Bloom

Diving is, at heart, about control. When you control your movement, air, and level of confidence, you enjoy a great dive and a unique experience. A big part of controlling your dive experience comes down to controlling your weight and buoyancy. When you are properly weighted, you will glide through the water naturally, like a marine creature. You will use the proper amount of air, allowing you to enjoy your dive easily and safely. Buoyancy con...

Plan your dive and dive your Plan – see our blog for dive planning Double Check your equipment – remember this is your life support gear! Check your buddy - this is a Must!  Check all equipment, make sure you understand a dive plan and each other! Plan to begin your Dive into the current - just a common sense tip, will be easier on the way back. Start Equalizing Early, do it often – If you experience pain stop, get shallower, eq...

Ever seen divers in a movie? Chances are, what you have seen is the Hollywood version – a diver (often wearing the wrong equipment) simply steps to the edge of a boat and jumps into the water. No planning, no prep. Cue the music. Of course, we can’t expect Hollywood to show us every intricate detail of a dive, but these scenes present a skewed image of diving. In real life, smart divers look before they leap. Long before a diver – ...

The Oceanic Probe LX Buoyancy Compensator is designed for the diver looking for a traditional jacket style BC. Yet this BC has features that will give a diver just a little bit more. To understand this Buoyancy Compensator it starts with it's construction. The shoulder and pocket panel material are made from 1600 denier cordura material, this makes the Probe LX extremely durable and this material wont fade over time. The Air cell is made from ...

In the late 1960's Duke Power was in the process of flooding the Jocassee Valley for a hydroelectric project. The only problem is that the valley housed the Mount Carmel Baptist Church Cemetery. Like most everything else in the valley most of the graves were moved, however a few headstones were left behind. Lake Hocassee is located in South Carolina, divers head there year after year to dive with the Headstones. For this dive it is a more than...

For some their dive season never really ends, for most others located in Buffalo the dive season ended back in October and is now starting to get closer and closer. As the dive season approaches Divers now must take the time to make sure that everything is ready for them to get into the water. Here are some helpful tips to get you prepared for the upcoming dive season. 1. Bring Your Gear in for Service. Tanks need to have a visual inspection e...

In today's world we try to save everywhere we can, here are some nice tips to use when booking your next vacation, hopefully this will save you a few dollars when planning the next vacation. 1. Plan your trip for the low season of your dive destination. This allows you to avoid many of the crowds that are headed to these destinations during the peak seasons. You may not have the best dive conditions offered by that area but if you lose a few f...

Titles Says it all. So many times i see Divers not properly equipped for what they are about to venture into, one reason, no proper training, they do not understand that they may need all this extra scuba equipment to do a certain type of dive. Take Ice diving for instance, most people do not understand how much gear is needed to do a proper ice dive, they think it is just cut a hole in the ice and go diving. In the ice diving course divers ar...

This past weekend I made my way down to New Jersey for Beneath The Sea, an annual diving trade show where manufacturers show off their products, for someone like me who is a gear fanatic it was like being in heaven. A number of items caught my eye but a few stood out. The first being the Mares Icon HD computer. This dive computer is revolutionary to the diving world, it uses a high definition LCD screen, the same type of screen found on laptops, ...

When leaving a dive boat the last person to check the diver over always makes sure that their air is on by grabbing the tank valve and turning back. What if all they had to do was look at the valve and could tell that it was on, well they finally have done it. XS Scuba recently sent out tanks with a new system built on it, this system has a colored ring next to the on off valve of the tank. When the tanks is closed the ring is red, as the tank is...