Top 10 Mistakes New Divers Make | @Scuba Diver Magazine
Ten common mistakes that new scuba divers make and how to avoid them.
#scuba #scubadiving #scubadiver
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00:00 – Intro
00:30 – Leaving your cylinders standing upright
02:30 – Not preparing your dive mask properly
03:40 – Carrying too much lead/weight
05:05 – Not respecting your boundaries
06:13 – Succumbing to peer pressure
07:10 – Not streamlining
08:35 – Not checking gauges enough or being honest about gas consumption
09:35 – Not paying attention to your surroundings
10:46 – Not equalizing early or often enough
12:03 – Not asking silly questions
My biggest mistake was stopping just as I was getting started. Diving is a perishable skill.
👍
In this reporters opinion, I feel this is totally disrespectful and dangerous! Divers with camera, pushing another diver out of the way, in order to take a photo.
Thank you for your tips, they are really helpful. As I never remove my mask since the pandemic, I do appreciate those who always follow the rules.
All great examples but you forgot the biggest one…Being a PADI diver!
Thank you for the advice
2 things that i would like to highlight
1. Securing your cylinder on the boat. During my initial diving course, the dive instructors are so particular about securing the cylinders properly once we reach the boat. Once, because some student did not secure it properly, the cylinders almost injured one of the boat man
2. Being aware of your surroundings. Its still fresh in my mind where the instructors reminded us over and over again, we ned to take care of the corals as it is the place where the ecosystem can develop. He was very strict about this. After the dive was over, he berates the students who broke too many corals underwater. Though he is not in a rage, he explained that imagine someone came to your house and destroy your house, the place you live bla bla bla. Hahahaha
But under his strict guidance, i can say that i became a much better diver, making sure to check and double check my equipments before my dive and making sure that i can minimise breaking the corals and taking care of the environment till this day
Was in a boat and luckily caught a tank that a woman had not secured, I caught the valve just as it was about to flap on her head. She was shook up and didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal smh.
number 11 could be own an iron
Thanks for these tips and advice. Very useful indeed.
…thank you… i am brand new to your beautiful sport….👍
I always laugh when you talk about #Flappysnaghazard or Christmas Tree Divers because that’s me :P This is why I bought a thigh pocket to add to my drysuit, so I can store some of my gear in there instead :)
Hmh, some of these mistakes seem familiar ;-) . Thanks for the video!
old Divemaster about to dive for first time in ages – NEEDED this – THANKS!
“Getting into trouble” means such a sudden death. I don’t remember how the show I loved, “Sea Hunt,” made underwater stories work!
the counter to the ‘excess lead’ mistake is late in the dive when you’ve consumed 1 – 1.5kg of compressed gas, some extra lead onboard makes it a lot easier to control your buoyancy and your ascent
Dunning-Kruger effect for new divers??? C’mon, you’re just trying to fill your list! “New” divers are hardly ever going to go from the popping of the cherry to thinking they’re the world’s greatest. Maybe the odd narcissist might learn to dive and soon think he / she is the greatest diver ever but the vast majority will understand *that mistakes CAN be fatal often when UNDERWATER.* SMFH 🤣 Is the rest of the list going to be this daft??? Hmmm…
…mmm #1 Johnson’s Baby Shampoo RULES to clean a mask and keeping it fog free , be sure to also clean the face seal with it so that it seals nicely to your face !
#2 a Fat , hung over and out of shape = a lousy diver or dive partner .
Great video. Even though I’m qualified to advanced open water, I still consider myself a new diver. These are great tips that I’ll use going forward! I operate by the rule that it’s better to look stupid by checking things and asking questions, than to not ask the questions and end up feeling/being unsafe.
Excellent! And while may be (to some folks) annoying questions, there are no silly ones…especially when safety is at issue.
Hello !!
I just passed/finished/get my Open Water last week! Starting to love diving.
Your videos are really helpful for me as a new diver. What are your thoughts on having the secondary hung round your neck in black and the primary which would be used by someone else in an emergency in yellow. To me this would make sense as they would look for the yellow to grab but I see many setups, including my own, the other way round. Also what would be the best length for the primary hose? I don´t want to go for the looped around the body 2metre option but I am thinking that it should be at least a metre to allow space between divers as you ascend if you are not doing the PADI grab the other person´s BCD strap and rise.
What things, specifically, do you always take on every dive in every situation?
As a new diver, 6 total dives. Im fairly reliant on the DM etc leading my dive. Im an outdoor type of person and have a good head on my shoulders regarding risk but not in a dive setting.
So on my 8th dive i enter the water, currently on the surface, the lpi hose is leaking air, i un clip this and re attach, its still leaking, i ask the DM to look it he does the same thing and its still leaking. I explain this and he says in a very matter of fact manor, your choice, dive or not then proceeds to decend.
I opted to dive but as i always do keep a constant check on my air. Should i have dived? Is a small leak acceptable? Ive seen small leaks and pointed them out under water just for the diver to signal its small and okay to carry on.
Second question the dive is majority of the time in these tight swim throughs and canyons 90° turns and hair pins in confined spaces, think a foot either side of my shoulders. Im really focused and probably breathing heavily. We come to near the end, i can see the boat, i check my air. Im at about 650 psi. I cant signal the DM due to the space we are in so i signal my buddy and inform them my air level, they look confused. I take thr decision, that i can signal the dm, i dont know how far we have left and i dont want to have an air issue. I signal my buddy that im heading to the surface, i conduct a brief saftey stop, and surface. The other diver’s surface between 5 and 10 minutes later. The DM doesnt talk to me at all not even acknowledges im there. My buddy apologies for not knowing the how much air signal as she was taught to signal that on the bicep before providing the figures where i was taught to do it on the palm.
I feel i was right in surfacing but expected more from the DM, am i expecting to much?
Does your wife not iron your shirts?
You wanna learn diving? Forget camera.
?huh?
No go pro?
Timestamps:
10 – 00:30 – Leaving your cylinders standing upright
9 – 02:30 – Not preparing your dive mask properly
8 – 03:40 – Carrying too much lead/weight
7 – 05:05 – Not respecting your boundaries
6 – 06:13 – Succumbing to peer pressure
5 – 07:10 – Not streamlining
4 – 08:35 – Not checking gauges enough or being honest about gas consumption
3 – 09:35 – Not paying attention to your surroundings
2 – 10:46 – Not equalizing early or often enough
1 – 12:03 – Not asking silly questions
As an experienced diver I agree with everything you’ve said. I would like to add my tips. 1) Never hold back if you want to thumb 👍 a dive, even if you’re still on the boat, safety first. 2) Carry several ways of calling for help, whistle, mirror, torch and PLB. 3) When boat diving carry two SMB’s and reels. 4) Put a loop of bungee cord in your pockets and clip your gear to that – when you want something you can pull everything out, choose what you want and put everything back without loosing anything.
Like a Christmas tree diver?
@Ryan not at all, a Christmas tree diver has everything hanging off of them. Take a look at my profile picture, there is nothing loose at all. Everything is tucked away in two pockets on my thighs.
A PLB, Personal something Buoy?
@Josh S a Personal Location Beacon. It’s a device that either sends a GPS signal or an AIS (Automatic Identification Signal) that will show up on a chart of a large boat or ship.
@Mark Newman N thanks for the explanation. Might need to pick one up
Extending on the “Learn to say no to your buddy”: Learn to say no to everybody. Educate yourself and be your own authority. I had guides and instructors trying to push shady things on me. Learn to say no.
I can relate to this. My mistake was forgetting to purge the oxygen from the regulator before removing it from the tank. Wondered why it was difficult to detach until one final twist , an almighty bang and the o-ring took off like a missile.
Oxygen ? Tanks have air, not “oxygen”.
Some do. With technical dives there are cases to dive on oxygen.
Wow… that must have been embarrassing… I had my instructor telling me to purge the regulator and I accidentally cleared the air from my LPI….. then I was like oh wait regulator on the right … the one you breathe from lol
I learned about standing cylinders upright the hard way. I was at NDAC and had my kit lying on a “kitting up” platform which was on the floating pontoon. I stood it upright to put it on but then looked down and decided to out my fins on first. I crouched down to put my fins on just as another group of divers walked past on the pontoon. Long story short – I have the dubious honour of being the only person I know who’s knocked themselves out with their own cylinder!
This is a very useful video, well presented with great points. 👍🏻👏🏻👌🏻😇
You speak clearly, at a good speed and it’s not at all boring. Plus the underwater footage is very easy on the eye. 😎
However, can you brighten your studio and/or yourself up a wee bit? 🤭 If someone just looked at the clip on mute, or for a few seconds they might think it’s a bit uninteresting or on a completely different topic. Maybe some dive-related pictures or equipment in the background. Anyway, that’s just my thoughts.. please keep up the good work!
tbh go blame youtube for people not subscribing. they made subbing mostly pointless for the user so why would they do it. feed page is near useless these days and recommendation is the way to go. On the recommend page it does not matter if you sub or not, so simply nobody does it.
Top 5 recommendation: When surfacing in open water, especially in rough seas…ALWAYS, leave your mask on your face and reg in your mouth until you are on the boats platform.
Love the info! Relatively new diver just doing my best to learn what I can…a lot of this stuff has been covered throughout my limited dive life, but it’s really refreshing to just be able to hear it repeated. Thanks for the content.
As a new diver. My biggest thing was not equalizing early and often. I had a minor barotrauma to my middle ear from my cert dive. It’s healed but I waited until there was a good feeling of pressure before I equalized.
Same here.
Great advice Mark, Can I offer you an iron for future videos? :)
I’m trying to save on my energy bills 😉
Digging the new hair-do!!!!
At 4.26 what brand is the BCD? I’m new to diving and trying to see all the brands before purchasing my gear
It’s a wing style, not what you want for your first BCD,i t’s more appropriate for tech /cave diving. You want a standard BCD ,good brands include Scubapro and Mares. You can buy them with integrated weight systems or not. I’m not a fan of those tbh, but each to their own
Hey, that BCD looks like a Mares Kaila
The red zone on a gauge is arbitrary. As the min gas is dependent on depth and cylinder size.
Well your typical dive cylinder is 12l this is aimed at new divers and he states the 50b mark is for when a safety stop is conducted at 5m. I see nothing arbitrary about that.
Sure, but do you know how to calculate MGR?
Would a tech chat on the different first and second stage types and what they are good for be an idea for a video – probably a two parter?
Well done Markeeeeee…all good tips and good reminders for us seasoned divers too.
Hey Fella, I don’t think there’s much that I can teach you about diving
@Scuba Diver Magazine Pffff we’re all still learning! Keep up the good work buddy
As a new diver I appreciate these tips and advice. There’s always something new to learn. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos Mark. I don’t get to dive as often as I like so I forget some things. It’s great to be reminded of even the simplist things to keep us safe. Thanks again 💖
Well put Mark👍
“Theres a reason why these courses exist”, to empty your pockets.
Yeah, like driving lessons.
Thanks Mark.
I really appreciate the knowledge and experience shared by you in this channel. It helps alot for new divers like me. Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. 👍
Great advise Mark!
Great video. Some things we can all learn from these videos, even as experienced divers. We can always keep learning
Thank you Mark for a common sense approach and honest guidance.
#askmark How many times have you started a video shoot with “Hey everyone, welcome to Simply scu.. oh damn.. Let’s take this again” since you switched to New channel 😄
Sometimes… It’s become a bit of a habit after 8 years
The best advice I give divers is that the dive is not over until you’re back aboard the boat