Under Pressure Divecast | Recreational SCUBA Diving Education, Information, Tips and Gear Talk | Do you need a SCUBA skills Update? | Under Pressure Divecast | Episode 008

Show Notes

You love SCUBA, but life happens and you haven't been in the water for a while. How do you know when you need a SCUBA Skills Update?

Let's dive into how often we need to refresh our diving skills!

In episode 008 we're going to talk about...
1. What is a SCUBA Skills Update
2. Time Limits on SCUBA Certification
3. When MUST a certified SCUBA Diver get an Update
4. When SHOULD a certified SCUBA Diver get an Update

Dive into the full show notes | https://updiveblog.link/updc008

What is Under Pressure Divecast | Recreational SCUBA Diving Education, Information, Tips and Gear Talk ?

The Under Pressure Divecast is the SCUBA diving podcast dedicated to making SCUBA fun, entertaining and accessible! Join me SKuba Steve as I go over topics related to recreational SCUBA diving, discuss gear and provide easy tips that make your diving more enjoyable, comfortable, safer or more memorable.

SKuba Steve
Hey dive buddies. you've loved scuba diving. But life happens, and you haven't been in the water for a while. How do you know when it's time to get a scuba skills update? Get on your gear because it's time to descend into another episode of the underpressure dive cast. I'm your host, scuba Steve. Scuba diving is a fun and exciting adventure sport and take it from me, you can be a scuba diver. And to help you get there, the underpressure dive cast is dedicated to promoting and discussing recreational scuba diving. So come on, let's make our descent.

Okay, so no, no public scuba news this week, because quite frankly, I'm doing the live stream a day early and I didn't get any news prepared. But I am excited about some personal news. And that is that I finally finally finished my recertification as an instructor for SSI. So I am very much looking forward to getting back in the water with students after a little bit of a break. And maybe at some point, I'll talk about that experience, but it went pretty smoothly. And now I'm ready for more students. So that's awesome, looking forward to sharing the sport of scuba with the people who are interested.

So we're going to go through a couple things about scuba skills updates today, and we're going to talk about what a scuba skills update really is. What is it? What are some of the time limits around scuba certification? And then when should you get a scuba skills update? And how should you go about either making that decision or, or approaching the update itself? So let's get into it. So what is a scuba skills update or I think the that's that's the SSI term for it. pattee term is a scuba refresher course. And I can't speak to the exact content of the patty product or Naui, or any of the other products that are out there. But in principle, the idea of getting an update when you're going to go diving after an absence from the water is it should be the same across most of the or all of the brands or all of the agencies because it's not a difficult concept. It's not like we're all going to put our own that I guess the point is, what's important about scuba diving doesn't change with the agency that you're diving with. So what are the things that matter with the the scuba skills update? And what are you going to cover? Well, you're going to go over academic concepts, you know things knowledge work, you know how your body behaves underwater or how the physics around your body in the water. You need to be you may need reminding on why the body or why and how the body adapts to being at pressure. So you'll go through that stuff. You'll obviously refresher water skills. So things like gear assembly, hand signals, the standard underwater skills like mass clearing, regulator retrieval, air sharing, you know, in emergency situations scenarios, you may do an air share with an ascent with your dive buddy. So those are kind of the the in water skills that you can expect to go through. And those are important, right? Because understanding how to assemble the gear and what hand signals mean what you may, you may find that two or three of the hand signals, you know, you have no problem with but what if things aren't okay? Do you remember the note? Okay, hand signal. Are you remembering that this doesn't mean I'm good? Right? A lot of times, especially for new divers, you do a thumbs up people think okay, I'm good. Yeah, that's great. Well, you know, we in in scuba diving, that means we're going to make an ascent. So you may remember some of the hand signals from your original training, but you might not remember all of them. There are about nine or 10 that you really need to know on every dive. And then there's wildlife so you know signals for wildlife signals for other things that might occur on a dive that you might want to refresh yourself for. So that's, that's one of the things you're going to do. And then the standard skills like I talked About are going to be the water skills that that you really are going to use those on every single dive. Right? Every time we, we go on a dive, we clear our masks, you're probably not going to have to retrieve your regulator on every dive. But there are it is not uncommon to have to retrieve a regulator on a dive, you're swimming in a group of people and someone's fin knocks your regulator out of your mouth, we don't want to be panicked about it, we might swim a little bit further away from from the group staying close to your buddy, but being away from a group. And you know, how are you going to get that regulator back and stuff like that. So those things matter. You know, virtually every single dive, there are going to be things that that skills that you're going to review that are going to matter each time. So something else you might cover in a in a scuba skills update his changes to can't come and practice. And one of the things I can speak specifically to is when I started scuba diving, in 2002, the recreational limit without additional training was 100 feet. And with

additional training, you go to 130 feet or one more basically one more atmosphere. And since that time, the scuba industry has become a little bit more conservative. And open water scuba divers are generally I'm gonna say limited to 60 feet. There, there's nobody who's going to look at your computer when you get back on the boat and in and give you a hard time if you went to 64 feet. And you're not trained in deep water diving but but there's reasons for that. And so changes to standards and common practice, evolve over time as we learn more about the underwater environment. And we understand more about what keeps divers safe. And so we're not going to talk about you know why that limit exists or whatever. But it did change over the nearly 20 years that I've been diving. And so that happens, our understanding of the diving sport, the sport of diving changes, and those things can come up during a scuba skills update as well. You know, I'm going to talk briefly about the fact that new gear could be available to you, this is not necessarily an opportunity for your dive shop to sell you a whole new rig. But, you know, for example, we're now seeing a lot more of two products that that might matter to some divers. Specifically, full face masks are becoming more popular and more available. And heads up display products are becoming more available. And so you may find yourself being interested in having one or the one of those products, and you get introduced to them. You know, when you go in the shop, and and you know are looking through things or you're talking to your dive instructor, when you're doing your scuba skills update, it's an opportunity to get caught up a little bit on the sport and the equipment involved. Because it does change. You know, in a lot of ways scuba equipment is very standardized, right? There's the primary regulator, or, excuse me, the first stage and second stage regulators work very much the same. Now, as they did 20 years ago, maybe they're there, they breathe a little easier, whatever. But the technology hasn't changed dramatically. And so at least not from a consumer standpoint of what what does it look like how do I operate it that hasn't changed a lot for a lot of scuba products. But there are advances in diving that will make your diving more comfortable, maybe more safe. You know, certainly every year or two, there's a new action cam that you can you can get. So so there are also aspects of diving that do change and so are in terms of gear that do change that you can use, or you can get introduced to and you may not care. You know if it took me probably three or four years of scuba diving before I even thought about taking a camera underwater, and that was a choice that I made because I didn't want to be distracted with a camera while I was still new and not you know fully capable of maintaining good buoyancy without thinking about it. And stuff like that. So I think there's there are reasons to be careful but as you as you advance as a diver, your needs change, your gear interests might change, and then the sport changes. So that's something that to keep in mind that you also get during your scuba skills update, you're going to get the opportunity to speak with a dive professional, you know, in a very small group and get questions answered. And so that can be nice, because you can get, you know, you might have a question you've been wondering about for a really long time. Or you might have a question that you feel like, you might be self conscious, asking somebody on the boat, where you know, this person you are paying them to help you be a better diver, and refresh your skill. So it's a great opportunity, in a safe place to ask a question about diving. So that's another reason or another part of the experience of getting a scuba skills update. And then you can, you know, there's going to be a series of things that that that you're going to be going through as part of the process, but you can also tell your instructor, hey,

I've got these two or three concerns about my diving, you know, I go through error really fast. I don't really remember how to put this part of my equipment together, or I don't understand how to read my computer. You know, and what does this mean? You know, so you might have a question about your diving, that, that they can help answer. So that's kind of an overview of what you can expect when you're looking at the scuba skills update. The next thing is I wanted to talk about is some of the time limits surrounding scuba diving. And so what is the time limit on scuba diving certification? Well, there isn't one. So once you become scuba certified, that's a lifetime certification and that's industry wide. So when do you have to get a scuba sales skills update? As a certified open water diver, you never have to get an update. And we'll talk about well, the next thing is when should you get a scuba skills update? And and so let's figure out why. You know, what kind of criteria might we use or why we might get a scuba skills update. And maybe how frequently so you know, if you've been out of the water for less than six months, my my and you feel comfortable with your skills, then, you know, grab your gear, get in the pool at your shop. And make sure that you still know what you're doing. You know, if it hasn't been that long since you've been in the water. And you can you can get some pool time. And if you're using your own gear, that's great if you have to rent gear, you know, put that rental gear together. And if you can get it put together properly, and you can get underwater and you can make you know, do a couple of entries. And then roll through the skills. In our shop. We have all of the skills on posters on the wall. So you can well they're not visual posters, but they're bullet points of what you're supposed to be able to do. So you can surface look at the wall say okay, I got to do these three things. Try them out. Can you do them?

Unknown Speaker
So that's one thing if it's been, and then you can make the decision, you know, has

SKuba Steve
it? Do I feel comfortable enough that I did everything well enough to be safe in the water and to enjoy the dive? If it's been more than six months? um you know, you might I'm sorry, if it's been more than a year. Then if you've logged hundreds of dives, you might say well, you know, but you took two years off, you might say well, I don't I'm okay. I'd still get in the ball. You know, put your stuff together, make sure you still know how to do it. In my own case, I have logged hundreds of dives and I was out of the water for a couple of years here recently. And I'm not sure if I talked about that in a previous episode but I've been busy so okay. But I made the choice to go ahead and get back in the water and in the pool. And then you know I didn't do a scuba skills update because I was doing my instructor update with a dive instructor trainer. So, but it was, you know, we're covering the same basic material in terms of skill set and stuff. So even though I've done a lot in the water, I still made sure that I spend time in the water not only on my own, but also with an instructor. And in this case, it's a little bit more in depth than then what regular open water diver might need, but that's okay. And there's no part of it, I think, is people want to feel like they shouldn't have to get an update or something, or you might feel embarrassed about it. I think it's really important that we don't stigmatize that at all. If you feel like you need some time in the water with a professional, get on, get on the schedule, and just do it. So, you know, the the, so if you've been in the water out of the water for a short amount of time, and I do six months out, but that's fairly arbitrary. It's your decision, you know, your comfort level, but if it has not been very long, since you were in the water, and you feel comfortable with your diving skills, okay? If it's been longer, you have to take a more critical look at whether or not you really can make that assessment. You know, if it's been a year and a half or two years, since you were in the water, are you really the best person to make the judgment as to whether or not you, you have the retain Enough of your skills to be safe and comfortable in the water. So that's something to think about. One of the things that I would encourage though, is, you know, we have the scuba skills update programs. And if you need them, I certainly encourage you to use one. But one of the things we can do is avoid the problem altogether. And even here in Fort Collins, Colorado, we can dive locally, which means that you can get in the water much more regularly than only when you can go to the beach, especially in the last year and a half, 18 months, whatever, almost 24 months now where travel has been a little bit or maybe a lot restrictive. But try to find ways to dive locally. And if you're fortunate enough to live on a coast, then you have a great opportunity to do some some diving, some local diving in the ocean. In our case, we're going to do freshwater diving. And that might be you know, here in in one of our reservoirs, which means we get to do you know, we can work on navigation and low visibility and, and work on skills like that search and recovery. So we can we can do a lot of interesting things. And not leave home. And and we can travel wherever we can go by car. And and dive as well. So there's there's that opportunity schedule regular pool time at your local dive shop. So if you if you can't, you know if going to the reservoir is just not your thing, or maybe you know, you live in a region where you really don't have good local diving, available, that's okay too. You know, but get in the pool at your local dive shop. And, and just swim around, make sure you put the equipment together, swim around, do the skills. You know, and and hopefully your dive shop can come up with some some fun and entertaining things to do in the pool.

While you're practicing your skills, your dive shop may have events, we have a couple of events every year at our shop. And so, you know, is that something that you can participate in, just to get in the water, get your equipment on. And, you know, keep that keep those skills more fresh. Said set yourself some scuba goals. So I want to have, you know, 50 dives by the end of whatever the year, or I want to dive with 20 different people. You know, I want to dive with 20 different dive buddies by the end of the year. Or I want to dive in three different kinds of water. Or I want to do different types of dives. You know, can you Wreck Dive in freshwater? Sure. You know we have a reservoir just outside of Denver that has a plane and I think they've got a bus down there that you can swim around. So you have look for opportunities to dive instead of using the fact that you can't go to you know Bonaire or row attend as an excuse not to dive Work on advancing your certifications and specialties. So So that gives you the opportunity to get in the water, whether it's again, the pool, or a local dive opportunity. You can you know, look at the things you're interested. Are you interested in photography? Are you interested in in Nitrox and the advantages to diamond that gas? Are you interested in diving deeper? All of those things in there, there are many specialties and diving marine biology identification, right? So so when you actually go underwater, and you see something, you know what it is. So that can be pretty cool. And it can make the dives that you do in on vacation even more exciting and more interesting, because you actually know what you saw, versus someone who saw, you know, 27 different kinds of fish. Right? So that's something to think about. Look at certifications and specialties, and then your local dive shop, should be able to help you, you know, they should be able to say, okay, we want to put a package together where you learn about these things? And what are the skills that are going to help you do that? What are the pool activities that are going to help you do that? What relevant local diving opportunities, they're going to help you do that. And so hopefully, your local dive shop can help you put that together. I kind of want to leave when we're talking about scuba skills updates I kind of want to leave you with with the thought of what do you want to spend your time doing? while you're on a dive trip? You know, do you want to spend your time fumbling around with your equipment? Do you want to spend it nervous and stressed out? Do you want to spend it going through air really fast? Or do you want to be able to be relaxed and confident and really be able to enjoy the underwater world, which is why we went on vacation in the first place. So spending a few minutes, or even a few hours in the pool and in the classroom with an instructor. Or alternatively, just making sure that you're getting out into your local dive community and dive environment on a regular basis. So you don't need to get in the pool with an instructor. Those are both really good ways to make sure that you are going to get the most out of your next scuba diving adventure.

junkies garage is weak audio listeners, it's I don't even know what to tell you. It's just not as exciting if you watch the if you do it on the do the audio. But you can do it in your car. So Alright, so I wanted to talk a little bit about gear that maybe you don't think about all the time. And this actually came up in my because of my recertification process. But I think it's worth talking about in general. And that is the idea of first aid. first aid kit that that you have handy. And for most divers, I would not necessarily recommend a no to kit like you see here. But when you when you look at a first aid kit, it is good to have a first aid kit in your dive equipment and take it with you when you go to a dive site if you're traveling locally, if you're and if you're just totally gung ho and you have a way of getting oxygen, you can go ahead and get an OT kit. here in Colorado, it's a little harder to get oxygen that we can use 100% oxygen that we can use with that. So I wouldn't recommend, you know, just a regular person to do that. But when you're talking about the the first aid kit that you can have available, it's it's really just good practice to add that they're not super expensive. And you can put it in your car, your dive bag, and and just make sure you have it. There's a couple of things when you're when you're diving locally that you want to know, and that's, you know, where is emfs going to come from? And how long is it going to take them? What kind of facilities are available to you in terms of you know, is there somewhere that close by it's going to have medical support? You know, are you going to be on your own for an hour or two hours or or whatever. Those are all really important things to understand. And so I would encourage you to think about putting, you know putting a first aid kit in your in your dive gear one that's set up for scuba diving, you know on the kinds of accidents that are going to be likely to happen so for you know, are you going to need a splint probably not as likely as some of the other things in the kit. Like Can pocket mask or something like that. So now you could drop a tank on somebody's foot and need to splint it. And so that could happen. But you know, one, that's a first aid kit that's geared toward scuba diving is worth considering in the tip of the week, this week, just kind of playing off of the idea of the first aid kit and safety. When you're diving, whether it's local with a dive group, or on a boat, or at a destination, there's a couple things to just ask about, you know, do you have a first aid kit? Do you have a no to kit? And then where are they? You know, and I've heard horror stories. And you know, you can, you know, if people opening first aid kit to find fishing, tackle, stuff like that. You don't want to be, you know, aggressive or rude. But this is stuff that could save a life, if something were to happen, especially if you're going to be on a boat, and you're going to be, you know, an hour from shore or something like that. Or you're going to be you know, when we dive up at our reservoir, we're, we could probably have an ambulance in 15 minutes, maybe, you know, I'm just guessing, I don't really know. But it's not the standard because we're not in town at that point. And so it's important to understand what that impact is going to do to any anybody who ends up becoming a patient, rather than just a scuba diver. So it's something to think about, ask where the first aid kit is asked where no to kit is, if you don't know how to use an O toolkit. If you're going to dive a lot, the more people that are trained without to the safer our sport becomes. Right? So sign up for training and get trained to use it. So that if you're on a boat or at a dive site, and somebody gets hurt, or needs assistance, you can provide it and like I said, make art sports just a little bit. Just a little bit safer.

Alright, so that's all I've got this week. You can contact the show, you can contact me personally at scuba Steve at underpressure Drive blog calm, like it's on the screen. So scuba Steve SK UBA Steve at up dive blog. com Visit our website at under pressure dive but pack under pressure dive blog calm, you find the audio version of the show at on your favorite pod catcher. You can find me on social media pretty much everywhere that I pay attention to is at scuba Steve underpressure dive blog or shorthand of that SK UVA Steve up DB on basically Twitter, Instagram, and that we've got a Facebook page, but those are the ones I pay attention to. So you can contact there if you've got any questions if you've got suggestions for topics. If you've got a different experience, leave a note in the or leave a comment below the video and let us know what your experience has been with scuba skills updates or how you decide if your scuba skills are up to par. And when with that I'd like to thank you for watching today, here on YouTube or listening to the audio program. If you're an audio listener on the left side you will see a playlist with more episodes for your binge watching pleasure. And don't forget to subscribe with the button in the middle of the screen or below and ring the bell so you're notified of new content, the surface intervals over get out there and dive

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