Report Thailand Bans Underwater Photography for Diving Trainees to Protect Corals

[sammieuk1]

Us people that hate Starmer and Trump for telling outlandish lying brollocks must be in awe at this story 🤔

[KhunLA]

6 hours ago, 2long said:

While people like to jump on the bandwagon and say how stupid this is, actually it makes sense.

If I read it correctly, the rule is preventing those taking part in or teaching scuba courses from taking pics and clips. This make absolute sense.

The instructor should be teaching the course and the student is learning the course. These courses are typically OWC or AOWC, or even DSD/Intro dives. Everyone involved needs to be paying attention to the trainees' buoyancy and behaviour, and it's not the time to take pics or clips.

 

Many a time I have seen divers who aren't the best regarding buoyancy or air consumption racing around or overt the reef with a camera or GoPro in their hands. It takes a long time and many dives to become an accomplished diver who can control oneself.

Guess it all depends on the student, but it came natural to me & my buddy.   Instructor was quite happy about that, as after 2nd dive, he taught us a couple other things.

 

1 st dive, tested buoyancy control, no prob. 2nd dive, he had us take all the gear, drop all to the sand, no mouthpiece in for 30 secs, then put back on.   At that point, he realized we didn't need any hand holding.

 

Took us to a small, open-ish wreck, and purposely tangle our one leg, unexpectedly.   Test our panic mode.

 

He got bored, 3rd & 4th dive, so taught us better navigation, which came in real handy.

 

5th & 6th dive (5 needed), and vis was getting real bad on 5th one.  He said if you want, you're done & certified, come back again for 2 dives, instead of going back in now for 6th.  We weren't going to be around, so we went back in for #6.

 

Should have listened to him, as vis went to near 0.  With a slight current.  Me & my buddy got split up kind of fast, and both surfaced immediately.  Got back together, back down, and navigated back to the boat.

 

Instructor thought for sure, he'd have to come pick us up.  I was surprised myself that what he taught us actually worked.  Swimming blind looking at your compass ain't the best feeling underwater.  Half way through the dive, we did pop back up to check our bearings, to his relief.

 

Then when we took an advanced course at a different shop, we didn't learn anything new. and learned it in the 'open water' course.

 

So that instructor took us to a couple challenging site, and an awesome deep wall @ Puerto Rico.  One of our best dives along with a night dive there.

 

Lucky to have a great instructor, for book and pool learning, NJ, USA.   And a few in the class/pool didn't pass.  Then referred our dives to warm water FL, USA.

 

On topic, we, me, have never dove with any incompetent divers, or instructors, that I noticed teaching, though rare on those type trips.  Seen plenty of vids of idiots though.

 

If I can't dive my computer, I don't use them.   If the say 20 or 30 mins down time, then back up.  I just ignore them, I don't do set time limits.

 

I dive with a spare air anyway.  

 

 

[WHansen]

I can understand the logic of keeping coral healthy and they are doing it because it costs nothing.

Keeping the lungs of Thailands population healthy by controlling PM25 on the other hand is not important enough because it would cost lots of money. Priorities 555

[dukebowling]

We will not comply!!! Come on trainees! Bring your Gopros! Let's do some civil disobedience! Fight the man! This is unconstitutional! Wait...what country am I in?

[2long]

3 hours ago, KhunLA said:

1 st dive, tested buoyancy control, no prob. 2nd dive, he had us take all the gear, drop all to the sand, no mouthpiece in for 30 secs, then put back on.   At that point, he realized we didn't need any hand holding.

 

Took us to a small, open-ish wreck, and purposely tangle our one leg, unexpectedly.   Test our panic mode.

 

He got bored, 3rd & 4th dive, so taught us better navigation, which came in real handy.

 

5th & 6th dive (5 needed), and vis was getting real bad on 5th one.  He said if you want, you're done & certified, come back again for 2 dives, instead of going back in now for 6th.  We weren't going to be around, so we went back in for #6.

 

Should have listened to him, as vis went to near 0.  With a slight current.  Me & my buddy got split up kind of fast, and both surfaced immediately.  Got back together, back down, and navigated back to the boat.

 

Instructor thought for sure, he'd have to come pick us up.  I was surprised myself that what he taught us actually worked.  Swimming blind looking at your compass ain't the best feeling underwater.  Half way through the dive, we did pop back up to check our bearings, to his relief.

If you're saying this is for your OPEN WATER course, then I have to call bullsh*t on all of this.

[stevenl]

12 minutes ago, 2long said:

If you're saying this is for your OPEN WATER course, then I have to call bullsh*t on all of this.

No, no bs. Old style courses were taught that way. Could have been he learned in the 80's.

[still kicking]

On 4/25/2025 at 7:07 PM, johng said:

How on earth does taking a photo endanger coral ?

Thai corals are very sensitive.