This is a statement in which you are informed of the established safe diving practices for skin and scuba diving. These practices have been compiled for your review and acknowledgement and are intended to increase your comfort and safety in diving. Your signature on this statement will be required as proof that you are aware of these safe diving practices.

• Always dive conservatively and well within your qualification limits. Do not exceed depths greater than those you are qualified to.

• Maintain good mental and physical fitness for diving. Avoid being under the influence of alcohol or dangerous drugs when diving. Keep proficient in diving skills.

• Use common sense, caution and good judgment regarding your health. Do not dive when you are not in the proper health to do so

• Always ensure that you are covered by an up to date insurance policy.

• If you have not dived for more than 6 months, it is advised that you undertake a scuba review before getting back into the water.

• Always have a buoyancy control device and submersible pressure gauge when scuba diving. Recognize the desirability of an alternate air source and a low-pressure buoyancy control inflation system.

• Conduct repetitive dives so each dive is to a shallower depth. Dive conservatively, well within dive table or computer limits, as well as your personal limits.

• Listen carefully to dive briefings and directions and respect the advice of those supervising my diving activities.

• Be proficient in dive table usage. Make all dives no decompression dives and allow a margin of safety. Have a means to monitor depth and time underwater. Limit maximum depth to my level of training and experience.

• Ascend at a rate of not more than 18 metres/60 feet per minute, or slower if mandated by your dive computer. Make a safety stop as an added precaution, usually at 5 metres/15 feet for three minutes or longer.

• Maintain neutral buoyancy while underwater. Be buoyant for surface swimming and resting. Have weights clear for easy removal, and establish buoyancy when in distress while diving.

• Breathe properly for diving. Never breath-hold or skip-breathe when breathing compressed air, and avoid excessive hyperventilation when breath-hold diving. Avoid overexertion while in and underwater and dive within my limitations.

• Know and obey local dive laws and regulations, including fishing.

• Ensure that gauges, octopus regulators, torches and other equipment are secured so they do not trail over reefs or cause other damage.

• Underwater photographers should possess superior precision buoyancy control skills to avoid damaging the fragile marine environment and its creatures. Even experienced divers should ensure that careless or excessively vigorous fin strokes and arm movements do not damage coral or smother it in clouds of sand.

• Care should be taken to avoid stressing a subject. Some fish are clearly unhappy when a camera invades their ‘personal space’ or when pictures are taken using flash or lights. Others are unconcerned. They make the best subjects.

• Divers and photographers should never kill marine life to attract other types to them or to create a photographic opportunity. Creatures should never be handled or irritated to create a reaction and sedentary ones should never be placed on an alien background, which may result in them being killed.