The Great Buoyancy Scam: And How to Avoid It

by John Kean

Librarian Note: Alternate Cover Edition for ASIN: B00SYNTZMY.

All too often the biggest casualty of the 'churn and burn' discount dive training sector has been the development of proper buoyancy control. John Kean’s latest book brings the curtains down on this industry-damaging practice and helps aspiring new scuba divers achieve the greatness they deserve underwater. It also shatters some of the many misconceptions that are frequently attached to the sport of scuba diving.

The Great Buoyancy Scam is a lively, entertaining and highly informative book taking readers deep behind the scenes of modern day scuba diving instruction. It provides divers, new and old, with a valuable extra resource before signing up for a dive training course.

Concentrating largely on the new student diver, John speaks in a clear, friendly and no-nonsense language bridging the gap between glossy, corporate marketing and the big blue sea. This is not a step-by-step manual but covers a range of diving subjects in an easy to follow way bringing to life many of the frequently misunderstood learning areas such as decompression theory and the bends. The Great Buoyancy Scam is a rare and valuable chance to equip and prepare yourself way ahead of your diving experience.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 29, 2015

Reviews

[Daniel Morrissey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was OK. It did provide some good information and I learned quite a bit. The authors writing style was different. He keeps trying to inject English humor into his narration. I have no regrets reading it. Not sure I could highly recommend it. Good for new divers.

[Sunflower · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is good revision for those that are scuba qualified but not very experienced yet, and an interesting introduction for those that are not. The author is an instructor who had done over 6000 dives himself at the time of writing, and knows his stuff. There is a hobby horse he rides towards the end of the book, as you can tell by the title, about diving tuition and the mass market. I wasn't particularly interested in that, but it may be worth reading for those about to embark on a holiday to a dive destination where they are planning to gain their first scuba certificate.

[Kulbhushan Suryawanshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a scuba diver. I have never scuba dived but after reading this book, my conversations with scuba diver friends don't feel alien talk. I read this book because I have been planning to learn to Scuba dive for a long time now. I have done a lot of research on the internet but still there were lots of interesting insights in this book. I will surely recommend this book to people who are thinking about doing a scuba diving diving course. This is worth a read before you invest a lot of time and money into booking a course in an exotic far away place.

[Chris Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great intro to novice divers and advice for instructors

I read this part way through my scuba diving training on holiday as I had real trouble with my neutral buoyancy on my first sea dive and realised my instructor hadn’t spent that much time on it during our pool sessions.

Whilst it’s billed as a kind of expose about the dive training industry, it’s really not. John covers that in later chapters and it helped me realise I’d actually had really good instruction compared to the ‘pile it high, sell it cheap’ outfits.

I’d bill this book more as ‘What they don’t tell you on your introductory dive training’. It’s a really useful book for anyone thinking about scuba diving training (to help you select the right centre and be wary of shortcuts to look out for during your training) or anyone part way through or immediately after training to help you ‘get it’ before you spend a lot of money on additional dives that you won’t get maximum enjoyment from if your skills are not what they should be (particularly around buoyancy and air consumption).

Putting into practice what John explains helped me perform much better on my second sea dive and now I’m really looking forward to continuing my scuba diving journey and, hopefully, becoming a reasonably skilled diver in around 10 dives instead of the 20-40 it can take doing it the hard way without John’s knowledge.

I also think this book has a role to play for new (or experienced) diving instructors to highlight the importance of their role and their attitude to their trainees. Hopefully, it will also encourage the better ones to not tolerate some of the oppressive practices big operators seem to put instructors under.

I’d recommend this book for anyone just starting their journey as a diver or an instructor. The knowledge here is going to take significant time off your development in both cases and is an absolute bargain. Thanks, John!

[Greg Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book

Just got my PADI AOW and highly recommend.
Great writing simply explains concepts, a must read for all divers whether beginner or advanced.