We had a couple of great dives at Bare Island today. May is a beautiful time to dive around Sydney, and a spectacular, mild midweek day today was a perfect time to enjoy this great site. We had previously done dives at Camp Cove and on the wreck of the ex-HMAS Adelaide.

Shark numbers are in decline, and as the apex predator in the oceanic realm, the survival of the shark species may be directly linked to that of humanity. Humans rely on protein to survive and grow, and the oceanic food chain is the major source of protein for a majority of the planet's population. Killing off of sharks throws that food chain into unbalance, and without that food chain, we may not have sufficient protein to maintain the survival of our species. Imagine a world with "protein wars" - people fighting not over oil or money, but protein.

This may sound alarmist, but as a keen diver I do believe that "the only good shark is NOT a dead shark".

As a dive instructor, consider teaching the important role that sharks play through the new AWARE Shark Conservsation Instructor Course.

I am excited to be able to offer this course as the shark is the animal that sits at the top of the foodchain in all the world's oceans. With the oceans being an important part of this planet's health (its a carbon sink, and the major source of protein for a large proportion of the population), the continued survival of sharks may well be linked to that of humankind. 

Yet, humankind is doing an excellent job of eradicating sharks. Estimates tell us that that perhaps only 10% of the sharks alive 15-20 years ago are still with us! Something like 28-73 million sharks a killed annually, many as bycatch, and many for their fins.

The AWARE Shark Conservation Diver course will contribute towards the conservation of sharks by building awareness of the issues and inspiring students to speak up and act to protect sharks. 

I feel so strongly about the topic that the AWARE Shark Conservation Diver Instructor Course will become the bonus specialty instructor course offered in conjunction with PADI Instructor Development Courses at Jetty Dive Coffs Harbour and United Divers Wollongong. To get as many divers as possible to a place where they can hear the message, I aim to get as many instructors as possible into a position where they can deliver it, in the form of a fun and educational course.

On Thursday 16 February a Tec Xplor info session was held with over 35 divers coming along to hear about the diving opportunities, equipment and training for Tec diving. Presenters for the evening included Oceanic/Hollis representative Neil Dorrian and myself (PADI TecDeep Instructor Trainer, Des Paroz). Lots of questions were asked about Tec diving opportunities locally and further afield, equipment, Sidemount diving and the coming wave of rebreather diving.

PADI Tec 40 Course - Richard (Staff Instructor), Trond, Damon, John, Des Paroz (TecDeep IT)The next day saw the kickoff of the inaugural PADI Tec 40 course. 3 divers and I got straight into the first level of PADI TecRec training, learning about the basic knowledge, equipment and skills of decompression diving. After completing training dive 1 in a deep pool in Canberra, we set off to Batemans Bay, where Indepth Scuba has a dedicated diving lodge.

Over the following days, we had a further 3 dives, diving various local reefs. This culminated in dive 4 of the Tec 40 Course, during which we did an exploratory dive on a deep section of a reef that hadn’t previously been dived. We found a lovely canyon running from 35-40m that will be a great site for not only future TecRec courses, but also for PADI Deep Diver programs.

Having completed the PADI Tec 40 course, the divers can now conduct limited deco dives to 40m, using air and enriched air up to EANx50. It is a good introduction to the equipment options for Tec diving, exemplified by the fact that one of the divers was using modified recreational dive equipment, one was using a standardized Tec diving configuration, and one was using Sidemount!

Indepth Scuba will be running further PADI TecRec programs in 2012. Already scheduled are Tec 40 and Tec 45 courses in July, along with Tec Instructor training and Sidemount diver and instructor training.

Congratulations to Damon, Trond and John on their achievements so far in PADI TecRec training!

Please visit indepthscuba.com.au or divingidc.com for more information.

This course, conducted over at least 2 days, features knowledge development, a hands on practical application session, and at least one confined water dive and three open water dives. Divers learn to use a sidemount configuration for recreational diving purposes. This will be a great adjunct to Enriched Air Diving for divers wanting to get more bottom time on a single dive.

As this is a standardised PADI specialty, there is an Adventure Dive option as part of the PADI Adventures in Diving program (which leads to either the PADI Adventure Diver or PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certifications). Only certified PADI Sidemount Instructors can offer and conduct the Sidemount Adventure Dive.

Until now, I have been teaching a distinctive specialty in Sidemount Diving, but with the release of this standardised specialty, I am re-focusing my training onto this great specialty.

PADI has also announced the imminent release of the PADI Tec Sidemount Diver course. I plan to offer this program shortly to divers interested in pursuing Sidemount as an option for recreational and tec diving. More information when it is available.

With the advent of commercially available Sidemount BCD systems such as the Hollis SMS100 and the DiveRite Nomad EXP, among others, the benefits of Sidemount diving are now accessible to all divers. These benefits include gas supply, safety, comfort and flexibility.

For recreational divers, Sidemount Diving (perhaps using smaller cylinders) offers some great benefits, including:

• True gas redundancy - although your overall gas supply might be about the same (depending on tanks used), you have redundancy in the event that you have a first stage or valve failure
• Gas supply - for people who "like their air", sidemount is a great way of having more gas available for a dive.
• Versatility - sidemount harnesses like the Hollis SMS100 are capable of being used for both traditional single tank backmount and double tank sidemount setups.
• Comfort - for those with back or knee issues that find walking around with backmount single or double tanks difficult, sidemount diving offers an approach where the tanks are carried without significantly changing your centre of gravity

For tec divers, Sidemount Diving offers several key advantages over backmount doubles, including:

• Streamlining - the tanks are at the diver's sides, not behind your back, out of sight. For trained penetration divers, this goes one step further, allowing you to enter low overhead environments
• Safety - with the tank valves in front of you, its much easier to diagnose issues with valves and/or regulator first stages. A gas shut-down drill is greatly simplified with Sidemount
• Convenience and flexibility - for the traveling tec diver, its generally easier to obtain two single tanks in remote locations than it is to arrange doubles with a isolator manifold. For occasional tec divers, sidemount allows you to have cylinders available for both single tank and sidemount usage

Sidemount is one of the appropriate configurations for those interested in Self-Reliant Diving, as it provides complete first stage and tank valve redundancy. PADI TecRec Instructors who are also Sidemount Instructors can teach PADI TecRec courses using Sidemount rather than the traditional backmount doubles configuration.

In order to learn all that I could about Sidemount Diving, I have taken 2 instructor courses with leadning instructor trainers - Grant Graves and Jeff Loflin. Grant is a long time tec and cave diver, PADI Course Director and innovator of the Precision Diving concept, and has been sidemount diving primarily in caves for many years. Jeff is also a PADI Course Director, and is a driving force behind the adoption of open water sidemount diving, globally. Jeff is also a design consultant for the Hollis SMS100 sidemount buoyancy system. I have also read and watched everything I have been able to about sidemount diving (including the wonderful Sidemount Profiles book by Brian Kakuk and Jill Heinerth), and of course, I've done as many sidemount dives as I have been able.

I am pleased now to be able to offer the PADI Sidemount Instructor Course (as well as PADI diver level sidemount training), and look forward to introducing people to this wonderful way of diving.

The PADI Self-Reliant Diver course aims to recognise and accept the role of the buddy system and its contributions to diver safety while identifying and developing self-reliance and independence while diving. There are two reasons for an experienced diver to take the Self-Reliant diver course:

• To develop the skills of planning and carrying out dives without a partner when preferred or necessary.
• To sharpen skills of diving self-reliance, making the diver a stronger partner in a dive pair or team.

This course covers when diving alone may be applicable, and the need to compensate for those situations, including dive planning, life support system readiness, adaptive training, equipment and responsibility.

It appears that this new offering will be the first major innovation in certification cards since the launch of the Positive Identification Card bearing a diver's photo many years back.

The new eCard will be integrated into the PADI smartphone app, and will initially be available for Apple iOS, Android and BlackBerry users, with other platforms to follow.

It will have built in security using QR codes, making it very easy to validate the diver and their PADI qualifications.

This will be a huge step forward as holders of a PADI eCard should never have to deal again with the situation of leaving a card at home, and not being able to prove their diving qualifications. It will also reduce the number of small pieces of plastic that we carry in our wallets, and will also be much better for the planet as we move away from plastic to virtual. From a customer point of view, it will speed up the time it takes to receive a certification following successful completion of a course.

I'll post again when I hear any updates about this innovation.

Cross-posted from the DiveViews Blog.