CHOOSING A POS SYSTEM, DIVE CLUBS & RETAILERS TRAVEL
BUSINESS EDU
CREATING SOCIAL CONTENT, HOW TO EMBRACE GEN Z SAFETY MENTAL HEALTH & DIVING
PARTIAL ISSUE PREVIEW
Photo by Alex Mustard at Broadbelt's Bommie, named after Steven Broadbelt, Co-Founder of Ocean Frontiers, Grand Cayman
PAGE 5
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Does Anyone Really Read Print Anymore? A Look At Divers’ Ages
PAGE 7
SAFETY
Dan Orr: The Mental Health Benefits of Scuba Diving
PAGE 11
BUSINESS EDU
Al Hornsby: Dive Safety Protocols – The Importance of Standardized Practices
PAGE 13
TRAVEL
Peter Symes: Dive Into Europe: Dive Tuscany, Italy?
PAGE 15
PHOTO PRO
PAGE 20
BUSINESS EDU
Amos Nachoum: Behind The Lens: Whale Whispers – A Dance with the Giants of Dominica 2 & 3 Aggressor Adventures
PAGE 16
RETAILING
Gil Zeimer: How Dive Clubs Can Be a Dive Retailer’s Best Friend
PAGE 17
INDUSTRY NEWS
Jeff Cinciripino: Boston Sea Rovers Show Report
PAGE 17
INDUSTRY NEWS
Cathryn Castle Garcia: In Memoriam: Barry Guimbellot
Cathryn Castle Garcia: Succeeding in Business is Easy If You Know How to Steal
PAGE 24
TRAINING
Tec Clark: How to Embrace Generation Z
PAGE 26
RETAILING
Jeff Cinciripino: POS Systems - The Heart of Your Operation
PAGE 29
ECO PRO
Alex Brylske, Ph.D.: Using Sunscreen to Do the Right Thing for the Planet and Your Own Health
Diver’s Alert Network (DAN)
ScubaRadio
Aggressor Adventures
Barefoot Cay Resort, Roatan
X-Ray Magazine
Stream2Sea Reef Safe Products
Sea Experience, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Big Animals Global Expeditions
Virgin Cruises Dive Industry Party
& 19 DIVO By Scubatech
Liveaboards
Reef Smart Guides
Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba
Sau Bay Resort & Spa, Fiji
All Star Liveaboards
SeaCure Custom Mouthpieces
The Scuba Show, Long Beach, CA
Explorer Ventures Liveaboards
COVER DEMA
Level Up Podcast
FROM THE PUBLISHER
DOES ANYONE REALLY READ PRINT ANYMORE? A LOOK AT DIVERS’ AGES
In 2023, DEMA conducted a consumer survey with over 8,700 divers responding. Based on this extensive survey, approximately 40% of respondents in the U.S. are over the age of 55. When asked what influenced their purchasing decisions for training, equipment, and travel, an astounding 89% said print magazines had an impact on their choices.
Further, when the data is filtered for dive professionals, Divemaster/Con and above, out of 599 respondents, 42% said they rely on print magazines for travel and equipment purchasing decisions.
Our Editor-at-Large, Neal Watson, Sr., said this about our magazine:
“A consumer magazine might garner 100 bookings for a great ad with the right audience. This magazine, sent to retailers, could get you 10 retailers who each book 20 people per year for the next five years.”
It’s simply a numbers game: $250k vs. $2.5 million in potential bookings - and at a low advertising cost.
Specifically, for consumers aged 55 and older, who make up 40% of our current diver base, responded that “print dive magazines” influence the following purchasing decisions:
Continuing Education Influence: 93.2%
Travel Planning Influence: 86.8%
Equipment Purchase Influence: 87.1%
In other words, the largest age group in our consumer base still values and uses magazines when making diving-related decisions. While we may think of print as old school, for today’s divers, it works.
Additionally:
Divers 55+ had 151% more friends who are also divers compared to those aged 21–
34 (15.2 vs. 6.0). They tend to travel in dive groups with retailers.
Divers 55+ were 330% more likely to have purchased travel during their last visit to
a dive retailer (7.0% vs. 2.1%). This highlights the importance of reaching retailers. Divers 55+ were 198% more likely to have completed all certifications locally (59%
vs. 30%). Again, the retailer is key.
All of this points to two clear takeaways: Print is not dead in diving, and reaching the retailer is critical for any successful marketing strategy in this industry.
William Cline, Publisher
SCUBA DIVING INDUSTRY™ MAGAZINE MARCH 2025 VOL. 2, NO. 3
– by Dan Orr , President, Dan Orr Consulting and Vincent Meurice, bathysmed.com
After returning home from a tour of duty in Southeast Asia in 1968, like many young men and women who return from the military, I was struggling with issues that were definitely affecting my mental and physical health. As I returned to college, I heard that a local scuba instructor and dive center owner was looking for certified divers to help as pool assistants for his scuba classes. I had received my scuba diver certification in 1964, along with my brother Tom, and I wanted to get back into diving.
Once I returned to diving, I began to sense that something was different. It truly seemed that each time I went underwater, I left my worries, cares, and anxieties at the surface and, even when I returned to the surface, those issues didn’t seem to be quite as significant or problematic after all. I didn’t realize at the time, but diving was, indeed, therapy for me.
A few years later, when I became a scuba instructor and started the Scuba Program at Wright State University (WSU) in Dayton, Ohio, I had a number of veterans and students with disabilities in my scuba training courses. Sometimes it was subtle, many times unspoken by the person, but I began to notice changes in those taking our scuba diver training courses and I began to think that there may just be some connection between scuba diver training and a person’s ability to deal with stress. I even went so far as to talk with Veterans Affairs and the university psychology department to see if they were interested in looking into the thought that scuba training could be beneficial to veterans and others dealing with stress or other mental health issues. Unfortunately, the departments at the university thought that scuba diving, and recreation in general, had little impact upon emotional stress and what we now call, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite their lack of interest, the WSU Scuba Program became increasingly popular with veterans and those with physical and emotional challenges. Al-
though no data or research results came from those early years to prove the benefits of scuba diving on mental health, there has since been considerable research demonstrating the value of therapeutic outdoor recreation on those, especially veterans with mental health challenges.
Research has shown that approximately 1.8% of non-veterans, 4.5% of military veterans with no wartime experience, and 10.4% of veterans with wartime experience (Vietnam) still experience mental health challenges even after 50 years or more. More recently, it was found that 36.9% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans received a diagnosis of mental illness, such as PTSD, anxiety disorder, or depression. It has now been well-documented that therapeutic outdoor recreation has been shown consistently effective across a variety of mental health challenges.
Scuba diving has been shown to be increasingly popular among veterans. Scuba diving offers a variety of benefits that can have a positive impact on the emotional struggles veterans experience following separation from the military. One study reported a 90% improvement in general wellbeing and mental health among veterans can be partially attributed to their participation in a recreational scuba diving program. Of those, 60% of veterans self-reported a subsequent positive outlook and an overall improvement in their psychological well being.
Vincent and I would now like to dive more deeply into the notion that the use of sport, in this case recreational scuba diving, to overcome stress-related pathologies, some of which are as severe as PTSD, is nothing new. Generally speaking, all studies show that taking part in sports, especially nature sports, has a positive impact on mental health. The real question here is: what is the added value of diving compared to other sports, and why is going underwater more effective than hiking in the mountains or kayaking in rivers?
The answer isn't always obvious, but with a little digging, it becomes as clear as visibility in the Cenotes in the Mexican Yucatan.
SAFETY
Diving is the only sport where EVERYTHING changes, just by putting our head underwater. You're no longer a landlubber, and that changes everything! You can get someone to go skydiving, caving or mountaineering, and the laws of physics will still apply. Underwater - that's another challenge for divers!
But why? Our senses no longer function in the same way. Our physiology changes. Blood is distributed differently, body gases are modified, our senses of touch, pressure, pain and temperature (somesthetic sensors) are over-stimulated by the density of the environment, our body weight is balanced out by weightlessness, our communication is reduced to a minimum and more.
For years, science has focused on the potentially harmful effects of diving, such as decompression illness (decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism). It was a long time before we took a close look at the positive effects of our favorite sport. Recently, several clinical studies have been carried out in Europe and other areas of the world on diving and post-traumatic stress (the most severe stress pathology). The results showed an improvement in stress levels and resilience, suggesting that regular diving could provide longterm protection against the damaging effects of stress.
Here are a few explanations:
suffering from stress-related mental disorders often feel “heavy,” both physically (mental exhaustion, lack of energy) and mentally (an emotional burden, a feeling of stagnation). Weightlessness during diving can offer a sense of liberation. The fact that our bodies float in the water and that you are weightless during the dive reduces the physical pressure on muscles and joints, which can lead to a feeling of deep relaxation.
The absence of weight can also have a positive influence on the nervous system, helping to reduce physical and mental tension, and enabling the person to momentarily detach themselves from the heaviness they usually feel. Psychologically, this effect can translate into a feeling of floating, lightness and escape, which may alleviate depressive symptoms, even temporarily.
Cardiac coherence and the Hering-Breuer reflex: Having a regulator in our mouth to breathe pressurized breathing gas forces you to quickly adopt a deep, calm ventilatory rhythm. When you're exploring the underwater world, neutrally buoyant, deep, slow breathing activates the vagal nerves via the lung stretch sensors (Hering-Breuer reflex), which is a key component of the parasympathetic system. The vagal nerves slow heart rate and promote a state of relaxation. This activation also improves heart rate variability (HRV), which is a good indicator of cardiac health and stress management capacity.
Cardiac coherence, a physiological state where the heart, brain and other body systems function in a coordinated manner, also has an effect on the production of stress-related hormones such as cortisol. When practicing cardiac coherence breathing, cortisol levels in the blood can be reduced, helping to lower stress levels and induce a sense of well-being.
Weightlessness and reduced mental heaviness: People
Return to the Womb (intra-uterine life): Diving evokes a return to our origins, recalling intra-uterine life through a variety of sensations. By reducing gravity, water creates a feeling of weightlessness similar to that of a fetus floating in amniotic fluid. Famed psychoanalyst Salvador Ferenczi stated that this wish to return to the amniotic fluids of the womb symbolizes, in his words, “a wish to return to the origins of life, the sea.” The muffled sounds underwater recall the sound environment in utero, dominated by maternal heartbeat and blood circulation. The diver's slow, deep breathing is akin to the soothing rhythm perceived before birth. By reducing external stimuli and fixed reference points, immersion promotes a state of security and letting go. This deep sensory experience can awaken archaic memories and explain the sense of well-being and peace felt underwater. “Like a return to our roots, diving awakens in us the memory of fetal life and offers us a second birth.” - Vincent Meurice
Healthy versus pathological hypervigilance: Hypervigilance, or heightened alertness, comes in two forms: healthy and pathological. The pathological form, often linked to trauma or anxiety, is characterized by irrational fear and disabling symptoms (anxiety, sleep disorders, isolation). Conversely, healthy hypervigilance is selective attention adapted to a specific situation, such as diving. It enables you to react effectively to the demands of the environment (air management, decompression, currents), promoting concentration, stress management and confidence. Diving, in particular, forces us to refocus on the present moment, eliminating ruminations. In contrast to pathological hypervigilance, a source
Mental preparation session on the boat just before the dive.
SAFETY
of suffering, the healthy form enhances the diving experience, enabling conscious, soothing immersion.
As you may remember from a recent edition of Scuba Diving Industry Magazine, I (Dan Orr) addressed the importance of focus in terms of situational awareness. In terms of mental health, that situational awareness includes being aware of everything going on around us during a dive and interpreting how those things may impact our safety and the safety of those we dive with. Situational awareness should also include being aware of our own emotional wellbeing.
Similarly, pathological hypervigilance, exacerbated by the constant use of cell phones, creates a permanent state of alert, anxiously awaiting notifications and messages. This digital addiction feeds a cycle of stress, fear of missing out (FOMO) and dependence on the dopamine released by virtual interactions.
and mental clarity, allowing you to reconnect with our deepest emotions. This absence of verbal communication even develops better empathy, as divers must follow their instincts and rely on the body language and facial expressions of their buddy
Faced with stressful situations, divers learn to rely first and foremost on their ability to handle a problem alone, rather than verbalizing it and seeking outside help. This improves selfefficacy, resilience and concentration.
Attention to detail, such as being situationally aware during a dive, can be positively linked to mental health, as it allows a diver to focus their concentration and, following a successful dive, enjoy a sense of accomplishment.
By physically cutting off from this source of hyperstimulation, scuba diving offers a radical, and potentially, welcomed break. This forced disconnection enables the nervous system to reset itself, to free itself from the grip of incessant alerts. Underwater silence, the absence of visual and auditory stimuli, promotes a state of calm and selfcenteredness.
In this way, diving can act as an antidote to the pathological hypervigilance induced by cell phones. It offers a space for digital detoxification, enabling us to regain psychic balance and reconnect with the present moment.
Mindfulness (Awareness): Scuba diving demands our full and complete attention, as you have to focus on our surroundings, our equipment and the parameters of our dive plan. "Focus" in mental health therapy refers to a therapeutic approach that emphasizes directing someone’s attention inwards, allowing them to deeply explore and understand their internal experiences. This is often done by paying close attention to bodily sensations and subtle feelings in order to gain greater self-awareness and facilitate personal growth. Mindfulness, therefore, is a way of paying attention to the present moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing. This type of mindfulness can heighten our senses and make you more aware of our surroundings, making you a safer diver.
The absence of verbal communication during diving has a profound impact on cognition and can be a powerful tool for stress management. Immersion diving, deprived of verbal communication, transforms the experience into a form of aquatic meditation. Deprived of words, divers refocus their attention on the present moment, immersing themselves in bodily sensations and the underwater environment. This aquatic “mindfulness” calms the mind, releasing ruminations and reducing anxiety. Non-verbal communication, through signs and gestures, strengthens the connection with the partner and nature, creating a deep, silent bond. Underwater silence offers a welcome cognitive break, allowing the brain to rest and regenerate. This tranquility encourages introspection
Diving and meditative diving: We've just listed a number of reasons why diving is one of the best sports for stress management. But do you know what? It's even possible to enhance these beneficial effects by practicing targeted diving exercises. Protocols combining diving with meditation and sports psychology techniques have recently been developed, with very promising results... Stay tuned!
Becoming a certified scuba diver not only opens the door to exciting underwater adventures, but it also can be beneficial for our mental health. From reducing stress, to increasing self-confidence, and connecting to nature, scuba diving can be a powerful tool for promoting mental well-being. email Dan Orr
Click Here to Read The Rest of This Issue and All of our Other Dive Trade Issues
Click Here to View Our Weekly Business to Business Videocast Series!
