Diving Tips and Advice

- Planning Your Dive

There's plenty of room for spontaneous exploring when you're under the surface. You'll find new, colorful species of fish, coral and dozens other interesting things to attract your attention. The excitement of exploring the unexpected is a large part of the fun. But the only way to do that safely and intelligently is to plan your dive well in advance.

Planning your dive requires taking a number of items into account.

When you pick a location, you'll need to consider such obvious items as transportation time and costs, legal restrictions and so forth. Diving a lake 10 minutes from home obviously requires an entirely different set of criteria than flying thousands of miles, then taking a boat out in the Red Sea.

You'll need to check out the expected weather conditions for the time of year at your proposed location. If you plan to recover lost items you need to investigate the laws regarding treasure hunting and export. You'll need to research local support for tank refill, equipment repair and so forth.

On a week-long dive so far from home, you'll do well to have a backup location. You probably won't have the time and money to switch from, say, Marsa Alam to Hurghada. Having an alternate location or two in the same region can turn a big disappointment into a great new discovery.

Apart from researching hotels and flights you'll want to book a charter or rent a boat. That should be done well in advance, especially in the popular season for that area. Diving is a very popular sport!

You should always dive with at least one buddy, and on long dives there should be preferably a minimum of three divers. Diving can be dangerous and it may, for example, be necessary for one diver to surface for help while another stays with the third. A diver can be stuck, injured, in need of air sharing or a slow ascent. That person shouldn't be left alone while his buddy surfaces for help if it can be avoided.

In any dive, there should be one and only one leader. Usually that will be the most experienced diver and he or she should help plan the dive and guide the others under the water. That doesn't mean everyone swims in lockstep, but it helps minimize confusion and maximize safety.

Everyone should agree in advance on the major location, entry and exit points, activity and length of the dive. It may look exciting in the movies, but arguments under water are the quickest way to danger. Let that danger stay in the theater. Discuss with your dive partners a contingency plan that incorporates what to do in the most likely scenarios.

That could be swift underwater currents, injury, equipment failure, head pressure, fainting or a number of other possibilities. That will vary with location, diver experience, quality of equipment, etc.

The professional's saying is 'Plan your dive and dive your plan'. Any large deviation should be only out of emergency need, not whim. That way you'll be able to dive again and enjoy that thing you just discovered that made you want to change the plan.

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