Some of the best dive sites in the World have underwater currents. It’s the simple fact that currents carry in food (plankton) to an area, which in turn draws fish and more fish and animals that feed on that fish and so on, making it a lively dive site to explore. However, currents can often be intimidating for divers because of their unpredictability and your natural survival instinct of fighting it. Sometimes going with the flow is hard when you are unexpectedly pushed into the fast lane without being prepared. It’s at these times it is better to have some idea as to how to deal with the situation rather than to be caught clueless and scared.

A good way to start is to check for currents before the dive. Before getting into the water, look for current patterns on the surface itself and have the boat drop a drift line in the water to see if there are any. Usually local fisherman, boat hands and experienced dive masters who are familiar with the area can recognize the conditions from the surface.  Once underwater, take a cue from the fish. You can tell changes in currents or the appearance of one, from reef fish. Generally, small fish will all be facing up-current, unless it is so strong that they are forced to take shelter. In a down current, however, fish may be fining up and down and frantically in circles. If the down current is particularly strong, you may even see larger fish being swept downwards.

Descend down an anchor line when there’s a prevalent current at a particular dive site. Avoid free descents. Remember not to let go of the line until you reach the bottom or desired depth and make sure your dive buddy is ready too. If you’re in for a strong current dive, it’s best to make it a drift dive if possible. For that however, you would need to appoint a reliable surface supervisor that can spot the divers on the surface and bring the boat around for retrieval. It’s also important that you trail a surface float while you dive for the dive boat to keep track of the group and every diver should carry a safety sausage or a deploy-able high visibility buoy (Surface Marker Buoy) that can help the dive boat spot you, should you separate from the group and have to surface. A whistle attached to your BCD might help as well in such a situation.

If you know you are to dive in fast currents try not to overload yourself with too much dive gear and scuba accessories like large  underwater cameras and underwater torches. What you may want to consider carrying instead are things like an SMB (for sure!), a buddy line to avoid separation (however it risks getting snagged), a reef hook- a great way hang around a spot to wait for other divers to catch up or just stop and watch the passing life. This blunt hook about 10cm-long is attached to a 2m long line clipped to the diver and can be snagged into a piece of dead coral or a rock crevice.

If you’re not drift diving, always start the dive against the current, time the dive carefully and plan your turn around time depending on the speed of the current.Stay close to the reef wall or sea floor when in the same direction as the current. The current is almost always lesser at the bottom near the sea bed, so if you need to slow down or wait for the group to catch up with you, go lower and hug the bottom. If you find yourself pulled into an unexpected orientate yourself horizontally to make yourself as streamlined as possible and try to cross it diagonally by heading upstream of your destination.

Pace your breathing and keep a close eye on your gauges. It’s easy to loose track of both your depth and air consumption when you’re riding a fast current. Be prepared to inflate or dump air quickly if you get dragged down or up. If caught in a down current, try to get as close to the reef as you can and tuck yourself behind a ledge, be prepared to dump air from your BC quickly as soon as you get out to avoid ascending fast.

Streamline, streamline, streamline. Dangly bits can be a nightmare on a fast drift dive. You will get the best from the dive if you stay as neutrally buoyant and streamlined as possible. Wear a good pair of gloves in case you have to grab on to rocks and dead coral against a current (however avoid touching anything unless absolutely necessary).

Lastly, if you don’t have much experience don’t attempt a current dives unless with a certified dive instructor or a more experienced diver than you.

*Image credits: photos by kradk, kah_adiving, Raymond™ on flickr

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1. Be a Solo Diver: This rule doesn’t entail ditching your dive buddy and diving alone. By all means stay close to your buddy and be ready to help him. But as far as your own safety is concerned, pretend he’s not there or won’t be when you need him, in other words be self reliant. In any emergency your most dependable rescuer is yourself. Think solo, plan smarter and rehearse beforehand how you could deal with a situation so that if one arises you know how to react without wasting time looking for a rescuer.

Keep at hand all the dive gear and equipment you may need as if you were diving solo. For example: Have your own completely redundant air source, like a pony bottle, instead of relying on your buddy’s octopus. You may want several cutting tools instead of just one, mounted so you can reach at least one with either hand. Be prepared for yourself and carry your own backups.

2. Be Lazy: Mimic a sloth. Doing everything in slow motion will stretch your air supply. Move like you’re too exhausted to move. Every fin stroke, arm movement or even a head turn requires a lot more energy under water as it’s almost 800 times more dense than air. Energy in diving equals oxygen, so the faster you burn energy the faster you empty your dive tank. It’s that simple.

It takes a conscious effort to move at slow motion speeds, but practice will make it second nature. The payoff is bragging rights over your air-hog buddy at the end of the dive. Be lazy out of the water before and after a dive too. Sit down as much as possible and relax to conserve energy and you won’t feel fatigued. Most importantly stay lazy with your body in order to stay alert with your mind.

3. Breathe Efficiently: One of the first diving no-no’s you learn is to never hold your breath. And certainly don’t. To significantly improve your breathing efficiency, reverse your normal breathing pattern from inhale-exhale-pause to inhale-pause- exhale, the pattern many experienced divers adopt naturally over time. What you have to keep in mind is the pause you take when your lungs are filled is not held with your throat closed and most definitely not forced.

The few seconds pause while your lungs are full of air allows more time for gas exchange, so you take in more oxygen and dump more carbon dioxide with each breath. Therefore, your need to breathe will lessen and you will get more cycles out of your cylinder. This breathing technique is not taught because a pause can be confused as holding your breath with a closed-throat. So, if you aren’t sure of the difference or of not inadvertently closing your throat to pause, don’t try it.

4. Avoid Using Your BCD: Using the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) throughout a dive for control is a mistake made by many divers, especially rookies. Since water is denser, momentum gathered takes a little more time to slow or stop. While you’re squirting a little more air in you BCD thinking you’re a little negative, before you realize it you’re actually a little positive. But you won’t feel positive because you come to a stop and pause there for a moment or two before that little squirt of air in your BC begins gathering its strength before raising you slowly.

Naturally, you need to use some judgment and assess the need to use those buttons when you’re dropping like a rock or rising like a cork. But, as you zero in on neutral buoyancy you don’t want to mess it up by touching the buttons again. You can make depth changes of four or five feet by using your lungs alone, without messing with your buoyancy compensator and losing that hard-to-find neutral buoyancy.

5. Don’t Overdo the Gear: By don’t overdo the dive gear we don’t mean offload your weights, ditch spare regulators or don’t wear a dive computer, it simply means don’t let your equipment get the better of you. Diving with an all new kit of diving equipment with a fancy new dive computer on one hand, an underwater camera in another and a squeaky new BCD you’re unfamiliar can be overwhelming. The use of your dive gear should be intuitive and not take up your attention. Another reason to avoid carrying extra gear apart from unnecessary fidgeting is the temptation to seek security in equipment rather than in technique. As a general rule, get more experience before more gear.

That said, we like to encourage divers to own their own gear and not rent, because owners know their gear better and take care of it better. We also think divers should buy their gear new and of top quality. There’s no such thing as too much performance and you definitely can’t put a price on safety.

*Image credits: photos by aa7ae, riandreu and pjf@cpan on flickr

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2011. | 5 Tips To Becoming A Better Diver is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

If you’re an avid diver and tend to plan your vacations around destinations you can go scuba diving, then liveaboard diving maybe just the thing for you. Many people shy away from doing liveaboard trips as they look at it as being stuck with a bunch of strangers on a boat, far away from civilization and nothing but diving to do. And while that’s sort of true, there’s really no better way to get some serious diving without the hassle of hotel rooms, restaurants, transportation etc, not to mention you could potentially strike up some pretty solid relationships with those so-called strangers. Here’s a look at some of the reasons we think diving from a liveaboard is so damn cool-

Liveaboards offer access to remote dive sites- Liveaboards are ideal for destinations that have plenty of dive sites that are not easily accessible from the shore. Many a times as diving from a liveaboard takes you further out into open seas which makes for some challenging dives, but also increases chances of seeing more pelagic and bigger marine life.

Out of bed and into the water- When staying & diving from a liveaboard, you don’t notice the travel to and from dive sites. You can simply enjoy the convenience of rolling out of bed and jumping straight into the water. And it works the other way too, out of the water and into a bed….no long choppy small boat rides back to shore and possibly a drive to your hotel.

You can dive as much as you want- Most liveaboards offer 4-5 dives a day! That is a lot of diving, and you can pretty much take your pick of how many ever dives you want to do each day on board.

Like minded people- It comes as no surprise that most people you’ll find booked on a liveaboard with you, have at least one thing in common….their passion for diving. That said, it’s actually a great place to meet new people from all over the world, with different backgrounds, of different ages and different experience levels. As diving takes up most of what you’re doing onboard, there’s always a conversation starter and before you know it, you’ll be swapping stories and experiences of all ventures of life. It’s easy to strike up friendships, when you’re not just diving but also eating and staying with the same group of people for a few days.

It’s worry-free – The only thing you have on your mind when on a liveaboard trip is your next dive or remembering all the incredible creatures you have seen under water to fill up your logbook. Everything else is taken care of for you on board, from your next meals, planning your next dive sites, getting to the dive sites to prepping equipment and re-filling the scuba tanks. It’s easy to get spoiled, just diving, eating, sleeping and soaking up the sun. Most liveaboards are prepaid too, so you don’t even have the worry for reaching for your wallet when you’re oboard in most cases.

While we could go on with more, let’s just say you’ll have to try it to believe it. Book a liveaboard scuba diving trip and enjoy a floating holiday today!

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | Why Liveaboard Diving Trips Are So Cool is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

Released in early September 2010 ScubaDo Lite 1.0.1 an easy to use Recreational Dive Planner Application for the iPhone was released by Pieus Productions. The application which features a smart looking Scuba Diving Organizer with an easy to use interface lets you plan your dives based on a classic restrictive RDP algorithm.

The interface is an easy to use touch grid that lets you set depth and time in one swift motion, and allows you to set the start group. Divers can set their planed dive depth and bottom time separately. A readout on the left hand side of the screen shows divers their RNT or Remaining Nitrogen Time, as well as warnings and safety stop information. Users have the option of changing the setting to either the Imperial or Metric system while planning their dives.

ScubaDo Lite currently retails at the iTunes app store for $0.99 and is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 4.0 or later.

The developer is shortly planning to release a Basic and a Pro version of ScubaDo offering multilevel diving, logbook support, nitrox tables, and surface interval notifications which is something for user to look forward to.

Overall ScubaDo Lite is a handy app to have for iPhone wielding Scuba Divers to have a part of their scuba gear. While its features may be basic, it does what its intended to do rather well, and its intuitive user interface makes it easy to quickly recheck your dive plans.

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | ScubaDo Lite a new Scuba Diving Organizer app for the iPhone is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

Why do a PADI Night Diver Course?
Night Dives are offered by almost every dive facility to allow divers to experience the same dive sites they explored during the day, the opportunity to witness the transformation once the sun sets. There are certain changes that occur underwater when night falls, as well as certain species of fish that only appear under the cover of darkness, giving scuba divers the unique opportunity to observe. Night is considered any time between sunset and sunrise for the purpose of Night Diving.

As the sun sets, and most of the reefs inhabitants make their way home for the night, there are groups of reef dwelling fish that are just beginning their day. Nocturnal fish make scuba diving at night a fascinating experience as these species of fish are mostly hidden during the day. These fish tend to have larger eyes, are more solitary, slow moving and are often reds or brown in color to make them indistinguishable as the light levels drop. Diving in darkness is also a completely different experience as you can only see what’s visible in the beam of your dive light. This can be a rather disorienting experience at first, but also a tremendously rewarding experience for scuba divers.

The primary reasons to do a Night Diver course are to familiarize you with the changes in safety and communication procedures when diving in darkness. Signaling your buddy with your hands is no longer possible, and communication using dive lights is key to getting your message across. Disorientation is easy as a diver has no visual cues as to which way is up, the Night Diver course helps you learn various tips to re-orient yourself and navigate in the darkness. The course also covers various techniques to ensure you don’t loose your dive buddy in the darkness, and what to do in case your dive light fails. Additionally the course familiarizes you with night diving scuba gear such as primary and secondary dive lights, strobes, glow sticks, reflectors etc.

What does the course cover?
This course is designed to be an introduction to night diving and to help the student divers develop the skills, knowledge and techniques necessary to safely participate in night-diving activities in a fun and enjoyable way. The primary focus of this course is to ensure safe diving practices at night.

The Night Diver Course covers three open water training dives as well as approximately 12 hours of instruction or preparation activities covering the below knowledge areas:.

• the planning, organization, procedures, techniques, problems and hazards of night diving
• proper procedures for buoyancy control, navigation and communication
• use of dive lights and buddy‑system techniques
• disorientation and emergency procedures
• orientation to nocturnal aquatic life

There is no written examination to successfully complete the PADI Night Diving course, however the student must complete the three open water night training dives to the satisfaction of the dive instructor.

Prerequisites to do the Course

To qualify for the PADI Night Diver course, an individual must:

• Be certified as a PADI Scuba Diver, Junior Scuba Diver, Open Water Diver, Junior Open Water Diver or have qualifying certifications from another training organization.
• Be 12 years of age or older.

photos from flickr by dans le grand bleu, hankplank,

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | PADI Night Diver Specialty Course is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

On a recent dive trip to the the Andaman Sea, I experienced first hand the nightmare of being swept away by a current and surfacing about 100 feet away from the boat. Luckily, I had my dive buddy right there by me and the boat was in plain sight. So, you might ask what the big deal is. Well, what at first seemed like a trivial little swim to the boat that you can see just there, became a lot more serious when we realized that the swimming was not getting us any closer to the boat, and that the boat hadn’t even spotted us yet. With no visual or audio signaling devices and very little air left in our tanks, it was hard to keep out the numerous stories of divers being left behind from creeping into our minds and letting worry set in.

Reality is there’s little you can do when you’re down current and often in situations like these that are not usually emergencies in itself, if they are not handled properly it can turn into one. The big mistake is panic, that can lead to exhaustion, hypothermia and other potentially deadly problems. So staying calm is number one on our scuba tips of what to do if you surface down current from your dive boat.

Keep your cool and stay comfortable- Instead of immediately trying to swim back and fight the current, try to keep it cool and assess the situation. Unless the current is mild, it’s useless trying to swim against it, no matter how strong a swimmer you may think you are. Determine the direction of the current. If you have enough air, a good option of getting back to the boat is to take a bearing of the boat and descend a few feet before heading that direction as currents are usually much weaker at the bottom. However, if you’re low on air and that is not an option, you could try swimming diagonally across the current to close the gap between you and the boat. If neither of the two are an option, don’t waste your energy going against the current. It’ll get you nowhere, but tired. Instead, get comfortable, inflate your BC to comfortable level to stay well above the water and not swallow a mouthful of sea with every swell and focus on step two….

Signaling the Boat- If you can’t get to the boat yourself, the most important thing is getting yourself noticed in the water. Even in calm seas, it’s hard to spot a diver on the surface because of the swells and the bobbing. This is where the gearing up for the worst advice that you’re always given comes into play. If you’ve taken head of the umpteen times we’ve stressed the need for every diver (i.e every single diver, not one per buddy pair) to carry an SMB (Surface Marker Buoy or an Inflatable signaling tube known as Safety sausage) you’re one step closer to getting the boats attention. However, it’s recommended to carry both a visible and audible signaling device with you at all times. (Read our post: Emergency Signaling Devices I: Get noticed in the water). The key to getting noticed is becoming taller, brighter and louder. If you have no signaling devices on you (tsk, tsk) try holding up your fin (especially if it’s a bright color). Once the boat has visual contact of you, help them maintain where you are by just holding the marker or fin up. Waving your signaling tube or fin at the boat signifies you need immediate assistance because you’re in distress.

Keep your eyes on the boat- Most times the boat won’t be able to come get you immediately as they see you, as they have to wait for other divers to surface and climb on board before they leave that spot, but don’t worry. Stay calm, comfortable and keep the boat in sight at all times. They’ll definitely come pick you up. If they haven’t seen you yet, have a little faith that they’ll come looking for you, but don’t panic. Most boat captains and boat hands know their waters well and can calculate current, wind, wave action and time and come pretty close to tracking a drifting diver’s path and position. Try your best to keep the boat in your sight and focus on different ways to get their attention.

*Photo Credits: photos by mattk1979, geirf and Simon Spear on flickr

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | Surfacing Nightmares: What To Do When You Surface Away From The Boat is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

In past posts we’ve discussed the fundamentals of buoyancy control, looked at tips to achieve neutral buoyancy and even shed light on how to perform a weight check in order to determine the correct amount of weights one should wear when diving to achieve that buoyancy. But buoyancy still remains and issue for many divers, plus there’s always room for improvement for those more comfortable with their buoyancy when scuba diving. So, whether you’re a diver struggle to perfect that buoyancy or you’re just looking to polish on your already good skills we have a few points for you to consider to fine tune your buoyancy control.

Breath Control
Now it’s already been said everywhere and a lot of times, but is worth mentioning again. It’s important to learn controlling your buoyancy not with your BCD inflate and deflate but rather with your breathing. The only adjustment you should need is to release a bit of air from your BCD to compensate for the air you use and definitely not as an elevator. When you inhale, you increase your displacement and buoyancy and automatically tend to rise slightly while when you exhale you tend to sink. Now this way of buoyancy control doesn’t require you to hold you breath, it’s a matter of timing your breathing and paying attention to how full or empty your lungs are to ascend or descend a little. With a little practice it becomes second nature and you can ascend or descend a few feet solely by breathing in or out as a lung full of air can add as much as 10 pounds of buoyancy!

Weight Distribution
Whenever we talk about buoyancy it’s stressed that you need to be wearing the right amount of weights. But, distributing that weight correctly is just as important as it can make a difference to your buoyancy. The distribution of weight however, depends from diver to diver and also according to the dive. For instance if you’re into underwater photography and want to take pictures along a wall, a head up position may be preferred. But if you’d like to take pictures on the sea bed a head down position might be a better option. Typically though, for the horizontal swimming position which is always recommended to reduce drag, you want to weight forward, towards your sides and stomach to help maintain that swimming position. Weight distribution is not just limited to the weights you wear, it also includes the all the scuba gear and equipment you use on a dive and how it’s worn. To check how well all your weight distributes on you hover in shallow water in a neutrally buoyant state and relax completely to allow your body to turn naturally if it’s heavier on any side. You’ll be surprised that you can even end up on your back or even upside down with this little test. However, that’s how you can determine how you need to redistribute the weight around.

Streamlining
Streamlining not only minimizes exertion and reduces air consumption by improving your hydrodynamics, but it also plays a part in improving your buoyancy. Believe it or not it helps your diving skills quite a bit when your dive equipment is not poking out, hanging off you or getting dragged by you. When you’re tight and streamlined you’ll notice an improvement in your buoyancy. (Read our Scuba Tips on Streamlining to Reduce Drag.)

Physical Fitness
Physical fitness is often overlooked as important for diving but actually it can make a big difference even in buoyancy. It’s the simple fact that lean mass sinks, while fat tissue floats which makes fitness important. When you’re fit, you’re sleeker and more naturally streamlined which makes it easier to control your buoyancy and trim. So, what are you waiting for- you want to be a better diver? Then hit that gym! (wink!).

*Photo credits: photos by iamtimmo, dachalan and Daquella manera on flickr

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | Scuba Tips: Fine Tuning Your Buoyancy is an original article from Aquaviews.net | One comment

There’s something a bit attractive, exciting and mysterious about diving deep, to or beyond a depth of 40 meters/ 130 feet the recommended edge of recreational diving. Intrigued with the challenge deep diving presents, divers are often tempted to take that all so thrilling plunge into the depths. However, descending below 40 meters with a single cylinder and standard recreational scuba diving gear isn’t brave nor exciting…it’s being stupid.

Among the first things divers learn is that gas consumption increases at depth. This factor alone influences the dive drastically and makes planning the dive all the more crucial. Recreational deep divers can take a cue from technical divers when it comes to planning their dives and start thinking tech.

For starters use the Rule of Thirds. Gas management for technical diving has its roots in cave diving. Cave divers live by the Rule of Thirds. That is-

• Use one third of your starting gas volume to enter the cave.
• Use the second third of your gas supply to exit the cave.
• Keep the final third of your starting gas volume in reserve in case the shit hits the fan.

In technical deep diving, this is referred to as the 150% Reserve Rule. In other words, if you think you will need 50 units of gas to accomplish a task, make sure you have 75 units available to do it. This approach generally provides a sufficient gas for a slow ascent and safety stop, providing everything goes as planned and there’s no need for long surface swims (in other words when your boat diving).

While having sufficient gas is important in recreational deep diving especially exceeding depths of 30 meters/ 100 feet, having sufficient gas does not mean that you will also have sufficient bottom time. Contingent to whether the dive you are planning is a repetitive dive, or you are using a Nitrox mixture with a higher concentration of nitrogen are must be taken to plan accordingly and keep close track of no-stop limits as your dive computer, dive planning software or the PADI Wheel suggests.

Before making that deep dive you should also evaluate the suitability of your scuba equipment for deep conditions. For example- Scuba diving regulators deliver denser air the deeper you go. However, a balanced regulator breathes consistently regardless of tank pressure and should be used in this case. Besides your standard extra second stage alternate regulator, a pony bottle that is an independent sir supply is a good way of being self-sufficient in the event of an emergency.

As part of the planning that is Deep diving another point to note is to consider the environment and conditions of the dive site as well as both your own and your buddy’s experience and training levels. Consider the more conservative divers personal limits when planning a deep dive.

As a last thought on diving deep on standard recreational gear, the risk of Nitrogen narcosis and decompression illness is increased, so diving deep just to go deep or to satisfy your curiosity may come at a price if not attempted with caution according to your experience and training.

*Photo credits: photo by Moon Fish, Saspotato on flickr

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | Diving Deep Is All About The Planning is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

Dive computers are rapidly becoming an integral part of recreational Scuba diving equipment, and most divers will seldom dive without one. However, like any piece of diving equipment dive computers too can sometimes fail, and if a failure occurs in the middle of a dive, this can often cause divers to panic.

In the unlikely event of a dive computer failure during a dive and you have no backup means of calculating your decompression times, the best piece of advice is the same as for any equipment failure which is; abort the dive.

If the computer malfunctions, and you are only diving an NDL (No Decompression Limit) profile, and you know that you are well within your NDL, simply abort the dive. Even though your dive buddy may be wearing a dive computer, there is no way of being sure that your profile was the same as his. Also ensure you make your safety stop at 10ft/3m. You may use your buddies dive computer to monitor your ascent and time your safety stop if you aren’t wearing a watch.

If it was your first dive of the day and you know you were within NDL, then referencing a dive table, look-up the surface interval for the maximum pressure group (i.e. Z in the PADI RDP) and observe the maximum surface interval before planning your next dive using the Dive Table.

If you were unsure whether you were within NDL before the dive computer conked-off, then it is recommended that you do not dive again for at least 24 hours and allow your body to reset and allow all the microbubbles to dissolve.

It is always a good practice to plan your maximum bottom times using a dive table before a dive and write down the depth & times allowable on a dive slate if you do not carry a copy of the dive tables in your BCD pocket. Wearing a water-resistant or dive watch in addition to your dive computer will help a diver fall back on his dive tables in case of a computer failure, provided he remembers to turn on his stopwatch or record the entry time at the start of the dive. In the same manner an analog SPG or depth gauge with a maximum depth needle will help you keep track of how deep you went when your computer failed.

photos from flickr by: DocJelly & ChrisDag

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | What To Do In Case Of A Dive Computer Failure is an original article from Aquaviews.net | Be the first to comment!

Scuba diving is a sport that offers everyone a window to the underwater world, even people faced with physical barriers. The water which has always been used in physical therapy and recovery treatments, is a wonderful medium for those with disabilities to discover not only a whole new world but some freedom of movement in the water.

Unlike most sports for paraplegic people which require customized wheelchairs or equipment like in wheelchair basketball, cycling or rugby, there’s no such special scuba gear requirements if they would like try scuba diving. Once in the water divers disabled or not, both enter a world of weightlessness and persons that usually face mobility constraints on land find that they can move independently and easily underwater just like everyone else.

Who can dive?
While diving is possible with a variety of disabilities including paraplegics, quadriplegic, amputees, people with muscular dystrophy, people who are mentally challenged are the only exceptions. There is even the possibility of diving for many other people challenged with Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis and hearing and visually impaired depending on their condition.

However, participants should have no problems with their heart and circulatory, respiratory tract, nasal sinuses and the ears. These are however the same basic health conditions, which have to be met by divers without disabilities.

Special Organizations and Scuba Agencies for Training
HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association): Founded in 1981, the HSA is one of the leading bodies in this field. HAS’s training programs for people with disabilities are taught with the utmost safety using techniques developed with over 20 years of research. HAS’s Physical Performance Standards and multilevel Certification system facilitates the training of a wide range of disabilities, including paraplegia, quadriplegia, blindness and high-functioning brain injuries.

IAHD (International Association for Handicapped Divers) :The IAHD provides a training program, which is recognized by the major SCUBA organizations such as PADI, NAUI and SSI. In addition it has programs which train diving instructors to work with disabled people to try and counter previous skepticism encountered by pioneers in disabled diving.

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors): The biggest and most recognized dive certification agency in the world PADI too offers special courses and scuba training for those with disabilities.

Learning to dive
Scuba divers after training are categorized according to their diving capabilities. A Level “A” divers must dive with at least 1 buddy. Level “B” divers are required to dive with at least 2 buddies. While the Level “C” divers must also dive with at least 2 buddies, with one of which must be a certified and trained CPR provider.The levels of certification however are the same and you can train as open-water diver right to instructor and course director level allowing you to train instructors.

So if you yourself or anyone you know need that are in an unfortunate limiting position, throw off those constraints and gift yourself or your loved one an opportunity of getting out of that wheelchair and into the blue to do something that 95% of people will never see and discover a whole new world underwater!

*Photo credits: photos by The U.S. Army, Dave Bluck on flickr

© Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog, 2010. | Diving With Disabilities: Out Of The Wheelchair And Into The Blue is an original article from Aquaviews.net | One comment