Once I arrived in the Yucatán Peninsula—more precisely, in Quintana Roo—I started working as a guide and dive instructor (an occupation in which I had been practicing for over 20 years). I realized that much of the knowledge and procedures in caves, which I had acquired over many years, had almost no value here, because the needs in Mexican cenotes were not very compatible with the needs of “my” Italian caves.

What it is not—as has been lamentably sold with such popularity—is it being just as easy as buying a new harness and putting two tanks on your sides.

There are a ton of harnesses on the market, each of which have their benefits and drawbacks. Some are more heavily weighted on the benefits side; some are complete crap. For all of them, it is going to depend pretty heavily on your body type, philosophies, preferred tanks and diving style. Most importantly, contrary to what anyone might tell you, there is no perfect system.

A professional is someone who gets paid for plying a trade. At the point when you become a dive instructor, you may have done a lot of paying, that’s for sure, but it is unlikely that you will have seen any cash coming your way yet. What you have achieved when you successfully complete your instructor course is the acquisition of a title that you can use on your business card. You have a few more steps to take before you have a profession—hence, the concept of a road to take.

If you walk into a dive centre with more than a few dives under your belt and say you are thinking of “going pro,” nobody will turn you away. There is no assessment process, no enrolment interview, no talent spotting. The fact that you are accepted as a candidate for a dive instructor course does not mean that someone has seen that you have the right attitude, aptitude and personality. You have to decide this yourself and that is why I thought an article on the topic would be useful.

The clients died mainly because the professionals persisted with attempting to reach the summit despite the fact that they had passed their turnaround time; that is, the point in the day at which an attempt on the summit would normally be aborted for safety reasons. The concept of establishing a turnaround time and sticking to it religiously had been a major factor contributing to the professionals’ hitherto exceptional safety record on Everest.

his Scuba Confidential column in issue #97 is adapted from a chapter in Simon’s book Scuba Exceptional: Become the Best Diver You Can Be. Simon Pridmore is the author of the international bestsellers Scuba Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Better Diver, Scuba Professional: Insights into Sport Diver Training & Operations and Scuba Fundamental: Start Diving the Right Way. He is also the co-author of the Diving & Snorkeling Guide to Bali and the Diving & Snorkeling Guide to Raja Ampat & Northeast Indonesia.

This is frightening, as not only do students risk their lives when participating in these “farces” of training trying to pass as dive courses, but these fast-track courses also endanger the credibility of the entire dive industry.

There may be several variations on the basic theme, but I have found the simple way to rig steel cylinders to hang this way is to break the process of rigging them into a series of simple steps. Now, before explaining things in detail, there are a few assumptions that apply to this method.

On this particular trip, one of the divers, Brian, made it very clear that he did not like these policies. He would often swim some distance away from the group, complaining afterwards that their bubbles kept getting in his photographs. Sometimes, he would swim in completely the opposite direction from the group, on the basis, as he would subsequently explain, that the guide had been taking them all the “wrong” way. And, on every dive, he would just refuse to come up at the 60-minute time limit. When he did eventually surface, he would boast about how much air he still had left.