8 Dry Bags, the Mighty Coral Polyp, and You
Written: Apr 09 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Equipment and travel reviews; safety information
Cons: Lots of ads; Expert divers might be bored
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| ebolles's Full Review: Rodale's Scuba Diving Magazine |
Articles in Rodale’s Scuba Diving are generally divided into three areas: Training and Safety, Equipment, and Travel. Issues often vary emphasis on one area, but there are always several articles on each subject.
Some examples of what topics can be found in the May 2000 issue:
The biggest cover story is “ Dive the Planet”, a travel directory for planning scuba vacations that lists over 600 dives operators, 100+ live-aboard operations, and 37 destination descriptions from all over the world. Each destination is summarized briefly for diving-relevant information such as average water temperature, weather, visibility, and topside diversions; brief descriptions of the dive operations in each area are also listed, with some basic pricing and contact information. While these listings serve as excellent starting points for considering a vacation spot, there are no consumer ratings. There are a few brief comments from other divers only on the destination in general. Other issues do contain consumer (reader) ratings of different destinations and diving operations, however.
For training and safety topics, the May 2000 issue includes: an article on how to encourage your relatives to get hooked on diving;“10 Commandments of Dive Travel”, some tips on making travel to exotic locales easier; and “What to Do In a Silt-Out”, this month’s topic for the regular feature “Dive Like a Pro”. This item is always a one-page brief that explains step by step method for one diving skill. This is an excellent feature geared towards beginning and intermediate divers; other recent topics include how to cope with panic (yours or your buddy’s), how to deal with a long unplanned surface swim, and how to use a compass to return to the dive boat.
Also included is a regular column called “Lessons for Life”. This is an excellent feature, one of my favorites. Each month a real diving accident story is presented with analysis of what went wrong and how it could have been prevented. I have learned some valuable information about some things NOT to do when diving from reading these articles. It is an effective reminder of how dangerous diving can be without good training and common sense.
Equipment articles include regular articles presenting the results of testing and comparing different models. This can be very helpful in making purchasing decisions - the equivalent of Consumer Reports for divers. The May 2000 issue covers dry bags and fins. The dry bags were tested by being subjected to different water tests, including being held underwater for several minutes. Results are given on a scale of one to five stars. The article on new fins was very thorough, with 12 fins evaluated with explanations of the tests done for ergonomics, efficiency, and acknowledgement of some aspects of testing fins that are subjective to a large degree.
Other regular features include short articles on marine biology, such as this month's “The Mighty Coral Polyp”, Travel Strategies such as this month's tips on calling long distance from various popular diving locales, unusual dives sites, book reviews, new product previews, a scuba calendar, and letters.
The cost is approximately $1.40 per issue with a subscription, $3.50 cover price.
Overall, I would say this is a great diving resource for beginning or intermediate level recreational divers and well worth the money, particularly for the product and safety information.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ebolles
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Member: Elizabeth
Location: 420 17' N 710 25' W
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 203 members
About Me:
Aspiring novelist who enjoys harassing fish, taking blurry underwater photos and self-medicating with chocolate.
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