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Becoming a PADI Instructor: Gases (Part 1)

by Phil on July 17, 2013

Welcome back to my "Becoming a PADI Instructor" Blog Series yet again...are you getting sick of me yet? Let's talk about Gases!

Dalton's Law

Dalton's Law states: the total pressure exerted by the mixture of non-reactive gases is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of individual gases. What the heck does that even mean? For the sake of simplicity and examples throughout this series we'll consider air 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen (Ignoring traces of Neon, Krypton, Hydrogen, Xenon Radon, Carbon Monoxide, Argon, and Carbon Dioxide).

Think of 1 bar / atmosphere as 100% of a gas mixture. In air you have 21% Oxygen + 79% Nitrogen = 100% of Gas Mixture. In terms of partial pressures it is...

Becoming a PADI Instructor: Bouyancy

by Phil on July 11, 2013

Welcome back to my "Becoming a PADI Instructor" Blog Series! Let's talk about buoyancy!

Let's start with an interesting tidbit of information. I've said it myself and I've heard other say it when people ask "What is Scuba diving like?", we often respond "It's like being an astronaut floating around weightless in space!" and everyone gets really excited. The excitement is real but the weightless statement is not. Even underwater earth's gravity continues to pull down on you as if you were on the surface. This is why you can still feel whether you are upside down or right-side up underwater. An astronaut does not have these feelings. ...

Mako shark attacking a PelagicView dredge

by Ksso on July 11, 2013

Super impressive video unexpectedly shot a few days ago next to Ocean City, MD. Fishermen were looking for thuna and stuck a Gopro to their line. They ended up shooting a Mako shark feasting on the bait !

The images show the mako catching up the bait moving at 7 knots (~ 12kmh) and giving a fairly good view on the shark's pointy teeth.

Becoming a PADI Instructor: Physics

by Phil on July 08, 2013

The Physics of Diving (Heat / Light / Vision / Sound)In this section of my "Becoming a PADI Instructor" Blog Series, I am going to be focusing on the Physics of Diving. This section and the Physiology section is where I'll probably be spending the majority of my time as I was told by most of the instructors I've talked to that if I have those two sections down well the rest should be fairly easy. I'm mostly using the PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving and IDC-Guide for my research. Otherwise I'm using Google to find academic resources to get a greater understanding of things I want to learn more about.

Water & Heat ...

Octopus riding a turtle

by Ksso on July 06, 2013

Spotted on reddit and.... totally AWESOME ! Maybe octopus are secretly playing quidditch riding turtles and blasting pufferfishes and chasing nautiluses ... this totally needs more investigation.

Alternatively this may be an alien .... :)