UnderwaterBob.com
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We love diving! We also like great destinations with great diving. And we like to dive with high quality, reliable equipment. So, we have done a lot of research from various sources to select our gear and pick diving destinations. Friends often asked us about what we have found, so we decided to put our findings together so many people could access them. Additionally, because one of us is an Instructor, a lack of information is some areas has been discovered, so we have done some original research. Our findings are presented on this website.
Our MissionTo provide useful, practical information for recreational and technical divers that commercial sites cannot, or will not, address. We do this by remaining independent from any financial links with product providers, publishers or other commercial concerns.
Team ProfileWe are a family of avid divers (one male, three female) who dive around the world and in differing settings. Two of us have been diving since 1968 while the younger two are products of relatively recent exposures to the commercial certifying agencies. We have one instructor in the family (NAUI, TDI/SDI and SSI). We each bring differing perspectives to our trips and to topics. You will find these differing points of view reflected in our comments. We strive to provide you information that will help you avoid our mistakes and to give you guidelines that we have developed for selecting products, travel providers and services related to diving. This site differs from "Chat sites" in many ways. First, the topics we cover will be retained for a long time in a manner that allows you to return and search for topics. Second, it contains some in-depth research pieces that would be too long for "chat". Third, the periodic "flaming" or "ranting" that we have all seen on even good boards will not appear here. Our Biases 1) When looking at equipment, our first priority is reliable functionality. If the piece does not work reliably and when the diver is under stress, it is not on our list of good stuff. If you are looking for low price ideas, you will have to search elsewhere because current prices fluctuate too much for us to track. Secondly, for us, price considerations come only after we have found the best piece of gear. 2) We are not interested in "dive camping". The older pair of our group has been diving and traveling long enough that we do not want to spend time in "upscale barracks", with adequate food and indifferent staff. Before we retired, we traveled a lot (up to 200,000 air miles per year) on business so we have seen destinations ranging from hovels to exquisite. Our preference tends to the latter and our standards are quite high (some have said "damn picky"). 3) If you are a serious diver, you have your own equipment and will travel with it. Regardless of your destination (including the Four Seasons in the Maldives, the absolute gold standard in dive resorts), the rental gear you find at your destination will never be 1) as well maintained as your own, 2) be tailored exactly to you as your own gear can be, or 3) be exactly the same configuration you use. Thus, in our evaluations, traveling with heavy baggage is a standard consideration as is the storage of the containers once you reach a destination. 4) We are American citizens. We must be aware of the geopolitical situation to some extent and thus, avoid dive destinations that present security risks to American citizens. Thus, you will find parts of the globe not covered in our evaluations. How to use this site If you are considering the purchase of a new items for diving, come here first to get warnings, suggestions on how to select things and references for more information. If you are planning a dive trip, come here and get the multiple perspectives that you might expect from a reasonably functional family with fairly strong egos. Finally, if you are looking for resource materials for your own information or for use with a class (either dive class or regular school class) visit our media section where we cover magazines, books and videos for diving).
Contact InformationEmail is the best way to reach us. Because two of us travel a lot and the other two are still in college (one engineering, one graduate nursing), we do not get "snail mail" regularly and most of the time our phone is covered by an answering machine.
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