Scuba Diving Basics, you can do them!

Scuba Diving Basics

Scuba diving is a great sport. Thousands of people get certified to scuba dive every day and thousands more talk to their local dive shop about what it takes to get certified to dive.

Most people have heard horror stories about the Navy Seal-like tasks required to get certified in the old days and they want to know if they’ll still have to perform these special ops maneuvers.

The reason dive training was so militant in the early days of diving was because dive instructors were usually ex-Navy that were taught to dive by the US government.

They were trained in a militant fashion so they trained others in a militant fashion. With the advent of “civilian” certification agencies like NAUI, SSI and PADI, dive training became more about learning to dive safely rather than learning to storm beaches.

Here are some of the tasks you’ll be expected to perform in modern dive training, these are scuba diving basics:

Basic Swimming Skills

You don’t have to be an Olympic swimmer to get certified to dive. In fact, you don’t even have to be a good swimmer. But you do have to pass certain requirements.

You’ll be required to swim underwater for a certain distance without coming up for air and you’ll have to swim a certain distance without stopping. You’re not timed on these swims, but you have to complete them without taking a break.

The distance you have to cover varies by agency. The swim tests may seem daunting, but in my years of being an instructor I’ve never seen anyone fail to get certified because they couldn’t pass the swim test, that is unless they could not swim at all. It may take a couple tries, but every gets it eventually.

Basic Snorkeling Skills

You have to learn to crawl before you can walk and most scuba diving basics will require you to learn how to snorkel before you dive.

These skills are generally easy to learn and snorkeling lessons rarely take more than one pool session.

Regulator Recovery

When you learn to dive, you’re taught to handle whatever can go wrong under the water.

One potential problem you could encounter is having your regulator kicked out of your mouth. Your dive class and instructor will teach you how to recover it easily.

Dive Mask Clear and Recovery

You’ll also learn to clear the water out of your mask while you’re still underwater.

Most people think you have to surface to get all the water out of your mask, but that’s not true. You can take your mask off completely then put it back on and clear it while you’re still underwater.

You’ll practice this skill in your dive class.

I’ve always thought that they should teach car driver’s education classes the same way we teach diving classes. Throw the student a bunch of problems that they’re likely to encounter and teach them the skills to deal with it effectively.

When a student comes out of their scuba diving basics diving class, they can handle putting their gear together, losing their regulator, losing their mask, removing and replacing their equipment underwater and surfacing in an out-of-air situation.

Wouldn’t it be great if drivers were that well trained?

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