Diving Is Different

[hoobascooba]

Many people tend to think of scuba diving as just another type of exercise or recreational activity. This type of thinking can lead to real disasters in training and later on, in open water. Scuba diving is NOT like any other exercise or recreational activity you have previously done. The reason is quite simple: you do NOT breathe water. This sport requires LIFE SUPPORT equipment because it is conducted in an environment hostile to your life (i.e. without mechanical assistance, the inability to breathe water while submerged can be a life threat.)

Consider learning to snow ski.

At some point in time, you WILL FALL DOWN! When this happens, you first look around (to make sure no one else saw your failure). Then you slowly get up, brush the snow off your butt (to remove evidence of failure 'cause, as humans, we sometimes sacrifice safety to preserve ego) and then continue stumbling down the slope.

Learning any new sport is a repeated cyclic process of SMALL failures (mistakes to learn from) followed by mastery of the conditions that earlier led to failure. There are times when you will make mistakes here. BUT THAT IS HOW YOU WILL LEARN! If you could do everything perfectly, without hesitation or apprehension, then there would be no need for this training experience. That's why your instructors are here. I see our role as one of letting you learn from your mistakes. After all, making mistakes is just part of being human! We are here to present you with the opportunity to learn while preventing your errors from becoming catastrophic.

BUT,

Remember that in skiing, when you fall down, you can breathe the atmosphere. In diving, when you fall down, YOU CANNOT BREATHE YOUR SURROUNDINGS. The medical people have a name for breathing the scuba environment . It is called death!

Because you cannot breathe your surroundings, the rules needed to govern your physical, mental and emotional fitness for training and participation in scuba diving MUST BE MORE HARSH than riding a bike down the road! This is because the consequences of failure are so much greater in an environment you can not breathe.

The point is:
As sport, scuba diving is NOT like skiing or riding a bike. It is like moon walking 'cause both moon walking and scuba diving require life support equipment, proper training to handle the bulky, heavy equipment

AND

the really cool places to practice the recreation involve travel to an exotic location.

[aggie99]

Good post, this is why I read the DAN accident reports and watch and read all stories of diving accidents. If anything ever happenend to me I would hope that my mistake or situation would help someone else avoid doing the same. I would recommend this to all divers.

[BoomerNJ]

good post!

[SHAGGY]

Very true,...........




shaggy

[cmburch]

I only SCUBA dive in the Pacific Ocean. I do not depend on my SCUBA gear as "life support equipment". I understand what will happen if stuck in the 48-52F water without any exposure suit. I am also well aware not to get into a situation where I have to depend 100% on my air supply. If I have a problem with my air supply or completely lose my Rig & tank, I should be able to safely surface and get my self back to shore safely. This was included in the Open Water training. I hope others can do the same and received similar training if in a out-of-air situation were a Buddy or alternate air source is not available. I was reading about the percentage of people found still wearing their weight belts. And the instructors always had the horror story of the person that did not exhale or vent BC. It is best to never get into an out-of-air situation.

People die and get injured skiing and hiking due to not being prepared for the weather and conditions. I would guess that SCUBA diving like airplane transportation can be safer due to equipment and training. Airplanes may not be the best analogy.

[Rockhound76]

I'm with cmburch on this, mostly....if you fly, you are constantly planning on an engine out and searching for landing sites you can make. If you are diving, you must always be prepared for EVERYTHING to go wrong. On most of my OW dives, I am confident I can make it to the surface if every bit of equipment fails and my buddy decides to leave. On those dives where this is not possible without a "bad thing" happening, I plan appropriately and force MORE equipment to fail before making the surface an option.

This comes with both training and experience, both of which were the point of the initial thread. While diving is a sport where "small mistakes" can be life threatening, it is not unique.

I just got back from a week in Bonaire (when can i go back?!). I was surprised at the number of divers I met who could not plan a dive properly or were not fully "trained up".....

Still, the vast majority of them survived their small mistakes. Even my 15yr. old son made a couple (but did great overall and was much better trained and aware than a LOT of the more experienced folks we met.)

[cummings66]

Rockhound, you must be a pilot to know you're always looking for a place to land, lesson number one for me.

As to diving and not depending on your air supply. For recreational diving that may be true, but there are many forms of diving when you must depend on it and if you lose it you die.

Take cave diving, wreck diving, extreme deep diving, things like that. Basically many forms of technical diving are not so forgiving and you carry backups because you do depend on them to keep you alive.

Personally for me, the really cool places to dive are not exotic locations but rather closer to home where I can see how things were back before they flooded the property. However, Truk Lagoon would be on my short list of exotic locations, I can think of another neat place I'd love to dive as well due to the wrecks. I love history and things like that draw me like a moth to flame.

[Rockhound76]

Originally Posted by cummings66

....As to diving and not depending on your air supply. For recreational diving that may be true, but there are many forms of diving when you must depend on it and if you lose it you die.

Take cave diving, wreck diving, extreme deep diving, things like that. Basically many forms of technical diving are not so forgiving and you carry backups because you do depend on them to keep you alive........

I initially qualified my statement with "rec diving, without a ceiling", but edited it out. Thanks for the clarification. I should have noted that once you put yourself in an "overhead" condition (inside a cave or wreck or at a depth or decompression status that denies the surface), you leave the realm of recreational diving.

For that sort of diving, it is paramount you be trained and equipped to the highest standards.

[MicahEW]

NIce post. That is awsome part of diving. I isnt like any other hobby/sport.

[Beaucoupfishies]

Diving also has a lot of responsibility associated with it too. When you're doing almost every kind of dive, you have to be very aware of your surroundings and make sure you're not disturbing the native wildlife or damaging the dive site.