Dive Wise

I just turned on Channel Memberships for Dive Wise!
More details here: youtube.com/channel/UCZs0_WP-nv01FFt4s4BBm7Q/join

I’ve seen a few comments worried that I’m paywalling the channel, so I want to clarify

The weekly Dive Wise videos are still free.
That is the core of this channel, and it is not changing.

Membership is simply an optional way to support the channel and get a few extras that help me keep investing more time, effort, and money into better dive content, better storytelling, and better production.

Here’s what each tier includes:

Tier 1 — $2 (Supporter)
A simple way to support the channel! Complete with emojis of a familiar cat diver, loyalty badges, and member polls! No pressure but absolutely valued.

Tier 2 — $4 (Early Access)
Get videos early. I usually schedule uploads 4–8 weeks ahead, so this is a perk I can deliver consistently.
And to be clear: everyone still gets the videos publicly later.

Tier 3 — $10 (Members-Only Updates / Behind the Scenes)
This is the only tier with members-only videos. They’re simple, more personal, podcast-style updates: channel direction, behind-the-scenes decisions, lessons learned, and Q&A.
These don’t fit the main channel format and can underperform publicly on YouTube, so this is where they belong.

Bottom line: no one is being locked out of the main channel.
Membership is extra content + optional support for those who want more.

If membership isn’t for you, that’s completely okay.
Watching, liking, subscribing, and leaving a thoughtful comment helps the channel more than you'll ever know!

Quick question: what other benefits would you like to see included in the membership?


Thank you for being here! Since the beginning I've spent an astronomical amount of effort to grow my ability to make better diving videos and that trend isn't changing and I have big plans this year!

4 days ago | [YT] | 11

Dive Wise

Back in action after almost 3 weeks climbing Anconcogua! Definitely one of the hardest challenges I've done and met some great friends and memories along the way. Out of 17 climbers across two teams, only 4 of us summited. The expedition always has ups and downs, close calls, and many trials but ultimately we all left safely and found our own personal summits!
Now its time to kick off 2026 as I am more invigorated than ever for more diving and content for the channel!
Happy 2026!

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 26

Dive Wise

Merry (slightly early) Christmas from Anconcogua base camp! Maximizing our acclimization at 4k meters or 13k ft. So far so good! We should summit new years day if all goes well.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 18

Dive Wise

I'm leaving for a non diving adventure, where I like to often explore the depths, on this adventure I'll be exploring more of the ceiling as I embark to climb Aconcagua, the tallest mountain of South America which stands at 6,960.8 meters (22,837 feet) tall. It takes about 3 weeks to climb and we should summit at about New Years Day. What a way to celebrate the new year! We still have a long journey ahead of us and then back down to safety!

I may mostly be unresponsive on the channel until I get back to technology in the new year, but I have videos lined up otherwise.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! See you all in 2026!

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 23

Dive Wise

Scuba Pro Hydros 2 has been out of stock... up until now! If your interested in grabbing one yourself while supplies last check out:
alnk.to/bivVDpa

If your looking for a review on what's new and if its worth it for you, I have you covered!

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

Dive Wise

Off to the Galapagos! Over the next few weeks I'll be missing in action! I still have some videos scheduled and will be posted at the usual times but I won't be responding to comments as I normally try to keep on top of as I'll be out in the Galapagos doing land touring and of course scuba diving! Looking forward to this one and will get caught up once I am back!

5 months ago | [YT] | 29

Dive Wise

Did you know?

This is a continuation of my DCS/Decompression Sickness/"The Bends" posts on prior weeks, so be sure to check those out! Some parts of this post may be hard to understand without context of prior posts.

To conclude our DCS series over this great white paper referenced, were going to tie together the entire scuba diving recreational definition.

In short, all the things we learn for "recreational" scuba diving or rather "no decompression stop" diving is essentially the pillar of the sandbox for "safe" diving without needing further risk. In essence, the "rules" for recreational diving were made to help reduce DCS as much as possible for most divers. It is also where most of the life in the ocean lives too boot.

This is "no decompression stop" diving where you can dive down and as long as you do not exceed your no decompression stop times either as indicated for most of us by our dive computers or by those old-school dive table users; you will not be overly saturated and under normal and safe ascent rates at 9 meters or 30 feet per minute. This means you can come straight to the top with the safe ascent rates, no stops needed!

In essence, even thought not scientifically backed almost all recreational divers do stop at ~5 meter or 15 feet for a 3 minute safety stop. It isn't proven to be needed, but its good practice and trains divers for when they do need to perform safety stops.

Its nearly impossible to go below 40 meters for any amount of length and still have a no decompression stop dive, thus the recreational dive limits are set to 40 meters!

Everything we've been taught is to ensure recreational diving can be safe and enjoyable mitigating *most* of the DCS risks (do ensure you read my other posts about circumstances that put you at higher DCS risk). These are great safety walls for most of recreational diving as long as the rules are observed.

Going outside of these boundaries requires more experience, knowledge, and training to properly mitigate as they get into required decompression stops and technical diving. Going into a required decompression stop dive will require you to use different "decompression" stops along the way to the surface to ensure you off-gas slowly and properly because ascending straight to the top would put you at high DCS risk.

These decompression stops' depths and times are calculated by the decompression algorithm your computer uses and are often calculated based on the most saturated tissue compartment in your body and where you'd need to hover to effectively off-gas and mitigate over saturation in that tissue area.

Its important to note once more, even doing everything correct or incorrect does not put you in "DCS" or "NO DCS" territory, but rather its an continuum of probable risk. By ensuring your properly follow the standards, you place yourself in the highest probable outcome of the smallest amount of risk.

See "Decompression diving" from the white paper referenced below for great descriptions of the various algorithms used to determine these decompression stops today if your interested. I feel its less relevant to recreational diving so I'll tuck it away from a cold and rainy day for a future "Did you know?" post!

Happy diving and stay safe!

Credit for this tidbit goes to Diver Gear Express for hosting this excellent white paper written Simon J Mitchell. I recommend reading for further detail and found reading it to be super enlightening. If you know of other free and highly detailed white papers, or sources of detailed information, I very much appreciate letting me know as I hope to deep dive these and aggregate information here more regularly.
www.divegearexpress.com/media/wysiwyg/tektips/Mitc…

8 months ago | [YT] | 7

Dive Wise

Did you know?

This is a continuation of my DCS/Decompression Sickness/"The Bends" posts on prior weeks, so be sure to check those out! Some parts of this post may be hard to understand without context of prior posts.

It is important to note that saturation happens throughout your entire body so when you get DCS from bubbles from the inert gas trying to escape your body, the damage can be somewhat random and cause many different symptoms.

Its important to note that not all tissues are equal though, different tissues like your brain don't saturate much at all and de-gas nearly immediately. Other tissues such as muscular-skeletal absorb more and can take longer to de-gas and mitigate risk of bubbles. So fortunately, as long as you don't pop straight to the top tissues like your brain have limited danger (other than risk of rogue bubbles trying to find a way out of your body).

After decompressing, if you did a no-decompression stop dive (most of us recreational divers will only do no-decompression stop dives) you are likely to not experience symptoms until you surface. After surfacing, you may start to feel symptoms within 10 minutes. For 73% of the cases of DCS symptoms are experienced in the first hour. 99% of the cases are experienced within 6 hours.
For technical divers doing decompression stops, symptoms may start occurring during the decompression stops.

Note, this is all for sea level decompression, if you take a flight or hike up a mountain substantially to decompress further, your risk goes much higher. If you do need to ascend after diving, let's say to a place where you will stay. Guidelines state you should not ascend more than a 1000 ft or 300 meters. Beyond that, it is recommended to clear your "no-fly time" as indicated by your dive computer or 18 hours without a dive computer reference.

DCS can wreak havoc in your body but as a guide, common symptoms are:
Pain in your muscles (50-65% of all DCS cases)
Tingling in your skin (40-50% of the cases)
Headaches or fatigue (20-40%)
Blotch or patch of red rash on the skin (10-20% of the cases)
Weakness (20-25%)
Numbness (20-30%)
Vertigo (10-20%)
Cognitive impairment (5-10%)
There are numerous less frequent symptoms so any major change of health after diving should be considered DCS until proven otherwise.

So if you are experiencing symptoms or someone around you is.
1) Provide or seek someone to help administer oxygen to the person having symptoms.
2) Take note of all the timelines and dive profile (depth, dive time, number or repetitive dives, etc). When the dive ended, was there anything unusual on the dive like a rapid ascent, when first symptoms occurred, what they were. Additionally, refer to last week's post where I covered factors that create higher risk, those are worth noting. Also note if the oxygen helped relieve the symptoms. This is not about blame, and make sure the person suffering symptoms doesn't feel ashamed, its important to get the facts to ensure a proper diagnosis can be received.
3) Normal doctors likely won't have expertise in DCS, call DAN which are the experts and they will be able to help. (international hot line number: +1-919-684-9111). They will be able to provide further guidance.

I hope this information helps keep you or someone your diving with safe! Its important that we ALL realize that DCS does not mean you did anything wrong. Its a complicated beast as my posts have pointed at. Never feel ashamed or try to brush off symptoms. Continued diving may significantly worsen symptoms so its important to follow through with the steps above and keep diving another day.

None of us are above DCS, I may get it someday, you may too, or someone we care for may get it. Its important to realize it comes with the diving territory and its important we talk about it openly and never feel ashamed about it to encourage and promote divers ensuring their safety.

A perfectly mild DCS could become permanent paralysis or worse by ignoring the symptoms so its important that we are always safe than sorry.

Credit for this tidbit goes to Diver Gear Express for hosting this excellent white paper written Simon J Mitchell. I recommend reading for further detail and found reading it to be super enlightening. If you know of other free and highly detailed white papers, or sources of detailed information, I very much appreciate letting me know as I hope to deep dive these and aggregate information here more regularly.
www.divegearexpress.com/media/wysiwyg/tektips/Mitc…

8 months ago | [YT] | 10

Dive Wise

Been having a tough time to find other dive buddies to dive with? They aren’t as far away as you think! I made just the video out to help with finding good dive buddies!
Check it out here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67mmV...

8 months ago | [YT] | 6