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Can a person with a disability go scuba diving? Adaptive IDF shows that the answer depends not simply on disability, but on individual abilities, safe qualification, appropriate training, and a properly prepared dive team.

Diving is often advertised as an almost effortless activity. Underwater, with good trim, it really can be that peaceful: the water bears the weight, movements are slow and balanced, and everything seems virtually meditative. The problem is that diving begins and ends on land, where buoyancy doesn’t come into play. Gravity, unlike a cave current, never takes a day off. Does your physical fitness give you enough reserve when something goes wrong?

In diving education, the word “standard” tends to carry very positive associations. It suggests order, safety, and predictability, as well as the reassurance that a qualification issued in one place should broadly mean the same thing as the same qualification issued several thousand kilometres away. At least in theory.

If you want to drive a nail, reach for a hammer. Even the best screwdriver will not do the job properly. If you want to drive a screw, no hammer will help. A tool is not good in itself — it is good when it solves a specific problem. Exactly the same applies to diving configurations.

Solo diving is one of those subjects where the discussion often ends before it has properly begun, because merely saying the word “solo” is usually enough for someone to point out that diving should take place within the buddy system. It is difficult to disagree, at least until we begin asking the less comfortable questions about what that buddy system looks like in practice, what it actually involves, and whether the person swimming several metres away is genuinely our buddy or simply another diver who happens to be in the same part of the water.

Once again, the diving community is discussing how many students a single instructor can genuinely train effectively underwater. Different numbers are being proposed, while standards, experience and different training models are being compared. Ultimately, however, the question is very simple: at what point does a training group stop being a training group and become a crowd that the instructor is merely trying to keep under control?

You complete the courses. You pass the examinations. You spend years gaining experience, investing in equipment, building your reputation and accepting full responsibility for the people you train. Congratulations. You are now an instructor. Well, almost.

What happens when experienced divers stop talking about achievements and start talking about panic, mistakes, and failures? A personal story from the first IDF camp – and a different perspective on what makes someone worth learning from.

Scuba diving is an increasingly popular activity practiced by many people around the world. How to start this fascinating adventure in the easiest way, you will learn from this post.

In winter, many divers hide their wetsuits, give their cylinders to be legalized, and the remaining equipment is serviced or waits for warmer days. The frequency of diving trips drastically decreases due to weather conditions. So what should people do who do not necessarily associate winter with diving, but still want to enjoy their favorite activity?

Movie and TV series recommendations for longer evenings. What to watch to have a nice time in a diving climate?

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to breathe. As a matter of fact, I started to breathe quite young and it quickly became a daily habit that I intent to keep doing until late in my life. Of course, as I’ve been teaching scuba diving for 45 years now, I know that most divers enjoy breathing on a regular basis, usually around 20.000 times a day, but it’s only recently – as I discovered the Buteyko method and Patrick McKeown’s Oxygen Advantage – that I realized that we don’t always breathe as efficiently as we should. And that, my friend, could be a problem underwater!

300-bar cylinders are an excellent alternative for those divers who want a larger gas supply without increasing cylinder size. But is that really the case? On paper, everything looks pretty good. However, let’s take a closer look….

Diving with partner certainly is the preferred way of diving. It is described as a safe form of practicing this type of sport. But is this certainly a true statement?

Cave expeditions are the specialty of Sebastian and Daria of the Calypso Diving Club, and the Balkans in June have already entered the permanent repertoire of their diving outings. Challenging dives, little-known caves and advanced cave and trimix training provided us with excitement this year as well.

Warmer and longer days encourage weekend trips out of town. Have you ever wondered how to combine: visiting historical monuments, wonderful restaurants and diving in transparent and warm waters, and all this will not be thousands of kilometers away from you? Ladies and gentlemen, we present you Budapest.

Why am I cave divier? In response, let me quote Reinhold Messner, who, when asked why he walks in the mountains, replied “because they are”. Well, that’s why we dive in caves… because they exist.

One of the green jewels of the Caribbean islands. Surrounded by blue waters and blessed with sunshine all year round. A land of beautiful vintage cars and colourful houses, once a haven for pirates and home to Hemingway. The birthplace of Fidel Castro and, above all, a fantastic diving destination filled with spectacular reefs and caves. This is Cuba.

One of the green jewels in the chain of the Caribbean Islands. Surrounded by the blue sea and blessed with sunshine all year round. A place of beautiful cars, colorful houses, a pirate hideout and Hemingway’s house. The homeland of Fidel Castro, and above all, a great diving site full of picturesque reefs and caves. This is the Cuba.

At every dive site in the world, whenever unforeseen difficulties arise, divers face a dilemma, to dive or not to dive? We will try to answer this question.

The question in the title is probably the second most frequently asked question on Polish diving forums and groups, beaten to the top spot only by questions about whether it is possible to buy a “small tank for an amateur” that could be filled with a bicycle pump. The frequency with which this question is asked shows that it is an important issue for beginners, and the answer is far from obvious.

One of the most popular dive sites in the world. The cradle of recreational and technical divers. Diving in Dahab is a “must be” for anyone who loves to spend time underwater.

What are checklists and what is their role in diving? What are the pros and cons of checklists? Are they helpful or is it a waste of pre-dive time? How to introduce checklists into your diving practice and what should they contain? You can find the answers to these questions in the latest post by our instructor Daria. We invite you to read.

In the next article in the Women Diving series, I would like to go back in time and introduce some of the amazing female pioneers. Unusual activities and more extreme forms of recreation have always attracted equally unusual people. However, we must remember that diving did not start as a form of sport or leisure activity, for the beginnings were decidedly more pragmatic – from commercial diving through navy divers. I will immediately point out that the figures you will read about in this text are not a closed set. I also encourage you to search for more remarkable women who have written their chapter in the history of diving.

Sylvia Earle is the first woman to steer a bathyscaphe, the first to hold the position of chief scientist at NOAA, spent two weeks in an underwater research habitat in the 1970s leading the first all-female mission, and walked 2.5 hours on the ocean floor at a depth of 380 meters – all to learn and protect. Sylvia Earle has always believed that people need to learn about the underwater world in order to love it, and thus protect it.

How to talk about women’s diving?  What kind of narrative can convey this incredible divergence of expectations and preferences, while not falling into clichés or infantilizing such a diverse environment? How does one not reduce the subject of diving women to taking care of hair and nails while diving? A few words about women in diving and the narrative surrounding them.

What books are worth reaching for when winter arrives, evenings get longer and longer, and diving equipment goes into the closet? Let’s dive into diving reading from the comfort of your armchair!

Scapa Flow is one of the best places for wreck diving. Divers from all over the world are attracted here by the wrecks of the World War I German fleet, which rest at the bottom of the bay in the Scottish Orkney Islands.

Are you a cave diver? How would you like to spend Valentine’s Day?
That’s right! The most romantic thing possible is a trip to Italy, where in the evening you and your significant other will eat spaghetti on “Lady and the Tramp” style and before that spend the day on cave diving. If you want to have your cake and eat your cake, then welcome to sunny Italy!

Closed swimming pools, travel bans, restrictions, quarantines. You can go crazy, especially since we start the new year with an epidemiological problem. For us – divers and instructors, or all other active people many of these restrictions are extremely tiring. How not to go crazy, not to end the pandemic with a record score on the scale and the need for rehab? Our reliable office has some advice for you!

Is teaching others just for instructors? Do they have the exclusive right to develop habits, approach to water as an element, teaching the appropriate procedures, showing the correct configuration of the equipment? Finally are they solely responsible for what path of development this ever-growing community of recreational and technical “scuba divers” will take?