At the suggestion of many of the top recreational instructors in SE Asia, and with similar inputs from Australia, Europe and the Red Sea areas, not to mention North Asia and, as seen on various North American internet chat boards, there is, globally, a very apparent desire for an overhaul of the traditional recreational scuba diving training programs. Coupled with this trend is the all-prevailing intrusion of modern training techniques throughout sports training of all types and at all levels, made all the more imperative and, at the same time, achievable, by the penetration of the worldwide web. Rising to this challenge is a team of very experienced dive professionals who are developing a new recreational training program for both Sport and Tech diving. We are InDepth Training, and you can see the first vestiges at www.indepth-training.com.

The concept of InDepth is to achieve the highest integrity of training content and execution, while also bearing in mind that the divers, the customers, are demanding even higher levels of quality entertainment. Diving is a leisure time activity, and must start out as such; an enjoyable past-time for all, with safety and content quality as two of the guiding principles.

InDepth will be conform to the norms of dive training, but will be very different. There are already 4 or 5 major agencies offering sport diving training. For certain courses, the recreational scuba industry training guidelines govern the content and execution of the training. But for the other courses, as an example, what is the difference between the wreck courses of each of the other 4 major training agencies? InDepth courses will be designed to stand out amongst the rest. If our courses compete with others, ours should be different. In Sport Diving, there many opportunities. In Tech diving, the opportunity is very profound.

InDepth is redesigning the entire tech diving training course syllabus and progression. InDepth, like some others, feels that 20 years of the original modular progression invites an overhaul. The two most recent new entries into tech diving training, have displayed this. We agree but feel that there is a more appropriate way of approaching this training. And this is one of the major programs in which the InDepth experts are now engaged in designing.

You will hear more about the InDepth program in the coming weeks. We are just now releasing the PERT (Professional Emergency Response Team) training program, can be seen at www.pert-training.com. We hope to have the majority of all InDepth programs in place by the end of the year.

There is a lot of behind the scenes effort which goes into making a new training agency. InDepth must assure acceptance by the industry, which was seen to be quite intolerant, and protective of the status quo, with the last two new dive training agency entries.

InDepth is confident in our approach. InDepth has listened to the instructors around the world. InDepth has listened to the divers. InDepth has watched as diving loses share in the leisure-time activity market. And InDepth is frustrated in the inability of the industry to properly respond to the challenges of theme parks, electronic games, underwater world attractions, and other simulated challenges and thrills.

Thanks for the support in the past. And InDepth invites you to watch us. There is a lot more coming, and it is coming very soon.