20 ways to boost your diving in '99
Forget the painful New Year's resolutions that involve giving things up - go for resolutions that give you more! Diver shows you how to improve your diving life and (apart from the get-fit-not-fat part) it won't hurt a bit...
1Master decompression theory
Since modern computers arrived,many divers have paid only lip-service to decompression theory during their training. However, understanding what happens to your body when you go under water and breathe compressed air can be essential to your future well-being. Go back and look at your training manual.
2Get a computer
Once you understand the theory, get to grips with the technology. Computers are probably the most important safety aid for divers. There is no substitute for modern electronics when it comes to accurately measuring your dive-time, depth and ascent rate. If you do a lot of diving and already have a computer you rely on, consider investing in a second one for back-up.
3Go to the Red Sea
If in the past you've limited yourself to the difficult conditions found in home waters, look overseas. The northern Red Sea is the British diver's first choice when it comes to venturing abroad and for very good reasons, including brilliant visibility and great marine life on coral reefs and walls. Not only that, it also represents remarkable value for money that is probably unbeatable anywhere! And if you're an old Red Sea hand, why not try somewhere different? The Maldives has probably become the other destination of choice for European divers.
4Get FIT
A casual glance at a group of typical British divers gives the lie to the image of Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt and the diver as a fighting-fit super-hero. Take a look at your lifestyle and diet. Do you take enough exercise? Do you get most of your protein from beer?
5Lighten up
If your body-weight is OK, the next thing to look at is the amount of lead you need. Many divers enter the water with excessive amounts of weight strapped on to them. With an empty tank and breath part exhaled, you should float vertically at eye-level in the water. Exhaling fully should be enough to start you on your descent, and the water pressure immediately encountered will balance the next inhalation.
6Perfect that buoyancy
As the hard-hat tradition of diving fades, divers no longer plunge straight down to the dive site and scramble around on the seabed before rushing back to the surface. Modern divers need to perfect their buoyancy so that they can hang around effortlessly - just like fish - at any depth, in complete control of their dive.
7Streamline your gear
Take a good look at the way your equipment is configured. Are you dangling items and trailing hoses? Tuck everything away so that you're slick in the water, but make sure everything is still accessible when you need it by checking it out in controlled conditions.
8Get green
We are privileged visitors to that part of the world non-divers can only guess at. We are the witnesses to the way our seas are deteriorating and it's our duty to look but preserve. Let's be sure our brief visits do nothing to hasten the decline of our planet's health. Look, photograph, but don't touch.
9Save air
It's a big subject but in simple terms the faster our heartbeat the greater our use of air. Slow down, relax and take it easy in the water. Get physically fit so that you are not stressed by pre-dive preparations, but dive with your brain, not your muscles. And take more than sufficient air with you to begin with!
10Be safer
Contingency planning for things going wrong is not "negative thought". It's an attitude that will keep you alive. Plan the dive and dive the plan - but be sure you know what to do if forces beyond your control change that plan.
11Suit yourself
Are you soldiering on with a diving suit that is either inappropriate or has seen better days? Get one that is right for the job in hand. If you dive in the UK, get a drysuit. If your wetsuit "shrank since you bought it", get one that fits. A comfortable suit makes a comfortable diver, and a comfortable diver is safer.
12Get down to the dive shop
Are you making do with stuff that isn't working properly? Has your regulator seen better days? Are you still using a horse-collar BC? Has your computer long been superseded by those with more modern algorithms? Does your lamp battery not hold its charge? Does your mask now need optical lenses? Are your fin straps hanging dangerously by a thread? You know what's needed.
13Get redundant
No, we don't mean lose your job and disappear to some exotic destination to go diving - although that's not a bad idea. Look at your equipment and see if you can add redundancy so that in the event of failure you always have an alternative. For example, twin cylinder valves combined with two regulators give you redundancy, whereas an ordinary alternative air source from a single first-stage does not.
14Find a new angle
First we needed to train, then we were needed to help train others. So why do you go diving now? Archaeology, marine biology, photography... take annterest in an "ology" or an "ography" and give your diving a renewed focus.
15Know your boat
It is remarkable that so few divers take an interest in the most important aspect of their safety - the boat. The RNLI will tell you how often they rescue divers because of problems with RIBs and other small dive craft. A boat is not a taxi. You can't just hop on another one if yours breaks down! Know too how and why a boat manoeuvres. When you are in the water waiting to be picked up you are very vulnerable, so it is important to understand what the coxswain is trying to do.
16Get the knowledge
Don't believe everything others tell you! When you dive, never leave crucial decisions affecting your well-being to others who might be even less well-informed. Knowledge is power, and best kept in the right hands - your own.
17Keep an open mind
It's a sad fact of life that many a man's greatest passion is defending his ignorance. Having diving certification doesn't mean you know all there is to know, and you can sometimes learn from surprising sources. There's nothing like finding that something you had always believed to be correct proves otherwise.
18Understand the sea
It might look a boring subject but the movement of water, especially around the coast of Britain, crucially affects what we do in it. There are plenty of elementary books on tides and currents, and a better understanding of water movement will help you determine when it is safe to dive and when you should knock it on the head.
19Be a lifesaver
It is to be hoped that few of us will ever need to use our life-saving skills in earnest, but be prepared to act correctly should the moment arise. And why are life-saving instructors so good at what they do? Because they practise a lot.
20Practise
A New York cab-driver was once asked how to get to Carnegie Hall. "Lady, you gotta practise," he replied. If you want to be good at anything, there is no alternative to doing it over and over until you get it right. Good technique is not learnt from a book. Put it into practice as much as you can - and that can mean in the pool as well as open water.
There is a 21st resolution, too. It is simply: Go diving!
Appeared in DIVER - January 1999
