As I've mentioned a few times, I am often frustrated with the level of criticism and lack of respect shown on some of the sidemount Facebook groups. I guess there's an element of human nature in there and also comments are taken out of context or misunderstood due to language barriers or the limitations of the written word.

You do see genuinely helpful comments but these are also sometimes shouted down or lost in the dross of the string. So I took note when a while back when Florida based Dive Instructor Ryan Custureri offered to do a live session free of charge for a new sidemount diver looking for some help. I thought that was very cool and I have seen Ryan referenced positively many times by his students and his videos are top-notch. 

So... I thought I'd reach out to Ryan to ask his thoughts on sidemount diving, equipment set up, how he boat dives in Florida, how to choose your instructor, and his advice for instructors looking to set up on their own... All this and much more in this episode of Speaking Sidemount.

Huge thanks to XDEEP for their support of Speaking Sidemount.