The Water’s Warm

Okinawan Sea Life The diving season is in full swing on Okinawa – the water is warm and full of adventure seekers and fish watchers. As the sea life is in abundance, also be on the lookout for the more dangerous types of critters such as the box jelly fish which is not so friendly to interact with. As we move into the later stages of summer, typhoon season will also be kicking in so watch the weather for sudden changes in winds,waves and currents. Websites such as those found at http://imocwx.com/cwm/cwm_ljp.htm and http://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/toya-Okinawa-Japan/forecasts/latest/six_day are both great sites for staying up to date on the weather and tend to be much more accurate than the sea conditions posted by the military. Only you as the diver can truly make a call on whether it is good to dive or not. Remember the 5 second rule and know your limits.

As now is the best time to increase those dive numbers and total bottom time counts it’s also a great time to increase that dive knowledge with a worthwhile dive class. Deep diving, search and recovery, advanced propulsion techniques, drift diving and introduction to technical diving are all classes that can expand your dive skills and make your diving a more rewarding experience. Specialities such as boat diving offer very little skill development and not much bang for the buck. Interview your instructor before signing up and talk about the exact skills you want to learn and what will be covered in the class to determine if the class is what you are looking for. A stack of cert cards does not make an experienced diver.

For those looking to truly expand their experience the staff at Reef Encounters is offering the full range of technical diving training including decompression diver, helitrox and trimix training. As technical diving is a truly advanced type of diving you want to get your training from the best and the staff at Reef Encounters has more experience and dive times than any other staff on island. Our technical instructors have a wide range of experience and training, not just a quick class over a month or two of tech training. Our staff have both open circuit and CCR experience and have been contracted by numerous professional divers including the BBC and Paramount pictures to oversee both non-technical and decompression dives for numerous products. When the pros are looking for training and support they call Reef Encounters and so should you.