STOP PAYING MONEY FOR NOTHING: JOIN RAID It’s the time of year when dive leaders in this industry start thinking about renewal fees. Divemasters, instructors, instructor trainers, in fact all levels of dive pro have been conditioned to accept that it costs money for them to do business with their agency of record. It’s called an Annual Membership Fee, and it usually runs to the equivalent of several hundred US dollars. During the COVID Pandemic, RAID did something that the other agencies labelled “crazy” and a “one-shot deal.” RAID introduced ZERO FEe-Membership. Basically, it works like this. As long as a RAID pro was active and certifying divers, annual membership was waived… it cost ZERO Euros, Dollars, Egyptian Pounds, Pesos… zitch. Critics said the idea was doomed: it would not work and we’d lose our shirts. Yet here we are, several years later, growing and going stronger than ever. Thos

WHY LOGGING DIVES IS WORTH THE EFFORT You will hear divers explain that they no longer bother to log dives. “I gave up doing that after I filled my first logbook,” is typical of the reasons given. At one time, a considerable drawback was the effort required to maintain a traditional logbook with pen and paper. (The olden days, to be sure.) But there’s a powerful argument that keeping track of dives is worth the effort for a whole bunch of reasons. Modern equipment makes it easy too: no more longhand writing required. Every generation of PDC (personal dive computer) keeps track of the basics – depth, time, date, water temperature, and so on – and most newer units can also keep track of gas consumption rates, and display a nice graphic of the dive profile. (A neat “map” of the dive’s ups and downs, including deco stress and a reminder of how well we controlled our buoyancy!) What’s more, all th

WHEN WE ASK FOR FEEDBACK, THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE TELL US… An important note for those of you who teach and mentor students: these are things students remark on when they look back on their coursework. And when divers discuss what they look for in an instructor, these are character traits that get mentioned again and again. In fact, these are statements that are at the core of the customer satisfaction survey we send to graduates from various programs, particularly students who have recently graduated from OW 20. My instructor was patient. My instructor was knowledgeable. My instructor made the course fun & enjoyable. My instructor made me feel safe. The class built my confidence as a diver. The course was well-structured and organised. I am satisfied with the outcome of my RAID course. I would recommend my RAID instructor/dive centre to friends and family. Overall, a significant majority of stud

WE HAVE STREAMLINED THINGS A LITTLE… Here is a list of RAID courses, and they are listed here because they are slightly different to how they were. You will notice that the first thing our training department did was remove the word ‘DIVER’ from course names. It seemed redundant and the result is a better fit on a RAID e-Card. An important thing to note is the contents of our courses remain unchanged. So, any card you downloaded to keep on your phone or hard drive is still totally valid. However, if you come online and look up your certifications, what you will see should reflect the changes listed below.

THEIR PRIMARY ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES Across the scuba diving industry, a divemaster (DM) is the first professional certification level. Among the seven major and better-known dive agencies, there are subtle differences. For example, with additional training, RAID certifies DMs to teach some courses that do not involve in-water work, Action Camera for example. However, their primary role and what they’re certified and called to do is very similar across all major RSTC-member dive organisations. What’s not as well-known is exactly what that means in practice. A RAID DM is trained to lead and supervise certified divers. An example would be to accompany them on a recreational-level wreck or reef dive. A RAID DM can assist instructors in the classroom, confined water, and during open water training. DMs also play a crucial role in the logistical and customer service aspects of dive operations.

SOME ARE CRAZY, SOME ARE DOWNRIGHT WRONG-HEADED… And, of course, there’s a lot of good information available online, but when it comes to dealing with an OOA situation, be careful. Perhaps the biggest issue is SPEED: specifically, how fast to surface after an out-of-air event. If you find yourself with nothing to breathe, then your options are severely limited. However, what was troubling about a recent thread in one of the online diving forums wasn’t so much the heated debate about how much contingency gas to carry. Carrying contingency gas in a bailout or buddy bottle, in addition to what’s in your buddy’s tank, is a wonderful idea, of course. The disturbing issue was the talk about how fast to get to the surface after things go wrong? What confused us was that several posts focused on having enough gas to get a diver back to the surface from 35 metres (about 120 feet) in the two minutes th