NAI'A's crew has evolved an overall approach to safe diving practice which has worked remarkably well for both our safety record and the satisfaction of our experienced and discerning clients. The secret is to put the responsibility of diving safely squarely on the shoulders of the divers, all of whom are well trained and know their limits better than anyone else and many of whom have hundreds or thousands of dives. NAI'A's sites lend themselves to safe diving anyway. Even where there are bottomless walls, some of the most interesting stuff is up at 15 feet.
While divers are not required to follow the guides, we stress the sensibility of diving the profile that the guides use. For one thing we know the sites, local critters and conditions, having dived them hundreds of times. We are very particular about our own profiles: we go to our deepest depth right at the beginning of the dive and then ascend slowly and gradually, always rising above 40 ft. with 1000psi remaining and continuing slowly on up past 20 feet. Safety stops are mainly redundant after spending a third of the dive so shallow, but we do three minutes at 15 feet anyway.
NAI'A's crew has found that divers respond well to being treated like they know what they are doing, and as a result, they tend to dive more carefully than they might otherwise. Having said that, the other guides and I do watch our new passengers closely the first couple of days and very occasionally have to take someone aside for a little chat about diving safety. New divers sometimes want to shadow a guide the whole time and that's okay too, since NAI'A usually has two guides in the water every dive.
