Believe it or not, the best dive course you’ll ever take has nothing to do with scuba diving. As a PADI Instructor, there’s a lot of dive courses I love teaching. There’s nothing like seeing a student take their first breaths underwater during the Open Water Course, or watching divers make the crucial improvements in self-awareness in the PADI Rescue Course. However, one course always seems to get glossed over in the PADI system: the Emergency First Response course. It’s sad, too, because in my honest opinion this is the single most important course anyone can take. The day-to-day applications of Emergency First Response course extend far beyond scuba diving. In just the last year, I have: Dealt with the » read more «

Max Depth: 100ft/33m EANx Mix: EANx32 Difficulty: Advanced Open Water More Info: CoconutTreeDivers.com El Aguila (The Eagle) is a 63m/210ft cargo boat that rests on a deep sand basin between two large coral outcroppings. The ship was intentionally scuttled in 1997 by Anthony’s Key Resort to make for a new premier dive site. While originally settling intact and upright in 30m/100ft of water, the fury of Hurricane Mitch severed the ship in three in 1998. In October 2005, Hurricane Wilma scattered the debris into its current arrangement when the midsection completely collapsed. Presently the bow section remains upright in its original position, the midsection is a tangled mess of collapsed walls and swimthrus, and the stern rests 90 degrees on » read more «

Dive Site: Turtle Crossing Bottom Time: 1 hour, 6 minutes Max Depth: 102ft (34m) Visibility: 40ft (12m) in the shallows, 70ft (21m) at depth Air Consumption: 210bar – 90 bar After spending the morning in jail with Dan, I decided that a peaceful dive was much-needed. I did a modified solo dive (solo dive plan, but around a group a most times) focusing on my buoyancy control. I started in 20ft (6m) of water fine-tuning my body position relative to my breathing cycle based on Marc Cruciani’s Pivot Point Theory: that, because our body pivots on a fulcrum between our center of gravity (our weights) and our center of buoyancy (our lungs), our buoyancy is optimized when these two centers » read more «