I am always talking about scuba diving to almost anyone who will listen. Most people at my day job know I am quite introverted. I will typically avoid conversation, preferring a book unless they lure me into a conversation with open-ended scuba diving questions. I often get several that they are looking to see if they are true or not. Here are 15 of the most common questions or comments about scuba diving I get that are myths, or at least not the whole truth.
- Diving with sharks is dangerous, and they pose a real threat to divers.
The truth is that most sharks are more afraid of divers than the divers of the sharks. When it comes to predators, they usually avoid a struggle or a fight, and they normally don’t pick on something their size. With those thoughts in mind, scuba divers typically are much larger than most shark food or prey species. That helps us stay safe. Another deterrent to a shark is that humans are highly visual creatures, so we usually face what’s in front of us. Most sharks are ambush predators or prefer the element of surprise, and most divers love seeing sharks and wildlife. The first thing we do is track the animal with our eyes, and predators notice that. Also, scuba diving is quite loud to most aquatic life. Our constant breathing and blowing of bubbles is very abnormal to all the life in the ocean, so most things, unless they are brave, curious or dumb. Stay away from scuba divers in the water.
Scuba divers will also often take precautions when diving with sharks. If the shark they are looking to see normally feeds on the water’s surface, you make great efforts to view the shark from the ocean floor. If the shark normally feeds on the ocean floor, you try to view the shark from the water column. Some species, such as a bull shark, may threaten a diver anywhere in the water, so bull sharks dive during breeding season when they are usually more focused on breeding than eating.
In a study looking at shark attacks on divers in Australia from 1960-2017, there were 187 recorded shark attacks on divers comprised of 112 snorkelers,62 divers and 13 divers on surface-supplied air. The study concluded that diving near spearfishing and other seafood collections increased the risk of a shark attack event. Source: click here
- You have to be in top physical condition to be a scuba diver.
To become a certified open-water scuba diver, you must meet swim requirements, which require some physical fitness.The requirements are to swim 200 meters, have no time limit, and be floating or treading water for 10 minutes. An open-water scuba diver requires minimal fitness. Not all diving is the same. There is recreational warm-water diving, recreational cold-water diving, and technical diving, which may require different fitness levels. Once you are scuba diving certified, you decide how fit you need to be to dive. Warm water diving is quite easy in the tropics, so many scuba divers get away with very little fitness. Check out this article that I wrote on scuba diving fitness.
- You can’t dive if you have never swum in the ocean before.
This is not true; as we mentioned in Myth 2, there are swim requirements to be a scuba diver, but they do not require you to be able to swim in the ocean first. One could be a fully competent certified scuba diver who has never dove in the ocean. There are lots of opportunities to dive when landlocked. Lakes, which I dive a lot on the Great Lakes, but there are also quarries, pools and several other options that are not the ocean if you are a scuba diver. If you do have the opportunity to dive in the ocean safely, then take the opportunity.
- The deeper you dive, the better the experience.
This one can’t be debunked because it is a personal opinion. I feel like my equipment works better when I am below 100 feet, but I have had incredible dives in as little as 20 feet of water, depending on the wreck or wildlife we see on that dive. The truth is that going deeper isn’t better; most of what is enjoyable to see in the ocean is well within recreational dive limits of(less than 130 ft). And if one would like to extend that, then technical diving is an option. Diving is not better the deeper you go. Too many factors other than depth lead to dives being great experiences, such as dive buddy, water temperature visibility and the features you see on the dive. As a rule, most training will start and going deep isn’t a valid reason to dive as it increases risk and may not increase experience/pleasure value.
- If you ascend too quickly, you will explode.
A rapid ascent is dangerous due to the risk of decompression sickness and not because it will cause you to explode. This idea may come from the concept that when a diver ascends too quickly, gases can’t leave tissues fast enough safely. Hence, as the bubble expands in our tissue, instead of being directed to a blood vessel and flowing to the lungs and off-gassing safely. The bubble became too big and, on a microscopic level, started to burst through whatever tissue was saturated with the gas. If the bubbles are in the liver, it could cause clots and tissue breakdown and the release of several enzymes, or if the bubble is in your spine around the nervous tissue, it could tare pinch or squeeze the spinal cord or any nerve through the body. Generally, the bubbles wreak havoc at a microscopic level, which could be seen as a small explosion. But the divers themselves do not explode.
- Divers carry oxygen tanks.
In general, scuba divers carry air in the scuba tanks, and the air is made up of 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen +/- 1% of other gasses. So most recreational divers will normally have breathing air in their tank or something called nitrox, simply air that is more than 21% Oxygen but not exceeding 40%. Technical divers will breathe different mixes of gasses, including helium, and may have a small talk of 100% pure oxygen only for the last 10 ft of a dive. So a general rule is if you see a diver with only one cylinder or tank on their back, they are a recreational diver breathing air. Depending on their dive plan, a technical diver will have several tanks with air mixes. No open-circuit scuba diver breathes 100% oxygen on any dive below 20 ft as this is not physiologically compatible with life. (Will kill you)
want to know more about Nitrox Diving, click here
- You can take off your scuba diving equipment underwater if it becomes uncomfortable.
As much as it is possible to take your gear off underwater, except for your regulator, for very short periods, this is an advanced skill typically demonstrated at the Dive Master Level, the first professional dive certification one can earn. This is normally not recommended and not simply because you are uncomfortable. Usually, one doesn’t take their equipment off because of discomfort. It’s normally because you are stuck somewhere or you are tangled. Both of these are extenuating circumstances that could be considered emergencies. One of my main purposes for this blog is to help people find equipment that fits properly to help them dive safely and comfortably and save money.
- Scuba Diving is an extremely dangerous sport.
Scuba diving does present the potential for danger, but with the proper training, it can be quite safe. To give you some stats;
2010, DiverAlert Network (DAN) reported in a workshop that one out of every 211,864 dives results in a fatality.
1 out of every 116,666 skydives ended in a fatality at the end of 2000 (United States Parachuting Association)
1 out of every 5,555 registered drivers in the USA died in a car accident in 2008. (Www.cenus.gov)
Using those numbers, diving is relatively safe, and in my opinion, the risk is worth the reward.
- You can dive anywhere if you are a certified diver.
Yes, for the most part, this is true if you dive within your training or certification limits. You can dive anywhere in the world. Training will generally limit your depth or exploring certified sites as in cave diving (requires cave diver certification). Scuba diving in side most shipwrecks also requires more training. Generally speaking, everywhere in the world where there is recreational diving to be had, you can participate when you are scuba certified. You won’t be able to do any diving, requiring more training and certification for your safety.
- You can’t fly after diving.
Not Being able to fly after diving has some truth to it. Still, the literature is a little foggy with exactly how long one should wait to fly after diving, as the Diver Alert Network (DAN) states that a diver shouldn’t fly within 12 hours of a dive, and the Perfessial Association of Dive Instructors (PADI) states that a diver should fly for at least 18 hours after a dive which is what I have followed and known that what most divers follow. Because of the ambiguity, DAN funded a series of trials between 1992-1999 with the Duke University Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology; these were the conclusions for single no-stop dives to 60 fsw (feet of seawater; 18 msw, or meters of seawater) or deeper, there was no DCS for surface intervals of 11 hours or longer. For repetitive, no-stop dives, DCS occurred for surface intervals of less than 17 hours.
For the original DAN article, click here.
- Scuba diving is a man’s sport.
Nothing could be further from the truth: scuba diving is for all genders. From my experience, women are some of the most advanced and accomplished divers who dive in extreme conditions and locations. I am lucky to know some of them, such as the talented Grace Maques, who has been a great mentor and support to my diving.
Along with Jill Hinearth, check out his article on her book Into the Planet, which will give you an idea of what one woman is doing in scuba diving.
- It’s safe to hold your breath while scuba diving.
Generally, you should never hold your breath when scuba diving. If you hold your breath, you have created a closed balloon of air in your lungs closed off by your mouth. When you ascend, that balloon will expand, and if the air has no way out, it will burst a hole in your lungs, putting air in your chest cavity. This is called a pneumothorax and is a severe dive injury that has the potential to cause death. There is an old-school practice that divers sometimes think helps save air called skip breathing, where you hold your breath between breaths to save air while the diver isn’t ascending or descending. This is still a terrible idea, especially on longer dives where you want to save air. As part of a normal breath cycle, every breath you hold longer than you need to will increase the CO2 in your blood. This one will cause you to breathe more, and it can also cause you to be more predisposed to getting bent as you artificially expose yourself to more CO2 than normal. This can also lead you to be narcotized by the CO2 at depth, which can lead to an unsafe situation. Generally not considered a safe practice, it should never be a habit.
- You can touch marine life as long as you’re careful.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. A responsible diver will avoid touching almost anything when underwater as much as possible. The general rule is to take pictures and leave bubbles. When divers touch marine life, there is a danger of hurting the marine life and the marine life hurting you. I have a few examples of this. Parrot fish will form a protective gel sack around themselves at night to protect them. If you touch or scare the parrot fish they will leave their gel sack and not make another for that night, leaving them vulnerable to predators. When you see them there, just sitting still, letting you get as close as you want, still doesn’t make it okay. Another reason not to touch marine life is that Pufferfish will puff up and display when they see divers. And some divers will start to play with the puffer. The action of puffing itself up is caused by it pumping and holding water in its body it is very stressful to the system to have to do that, and what many divers don’t realize is that the fish puffing up was its last resort, so when you start to play with the fist the stress along often causes it to die shortly after you leave. These are just two examples of even those you can touch the marine life its not as harmless as you think even when the animals survive your original interaction, it doesn’t mean you haven’t compromised them once you leave.
- You can dive alone once you have experience.
This isn’t a myth, and it isn’t a reality. The truth is that every certifying agency trains divers to always dive with a buddy, and there is no reason to dive alone. There is also no scuba police out there, so if you are diving alone, which is called solo diving, nobody will stop you or fine you. Yes, other divers will often approach you about it, and most dive operators do not allow solo diving. But nobody can legally stop you if you want to dive solo and have your own boat or shore dive. You are increasing your risk to scuba diving if you choose to dive solo, and if anything were to happen, you would be a statistic and possibly win a Darwin Award. Sometimes, nothing beats the sarine peace of a solo dive, though.
- The Colour red always disappears underwater.
Red and other colours diminish with depth; water visibility and other conditions can also affect how colours are visualized. Colours do get dulled the deeper you go because the blue water will absorb light wavelength the deeper you go, and red is the first colour to be lost, usually entirely gone by about 80-100 ft. One way to mitigate this effect is to have an intense dive light on you even during the day. That way, you can light up a deep reef and see a small portion of it in all its authentic, beautiful colours.
This are some of the most common comments and conversation opener I get on a regular basis hopefully this answered some of you curiosity.