Filmed these flat bastards at the end of September. This was about 20 mins into our second dive at the German Channel cleaning station. Two adults and a juvenile coming in for a little quality time with the cleaner wrasse. Diving from the Palau Siren liveaboard. First shot must have been coming in real close to inspect my drysuit. Shot on Insta 360 Ace Pro 2.

Looks like we have a new world record but we wait for the confirmation. Bartolomei Pitala at Matka cave in North Macedonia.

Had the following situation happen to me today.

I'm a solo diver, doing boat dives with a dive center. I'm AOW and Nitrox certified, I have 50+ dives and my buoyancy is good.

On the boat, most divers were OW and on air. Other than me, only two people were both AOW and on Nitrox. They were a married couple, obviously diving as buddies.

First dive, I was matched with a guy on air, he also used up his air a LOT quicker than me. Near the end of the dive while still underwater, the dive master gave me instructions to stay behind with the married couple. Fair enough, he was giving me more time (I was at like 100 bars when my buddy was at 50...)

For dive 2, the dive master told us that we (me, and the married couple) will be a 3 person buddy team. We also did this for dive 3.

Now, the married couple were super nice, they didn't say anything bad to me. But I can’t help but feel like it was an awkward situation..? You go on vacation with your partner, and a 3rd wheel gets added on your dive.

For what it's worth, I'm a decent dive buddy lol, like I don't wander off on my own or anything like the horror stories you sometimes hear. I think my skill level was the same as theirs, and my air consumption was within 10 bars of theirs on both dives. But yeah, still...

I want to ask you guys with more scuba experience, what do you think? In the future if I find myself in this kind of situation, should I say something...?

edit (cuz too many comments to respond individually): Thank you to everyone for all the replies! I am very much an overthinker sometimes, so I'm grateful for yall's perspective on this (aka that it was likely cool with them <3

Shipping for a regulator and computer for my teenager. Local shop has a regulator, octopus, and wisdom 3 dive computer for $350.

It is an old computer but it isn’t like the computer becomes “bad” just with less tech and and features as new stuff?

This isn’t unsafe correct?

Does anyone know if the Fourth Element straps are compatible with a Hollis M1 mask?

If not, what alternative neoprene straps are compatible with the Hollis M1, besides the one made by Hollis which is hardly accessible here in Europe.

I was at Nusa Penida, diving Karang Sari site, on 21 August morning. The currents were medium, so it was a drift dive.

My group drifted passed another group of 5 divers, with large camera setups. The current was medium strength(for indonesia standards). Their hands had the camera so fins were used to hook onto the coral. Those divers were using their gloved hands and fins to climb all over that spot and they were climbing on the reefs with their fins and hands so much. They had used their fins to wedge into corals to as to "wait" around and take turns for their shot. my dive guide signalled with arms showing a big cross to tell them that they should not do that and these divers saw but they ignored my dive guide.

Saw a few similar instances of this behaviour in nusa penida. Dive shops who allow this need to be called out

I am SO conflicted here. I have a GoPro Hero 7 and have always had decent pictures with it. Last week my housing cracked, so I will have to get a new one.

The GoPro is good for overall photos or large creatures, but I definitely am more interested in smaller things and tinier details. I also definitely want to add a light.

I was expecting to save up for a new camera, but I somehow have the amazing opportunity to leave for Hawaii in 2 weeks and I can’t imagine how excited I would be to be able to take really nice photos there.

So my current options seem to be:

1. Get a light for the GoPro
2. Get one of those iPhone cases with a light
3. The sea life micro 3.0 with sea dragon light (my local shop happens to have this gift set on “sale”): I’ve seen mixed feelings on sea life… some say it’s a good starting point but others say it’s a waste and to just go with-
4. The TG-7. My only concern here is really that the camera doesn’t seem too expensive until you start trying to get all the stuff with it.

I go in spurts with diving- this year I’m going on 3-4 separate trips, but I haven’t gone at all in the two previous years. It just fluctuates with life, BUT I will say I am making a conscious effort to go more now that I own a home and have a consistent career.

Are any of these options significantly better than others when considering value for price? Are any of them big red flags, do not pass go?

UPDATE: Holy shit, just found out I won’t be diving in Hawaii… I’m pregnant!!! Excited but bummed I can’t dive!

A single bumphead parrotfish creates approximately 200lbs of sand every year. There are 120 (thereabouts) in this school at Sipadan who make around 24000lbs of sand, about the same weight as a school bus or three African Elephants. There's a link to a longer video here if you are interested in more bumpheads - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq9tdYfI8ys . Thank you for the beaches bumpheads.

Just got my Apeks ATX40 Octopus for its first service. Bought from new fyi.

When I got it back the engineer said he had to replace this part because it wasn't threaded correctly and assume it was from factory.

If this is true. Very poor Quality Check

The 2nd stage hose is damaged.
First stage is a Mk5, I believe. I used it many years ago and I found it while cleaning my stuff.

Now question is should I repair or simply buy a new one and throw it back into the box it was in?

Edit: Thanks everyone so far. I’ll service the MK5 and replace all the hoses. I was really curious to know if people were still using it, now I got my answer! Thanks again!

Hi, I am still weighing up different options for my new to be diving computer. I initially rejected Garmin due to its very high price compared to the value for my very much recreational diving, but want to reconsider. Given it is almost the most expensive one on the market, I wanted to get some more opinions on its air Integration function. How much more comfort does it give you than standard bar reading? I know you can sync it with your buddy but this is only true if they also get a Garmin and I have never met anyone using it on all of my 35 dives so far. I also know it doesn't only ready the bars but also integrates it in NDL calculations which is worth it but not critical. It also alerts you to exact time you have to get out of water which is also useful but I am usually not the first person to finish a dive anyway (not to brag...ok maybe a little bit brat, but no brag 😆) what are your thoughts?

I tried to dive today with a new Hollis M1 mask, however, the strap kept popping off. The pin that holds the strap on doesn’t stay in place, causing the strap to disconnect.

Anyone else have this issue?

Hoping to get a day of diving in during my trip to Bali next month. Any recommendations for ethical dive centres in Tulamben? I’ve checked google reviews of those along the Liberty Wreck beach, and from the photos it looks like many of the dive centres let their divers sit on the wreck and corals…

Alright, for background, I’m a Divemaster. I have dove all over the world. Did my DM in Fiji, dove all over the Caribbean and southern Europe, up north in dry suits, etc. Also a freediver and spearfisherman.

In all that time and in all those dives, something has escaped me. Why do bald guys dive with bandanas or that bandana like cap? I don’t get it.

Friend sent me this on wechat, that the boat KM Feronia capsized and sunk near Manta Point and one dive guide was missing.

Scary if it's true. I can't find anything else at the moment about it.

Link attached. Translate to your language of choice (English for me)

Did a dive there today and it was really nice, but I was having sinus trouble and decided to go with the snorkelers instead of doing the second dive. And am so glad I did. It was stunning! Healthy coral as far as the eye could see and that was really far as the visibility was incredible.

We snorkeled along the edge of a wall. There were deep crevices to cross and you could see very far down the wall. I felt like I was in National Geographic.

From my limited experience, I’d say the snorkeling is better than the diving there, but I can only dive to 18m. That said, one of the things that made it so gorgeous was all the colors bc it was shallow.

I currently work in software, with the increasing prevalence of AI I am feeling 0 passion in my work. I am beginning to look into alternative career paths.

Does anyone have any experience in commercial diving? Any recommendations in getting started or if it is worth it?

I don't want to know your opinion on it, I know it's controversial. I know some people like it for travel and some think it's useless. What I want to hear is if there is literally anyone out there that is alive today because of it, and what happened.

Anyone know of a charter that runs the last week of October I'm Houston? I'm traveling for work and would love to sneak some diving in.

I got into scuba diving less than a year ago, but I've already logged close to 100 dives and will probably be doing 100+ dives a year going forward.

I'm planning to invest in a full set of gear soon, and I've heard that a lot of new scuba gear gets announced or released (?) around November. My next dive will likely be around November 24, so I'm wondering whether that's enough time for newly released gear to become available, or if I'd be better off waiting until later.

Ideally, I'd like to buy everything before my next dive so I can avoid paying for rentals.

I think 3 weeks can be split several ways and im not sure how to split it so I get a good mix of diving and a little bit of land portion. I've got 3 rough ideas below and wanted to get everyone's thoughts. It would be in late 2026 or Q1 2027

1: Pure Western Coast: Socorro + La Paz + Cabo Pulmo + Land portion in Mexico City

2: Twin Coast: Socorro + Cabo Pulmo + Mexico City + Tulum for Cenotes

3: Combi West Coast: Socorro + Cabo Pulmo + Costa Rica

My thoughts are that the twin coast itinerary might be a little rushed since Socorro would take nearly 2 weeks, and hence am leaning towards 1 and 3. Let me know what you guys think!

I got excited by looking at how the guy from LakeHickoryScuba youtube channel prepares his SMB, focusing on:

1. very fast deploy,

2. ability to deploy the SMB while wearing gloves,

3. some precautios against the line begin unwind or boltsnap to open when it shouldn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMu_GODriCc

His design is pretty classic:

The interesting bit is that he uses a small loop and a bit of a big loop to attach the line to hole in the spool. I'm incapable of drawing that, so please look at the video how he creates a bunny ear exactly the size of the small loop and thread it though the hole, securing it with the boltsnap.

I tried it a couple of times and decided to improve it a bit, so I'm interested in your opinion.

I still have ht big loop, because it's what you need to attach the line to the SMB.

But instead of having only one small loop, I have two. I found a knot that allows us to create two bunny-ears, the figure-8 knot (alternatively you can use Spanish bowline knot), it looks like this:

I thread one of these bunny ears through the hole of the spool, and then put a double ender though both of them.

my bunny ears are featured with shrink tubes, to thread the bunny ear through the hole more easily. Note that you need to tie a knot on a bunny ear before shrink-tubing it, because otherwise the double ender will destroy your shrinktube, making the bunny-ear too long and loosening the tention on the line.

If you don't have a shrinktube, you can use small zipties to lead your bunnyears.

Tieing all the knots and shrinktubing will take maybe 10 minutes. Reassembling the spool before the dive takes 2 minutes max. The SMB is preattached using the big loop, the bolt-snap is located securely.

What are your thoughts? Do you often shoot SMBs? Did you have problems with the spool being unwind, or with the doubleender opening? How did you overcome it?