Dive With Frank

09/24/2026

I turned 55 yesterday.

Which is a little strange, because when I was younger, I thought 40 was old.

Really old.

Then, at 38, I learned to scuba dive.

Since then, diving has taken me places I never expected, introduced me to some remarkable people, given me a second career as an instructor, and become a pretty significant part of who I am.

And now I’m 55, writing this from Fiji, where it’s already tomorrow.

So I wrote something a little different for the Logbook. This isn’t really an article about being 40. It’s about starting something when a little voice in your head is telling you that maybe you waited too long.

Turns out 40 wasn’t old.

It wasn’t even particularly close.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re too old to learn to scuba dive, this one’s for you.

https://divewithfrank.com/2026/09/24/learning-to-scuba-dive-after-40/

When I was a kid, 40 seemed old. I did not learn to scuba dive until I was 38. Seventeen years later, I am spending my 55th birthday in Fiji with ten days of diving ahead of me. If you have always wanted to learn, you have not missed your chance.

09/20/2026

T-minus 2 days until Fiji. 🌴🤿

So how does Dive With Frank spend one of his last Saturdays before heading off to warm tropical water?

Obviously...in a dry suit. 😂

I had an absolute blast today conducting dry suit training with some of the fine folks from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory dive team.

And we got to do our confined-water training somewhere pretty damn cool: the University of Maryland’s Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF) in College Park.

The NBRF is part of UMD’s Space Systems Laboratory and was built for research that includes using neutral buoyancy to simulate the microgravity environment of space.

And that tank?

50 feet across. 367,000 gallons. And 25 feet deep, kids. 🤿

Yeah. That’ll work for a dry suit class. 😁

What a fun way to spend a Saturday.

Next stop: Fiji and considerably less thermal protection. 🌴🌊

09/17/2026

Eleven hours. Economy. Midnight departure. International Date Line.

What could possibly go wrong? 😅

I’m heading back to Fiji soon, so I finally wrote down the stuff I actually do to make the Pacific crossing suck less.

Offline downloads. Better neck support. Noise cancellation. A real sleep mask. Not letting the airline convince me that 1:30 AM is dinner time. And a little “system reboot” kit so I don’t land feeling like I spent the night folded inside an overhead bin.

The goal isn’t luxury.

It’s damage control.

Hours in a metal tube, shifting time zones, and trying to sleep at 35,000 feet. Here is your survival guide for getting through a long-haul overseas flight without turning into a total zombie.

09/14/2026

That’s a wrap on one heck of a weekend at Lake Phoenix. 🤿

Two waves of Open Water students. Plenty of nerves at the start. One serious thermocline. Underwater basketball. A whole lot of fish. And some very big smiles by the end.

The best part of teaching scuba is watching that moment when someone goes from, “I’m not sure I can do this,” to realizing, “Wait... I can actually do this.”

Huge thanks to Divemaster Anthony, the DWF crew, and the families who helped keep a very busy weekend moving.

And congratulations to our newest Open Water divers. You earned those smiles.

https://divewithfrank.com/2026/09/13/high-nerves-big-smiles-and-underwater-hoops-wrapping-up-an-epic-weekend-at-lake-phoenix/

There is nothing quite like watching a group of prospective divers transition from an initial “Hey, I think I’d like to learn how to scuba dive” email into fully confident, certified open water divers....

09/07/2026

Ever get underwater with a new buddy and suddenly realize you never actually agreed on how you were going to communicate?

I have.

Years ago, I flew back to California for a dive weekend and got paired with a diver I had never met. We chatted on the boat, shook hands, got our gear together, and jumped in.

It wasn’t until I asked him underwater how much gas he had that I realized something pretty important:

We had never reviewed our signals.

Not once.

That experience stuck with me, because a buddy briefing doesn’t need to be a 20-minute production. Sometimes 90 seconds is enough.

What’s our turn pressure?
What signal are we using for gas?
Who’s leading?
What happens if we get separated?
Anything weird about your gear?
And perhaps most importantly: either diver can call the dive. No vote required.

So I built another little DWF Labs tool.

🤿 B³ — the DWF Buddy Brief Builder

Pick the things that matter for your dive, walk through them with your buddy, and generate a simple briefing you can review, copy, share, or print.

The specific signals you choose matter less than making sure you both understand the same thing.

Have the conversation before the dive.

🔗

09/05/2026

At 80 feet, another diver tapped me on the shoulder and gave me the out-of-air signal.

She wasn’t my student. She wasn’t my buddy. She wasn’t even part of our group.

None of that mattered.

She needed air. I had air.

I’ve practiced that response hundreds of times with students. Donate the alternate. Establish contact. Make sure they’re breathing. Communicate. Ascend together.

Usually, it’s just a drill.

This time it wasn’t.

Everybody made it back to the boat safely. But the experience left me thinking about why we practice the same emergency skills again and again, and what happens somewhere between the first awkward repetition and the hundredth.

Eventually, the drill becomes a skill.

And one day, somebody may actually need you to use it.

🤿 When the Drill Became Real

We practice emergencies so the first time we think about a problem is never while it unfolds. Here is how an unexpected out-of-air situation at depth turned into a calm, controlled ascent.

08/29/2026

Summer is almost over, and the visibility in our local quarries has clearly reached the “it builds character” stage. 😄

And honestly? It does.

When the water turns to soup, buddy awareness gets tighter. Navigation matters more. You slow down, pay attention, and start relying on skills that crystal-clear water can sometimes let you get away without using.

Then every once in a while, you follow that compass heading through the gloom and your destination suddenly materializes exactly where it should be.

For about five seconds, you feel like an underwater wizard.

My latest Logbook article looks at what visibility really changes underwater, from Maryland quarry diving to ridiculous Bahamian blue water and even the point where bad visibility simply stops being worth the dive.

Poor visibility builds the foundational skills. Good visibility builds the grand dreams.

🤿 Why Visibility Matters More Than Most Divers Think

Visibility underwater changes far more than the scenery. From murky Maryland quarries to absurdly clear Bahamian blue water, here’s how visibility shapes navigation, buddy awareness, confidence, mental workload, and the way a dive actually feels.

08/27/2026

I did a thing. 😈

I built a scuba game called Evil Instructor Mode.

Going over dive scenarios is important, but it can also be boring as hell. So instead of another dry “what would you do?” discussion, I made a game where the Evil Instructor gives you questionable advice and you have to decide whether you’re going to follow it.

Work through realistic dive problems. Break incident chains. Beat your own personal bests. Earn achievements. Challenge your buddies to the exact same scenarios.

Underneath all the fun, the idea is still serious:

We do not want the first time we seriously consider a problem to be the day we are dealing with it underwater.

But that doesn’t mean practicing judgment has to suck.

😈 Bad advice. Better divers.

Dive scenarios matter, but they do not have to be boring. Evil Instructor Mode turns realistic scuba problems into a game built around judgment, incident-chain awareness, personal bests, and friendly challenges.

08/23/2026

Ever get all the way to the dive site, open your gear bag, and realize the ONE thing you forgot is sitting safely on the workbench at home?

Yeah. That. 🤦‍♂️

So I built something for it. 🤿

Introducing the new DWF LABS SCUBA PACKING CHECKLIST GENERATOR.

Instead of making you sift through one enormous master packing list, it builds the checklist around the dive you’re actually planning.

Quarry dive? Boat dive? Night dive? Wreck? Liveaboard? Tropical trip? Meg tooth weekend?

Pick the closest starting point, adjust the conditions, and make it yours.

✅ Adjust for water temperature and exposure protection
✅ Add night, wreck, deep, boat, photo, Self-Reliant, and other dive profiles
✅ Mark gear as yours, rented, or provided
✅ Add your own must-have items
✅ Print the finished checklist
✅ Bookmark it for next time
✅ Share the exact setup with a buddy, student, or dive group

And it’s 100% FREE.

No account.
No email signup.
No paywall.

It’s also in PUBLIC BETA, so I genuinely want divers to beat on it.

If I missed something, included something dumb, or you build a better default than I did, tell me. That’s exactly how I want this thing to get better.

Take it for a spin:

https://divewithfrank.com/2026/08/22/introducing-the-dive-checklist-generator/

🧪 DWF Labs

Build the checklist around the dive. Then make it yours.

A quarry dive, night dive, wreck dive, and boat charter do not need the same packing list. The DWF Labs Dive Checklist Generator starts with the dive, builds a useful baseline, and lets you customize, bookmark, and share the checklist that works for you.

08/20/2026

What a weekend. 🤿

Three students. Three very different people. Three very different paths through Open Water.

And one very proud scuba papa who came along for the adventure. 😄

That may have been my favorite part.

Over the course of the weekend, I got to watch each of them work through different challenges, settle into the water, build confidence, and just keep getting better with every single dive.

There’s something incredibly satisfying about watching that progression happen in real time. The diver who comes out of Dive 4 is not quite the same person who climbed into the water for Dive 1.

By the end of the weekend, we had three brand-new Open Water Divers.

Congratulations, guys. You earned this one. 👏🤿

And a BIG shout-out to Divemaster Anthony, who was right there helping keep things moving, supporting the students, and making the whole weekend run that much smoother. Having a good divemaster in the water makes a huge difference, and Anthony absolutely brought it.

And now comes the really fun part.

Go dive.

Explore weird things. Find places you didn’t know existed. Get excited about fish nobody else understands. Ride the occasional underwater carousel horse. Keep learning. Keep getting better.

I genuinely cannot wait to hear where diving takes each of you next.

📸 One quick photo note: We weren’t stopping certification dives to stage underwater glamour shots. After everyone had completed their certification requirements, I offered an optional post-certification Dive 5 just to dive, explore, have some fun, and take pictures.

Unsurprisingly, everybody wanted to come along. 😄

That’s where most of the underwater shenanigans you see here came from.

Pretty damn good weekend.