This page gathers the key disclaimers in one place, at the end, so they bookend the handbook.
This Handbook Adds to Your Training — It Does Not Replace It
Everything in this handbook is supplemental to your certified dive training, your certifying agency's standards, established safe-diving practices, and your own judgment in the conditions of each dive. The checklists, procedures, and worksheets here are additions to your standard pre-dive safety routine, not a complete account of it. Many essential safety steps are assumed and not repeated. You and your team remain responsible for all standard safety procedures and for assessing conditions, whether or not a given step is printed here.
Numbers Are Starting Points, Not Ceilings
Every depth, gas, time, and distance figure in this handbook is a minimum starting point, to be made more conservative whenever conditions, gas planning, decompression status, equipment, training, or your personal limits call for it. No printed number overrides your obligation to dive within your training and the conditions of the day. Diving carries inherent risk; taking part means accepting that risk and diving safely.
Your Maps Are Recreational and Educational
The maps and models you make in this course are recreational and educational reef-documentation products. They are not survey-grade or navigation-grade, and must never be used for navigation, operational decisions, legal boundaries, salvage, or any safety-of-life purpose. Absolute position is only as good as consumer GPS — a few meters at best. Always attach an honest accuracy and limitations statement to anything you share.
Protect the Reef
This specialty sends you toward reefs and other sensitive places. The no-contact rule is absolute: never touch, move, or disturb living substrate, artifacts, or organisms — not even to improve a map or image. Confirm and obey local laws, protected-area rules, and permit requirements for every site. When you share data, protect sensitive locations and tell the truth about your map's limitations.