How Do I Prepare For My First Scuba Diving?

Once a niche sport, scuba diving has become more popular and open to everyone who wants to explore the feeling of flying weightlessly through the beauty of the underwater world. The unique ocean landscape is filled with light, color, and life, but to get there, you must know how to prepare for your first scuba dive.

When preparing for your first dive, joining a registered organization that offers introductory training on scuba diving gear and requirements is crucial. Reading and understanding how to operate your gear is vital for a safe and enjoyable experience.

Once you have grasped the basic training and understanding of the gear that helps you breathe and maneuver underwater, you will have the ultimate experience of interacting with creatures you have only seen in documentaries. This article dives into the detailed introductions to the gear that makes this all possible.

What Are The 5 Most Important Rules Of Scuba Diving?

Scuba diving has many rules to ensure an enjoyable and safe dive every time. Each rule is important and should not be minimized according to its position on the list.

But for a first-time diver, the five most important rules of scuba diving would be considered to be the following:

Never Hold Your Breath
Entering the water may initially feel strange and stressful. At the same time, the urge or the self-preservation instinct to hold your breath may kick in. Remember to continually breathe, taking deep, slow breaths. Holding your breath during descent or ascending will cause overexpansion of your lungs, which leads to injuries like pulmonary barotrauma, the rupturing of the lung walls. Breathing rhythmically during the dive will also help with your buoyancy, making the experience much more enjoyable.
Establish Buoyancy At The Surface
Once equipped with all the gear and weight belts for your dive, staying buoyant at the surface can quickly tire out inexperienced divers. Establishing early buoyancy to counter the effect of your weights will help you conserve energy.
Equalize Early And Often While Descending
Equalizing early on in the dive is essential to stabilize the air spaces in our bodies. The deeper we dive, the more pressure affects our ears, nose, sinuses, and lungs. The Valsalva maneuver can be used to equalize the pressure as you descend.
Practice Safe And Slow Ascends
During the dive, the body absorbs nitrogen, and ascending too quickly can cause overexpansion of the lungs. Slowly ascending to the surface and having a safety stop at three and six-meter depths allows the excess nitrogen to escape the body, preventing decompression sickness.
Always Dive With A Buddy
Whether you are a beginner on your first dive or a seasoned diver with hours under your belt, you should never dive alone. Anything can happen underwater, and having a diving buddy with you can minimize the risk of injury.

What Sort Of Training And Gear Is Necessary To Participate In Scuba Diving?

Scuba diving requires planning, training, and gear before impulsively deciding to go diving. For first-time scuba divers, you need to get a basic level of training. While it’s recommended to buy snorkels and masks, you can rent your gear from the scuba diving training center.

Before diving out in the wide oceans, you need to complete a basic diving introductory course with a certified instructor or certified diving organization. They will help you understand what all the equipment is for and how to use it.

You will build skills of how to breathe with a regulator, equalize during decent, clear your mask, buoyancy control, and decompression during ascending to the surface. They will also teach you how to signal underwater and how to correctly read your instruments.

What Gear Is Needed For Scuba Diving?

Diving has a lot of gear comprising pipes, hoses, tanks, neoprene, and regulators. Still, each piece of equipment performs a specific function important for a successful and enjoyable diving experience.

Snorkel Detailed Introduction

Snorkels may seem counter-intuitive when you are expecting to go scuba diving. Snorkels are plastic tubes with a mouthpiece that lets you breathe while floating on the water’s surface face-down, looking at the ocean below you.

Why Use Snorkels

A snorkel comes in handy to preserve precious air when observing the water conditions from the surface or if you have a long surface swim approach before reaching the dive site when scuba diving from shore. It can help you avoid swallowing seawater while waiting for a boat pick up in rough conditions.

How To Choose A Snorkel

When choosing a snorkel, you need to find the right mouthpiece that feels comfortable in your mouth. The plastic tube should be long enough to extend over your head to allow easy access to air. These come in three types: classic, semi-dry, and dry.

The breathing bends should be smooth enough to avoid breathing resistance, with an attachment system that can easily attach to your mask and adjust.

Fins (Not Flippers!) Detailed Introduction

Fins are another essential and valuable gear when you need to move around in an environment that is eight hundred times denser than air. But don’t get confused between fins and flippers.

Why Use Fins

Scuba diving finds are very different from snorkeling fins or flippers. The fins are longer and range between 25 to 30 inches in length. This length provides more thrust efficiency in the depths of the water, giving you more power and speed.

They are stiffer and bulkier to withstand the water pressure at diving depth and support the movements.

Most fins are opened-heeled, but it doesn’t mean you can’t find closed ones. Open-heeled fins come with adjustable straps to allow the diver the option of wearing scuba boots for cold water diving.

How To Choose Fins

When choosing fins, you need to choose comfortable and efficient fins. Consider the stiffness of the fin, as strong, seasoned divers with strong legs and hips will choose stiffer fins. For smaller or weaker divers, a more flexible fin is desired.

Consider the design, opened heel or closed heel. Will you be diving in cold water? Opened-heeled fins allow you to wear a bootie to protect you from the cold water when diving. Straps and buckles should be easy to fasten and adjust.

Mask Detailed Introduction

Masks are the windows to a clear view of your surroundings while diving. Hence, it is essential to find a mask that fits well and is comfortable for an enjoyable experience underwater.

Buying your own mask is highly recommended, as it needs to fit you perfectly to ensure a comfortable, hassle-free fit. You can hire a mask, but you may not find a perfectly fitted mask, and the ill-fitting mask may distract you more during your dive.

What A Mask Does

Diving masks provide a clear vision of the underwater world because of the air space between the glass and your eyes, allowing you to focus on the scenery. It covers the eyes and nose, with some masks covering the whole face (eyes, nose, and mouth).

How To Choose A Mask

Taking your time and ensuring the mask fits you correctly is essential. Masks come in different forms, options, and colors. Some of these choices are personal according to your likes and dislikes.

Most masks will have anti-fog lenses, but it’s always good to check this to ensure you have a clear view while submerged.

Diving masks need to have tempered glass to withstand the pressure of diving even just a few meters deep.

Skirts are the silicon rubber that goes around the masks that suctions onto your facial skin keeping the mask in place.

The skirt must seal comfortably around your face without gaps allowing water to flood your mask. It should not press or cause discomfort over the bridge of the nose or on your forehead.

Try on different masks to ensure they fit and feel comfortable. To ensure the mask fits, place the mask on your face without attaching the strap. Hold the mask in place and inhale through your nose, then let go of the mask.

This will create a suction, allowing the mask to stay on, which means the skirt has sufficient contact with the skin, making the mask a good fit.

Weights: Integrated Weights And Weight Belts Detailed Introduction

You may think that all the equipment needed for scuba diving would be enough to drag you down to the bottom of the ocean, but all the equipment, with tanks, pipes, and hoses, creates a positive buoyancy.

Positive buoyancy means you won’t be able to get far below the water’s surface without constantly fighting to stay underwater, which uses up much of the tank’s oxygen, shortening your dive considerably.

Why Use Weights

There are different forms of weights, but the most commonly used by scuba divers are weight belts or integrated weights.

Weights must be quickly released and dropped in emergencies, either by a quick-release buckle or handle that you pull, releasing pouches with lead shots and allowing the diver to return to the surface.

The weights help create a negative buoyancy countering the positive buoyancy of other equipment. Divers must be weighted negatively by default and adjust buoyancy level with your BCD(buoyancy control device); we will get to that in a minute.

An average of 10% of your body mass should be countered with weights. This may need some adjusting to compensate for the type of suite and equipment you are carrying.

Weight Belts

Weight belts are the most common system used by divers. This is made of a nylon or rubber belt with a clip buckle. Test that the buckle works correctly to ensure you don’t lose your belt halfway through your dive.

Small rectangular plastic-coated lead shapes with two slots thread onto the belt and come in a range of 1 to 3-kilogram weights. These can be secured by twisting the best of using weight clips that secure your weight in place to avoid weight shifting and putting you off balance underwater.

You can also get pouches to attach to your belt, with Velcro flaps to insert bags containing lead shots.

Integrated Weights

Integrated weights are weights added to pouches on the BCD itself. This allows the weights to be tucked away without creating extra bulk for the diver and is a much more comfortable way of carrying weights.

However, a BCD can carry less weight than you would on a belt and will tend to bulk your BCD up a lot more.

Submersible Pressure Gauge And Dive Computer

Pressure gauges and dive computers provide the diver with critical information while diving. Some people will argue that a dive computer is sufficient. However, failures underwater can happen just as quickly, and having a backup to read air levels can prevent injuries.

Why Use Submersible Pressure Gauge And Dive Computer

Submersible pressure gauges (SPG) are mechanical gauges that connect to your tank via a hose, reading the pressure in your tank. This information translates to how much air you have left in your tank.

When choosing an SPG, choose one in the units you are comfortable reading, PSI (imperial) or bar (metric).

These gauges are pretty simple and allow you to monitor how much air is left in your tank to ensure you have enough air to return to the surface.

Dive computers are a bit more technical. They take the work out of working out dive tables and can be an invaluable tool for diving. They monitor diving depth for safe descents and control ascending, providing information on decompression status.

It can quickly recalculate the information if there are any changes in the readings providing you with the correct information immediately. These readings can provide critical information about your equipment and surroundings in emergencies.

Regulators: First Stage, Primary Second Stage, And Alternate Second Stage Detailed
Introduction

Your regulator is at the center of your equipment; without them, the thrill of diving would not be possible. Regulators are split into different stages linking pieces of your gear, such as the scuba tank, BCD, SPG, and an alternate air source. Each stage delivers a specific function.

The first stage of a regulator attaches to the scuba tank valve from which you get your air. But because the air is compressed, the regulator’s first stage helps reduce the tank’s high-air pressure into an intermediate pressure.

In the first stage, it also routes air to the different parts of your scuba diving gear, such as the BCD, SPG, and alternate air source.

The primary second stage is called primary because it is the main mouthpiece you breathe from. It is also known as a demand valve, as it provides air on demand. It is connected to the hose from the first stage and called the second stage because this is the second part where pressure is reduced to ambient breathable air pressure.

The alternate second stage is a spare mouthpiece used in the event of a malfunction in the primary second stage regulator or as a spare mouthpiece for your buddy or a diver that needs air if they run out or have an emergency.

Buoyancy Control Device (BCD), Buoyancy Compensator (BC)

Your buoyancy control device (BCD), also known as the buoyancy compensator (BC), is the most complex piece of equipment with many vital functions.

It is a harness that allows you to hold your gear in place, carries the air tank, and you can also add weights in the pouches to create a negative buoyancy. It helps you float at the surface with positive buoyancy when inflated. Decreasing the air supply will help maintain neutral buoyancy underwater.

The buoyancy of the BCD is controlled by the volume of ambient air inflating the bladders in the harness to control the buoyancy level required. This is provided through the first stage regulator. It is the one piece of equipment needing the most attention as it is manually controlled throughout the dive.

It’s essential to make sure the harness fits you well. It needs to be comfortable while fitting securely but not restrict your breathing when inflated.

Cylinder, Tank Detailed Introduction

Scuba cylinders or scuba tanks are made of aluminum or steel alloys and carry compressed gas allowing the diver to breathe underwater.

Depending on the dive duration, you can carry a single cylinder or opt for similar double cylinders. The cylinders are more commonly filled with air but can be filled with mixed gasses for shorter decompression periods during ascending.

The air in the cylinders is compressed to several hundred times the atmospheric pressure with the internal volume and ranges between three to eighteen liters with a max pressure rating of 184 to 300 bars. The bar reading will reduce as you use up the air in the tank.

Conclusion

Scuba diving is a fun and exhilarating experience, but preparing for your first dive can be overwhelming with all the equipment that you need to get you swimming like a fish. It’s essential to familiarize yourself with the equipment, understand how it works, and follow the rules so that your first dive is an unforgettable experience.