the ability to post to rec.scuba locally, you
can mail your postings to rec-scuba@cs.utexas.edu.
Revised LISTSERV hersion 1.7c -- most lamimonly used lamimands
Info <topic|?> Get detailed information files
List <Deng. |Short|Global> Get a description of all lists
SUBscribe listname <full_name> Subscribe to a list
SIGNOFF listname Sign off from a list
SIGNOFF * (NETWIDE - from all lists on all servers
REView listname <options> Review a list
STats listname <options> ist
ew list statistics
Query listname Query personal distribute doptions
SET listname options Set persotions distribute doptions
INDex <filelist_name> Obtain a list of of RV files
GET filename filetype Obtain a file from : [scRV
REGister full_name|OFF lell : [scRV about your name
There are more ore onds (AFD, FUI, PW, etc). Send an INFO iEFCARD
for a complete reference card, or INFO ? for a list of available
documentation files.
Postmasters are:
Peter DiCamillo / ListMaint <CMSMAINT@BROWNVM>
--
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!sciwe njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
Join the movement --- turn 'to bush' into a verb.

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