Scuba Confidential

I recently received my copy of Simon Pridmore's new publication Scuba Confidential, having worked through the book on a flight from Bali to Perth, I was generally impressed with the book. I feel this is an excellent book for newly certified divers seeking to avoid the mistakes of over confidence after their open water course and advanced open water course taken immediately after their certification dives.  

I undertook the bulk of my technical training at Professional Sport Divers, Simon's Guam dive facility in the late 90s, I feel I know pretty well what Simon expects in regards to attitude, motivation and self disipline.

The mental preparation for scuba diving to build in-water confidence is an excellent starting point along with the focus on breathing and mental preparation techniques. As you move through, I didn't read from cover to cover but used the contents page to guide me to the topics I wanted to review.

The book is isn't directed at technical divers, nor it it overly technical in nature. This publication does not try to be a training manual per se, I read with much interest Simon's philosophies on diving attitude and execution. The what ifs of technical diving combined with a number of case studies allows real world relevance to decisions divers face, accident analysis is covered along with instructional philosophies is very helpful.

Simon, well known for training IANTD instructor trainers in the South East Asia region is credited with introducing technical diving to the region. Simon, a former Hong Kong resident is now writing for a number of diving publications including magazine articles, travel guides and further dive publications from his Bali base. This includes Bali and Indonesian dive guides with leading photo-journalist Tim Rock.