May, 2017
The two diving skill sets every passionate diver should consider
This post about skill sets is for serious divers who are truly passionate about diving all that this world has to offer, every ocean, every lake, every river. If that’s not you, then read no further!
The world is your oyster!
To me, any body of water is diveable given the right skills and logistics, it’s just a matter of whether it’s worth your time or curiosity.
My endless curiosity has always made me wonder what’s just a little deeper, just around the corner, underneath the surface.
Over time, I’ve built up a set of skills that I think truly allows me to look at any body of water on earth and think seriously about diving it.
All the time in the world
The first limitation in diving is one of time.
No decompression time limits and gas volumes limit most divers to about an hour on each recreational dive.
However, with technical diving, these limitations are made irrelevant with the appropriate logistics and skills.
In a technical diving course, you’ll learn how to manage different gas mixes, allowing for deeper dives and extensions of bottom time.
You would also learn how to calculate the decompression time and gas necessary to accomplish this.
Once you have the ability to dive with multiple tanks, then gas volumes also become irrelevant.
It just comes down to how many tanks you can carry or stage during your dive. It becomes a question of logistics.
Technical diving isn’t only about depth, but rather about decompression.
This can be calculated for a 2-hour dive at 25m, or a 1-hour dive at 75m.
Either way, doing a technical diving course allows you to go past recreational depths and time limits, whilst ensuring that you have the knowledge to plan enough bottom gas and deco gas to complete the dive.
It’s only cold in space
After getting technical diving skills, the next limitation most people face is the temperature.
Extended duration dives tend to suck the warmth from you, even in 28C water.
Warm water diving is actually limited to only a few degrees of latitude north and south of the Equator, and only tens of meters below the surface.
Once past the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, and you’re definitely in cold water country.
This leaves large areas of water that you’ll definitely need a drysuit to dive in.
Why limit yourself to Earth’s wonders that are only in warmer locales?
What about diving between continental plates in Iceland, or the wrecks of the North Sea?
So, the next most important skill set is learning how to dive with a drysuit.
This does take some time to get used to, as managing thick undergarments is no walk in the park.
But once you do, then all the wonders of the northern and southern latitudes will open themselves up to you, as well as longer dives in warmer waters.
Get wet anywhere!
With these two skillsets, I truly believe it enables divers to dive anywhere in the world you might want to.
Overcoming depth, time and temperature limits are not easy and will take some time to accomplish.
But just imagine knowing you can dive anywhere in the world. What a rush!
Bonus skill – getting in over your head
As a bonus, here’s the third set of skills that I think a true explorer should learn – cave diving, the last frontier.
I personally learned cave diving not because of the caves, but rather for the skills and knowledge of how to do dives in overhead environments.
These skills come in very handy when diving in wrecks, sea caves, or any kind of environment where you don’t have a direct ascent to the surface.
The true skill here is in learning how to better plan and manage your gas supply to guarantee that you and your teammates can safely ascend to the surface.
Another important skill set that cave diving teaches you is line management.
This is very useful in any survey or mapping exercise and keeps you on your toes as far as navigation is concerned.
Now, get out there and dive!
And there you have it, my three picks for the skill sets that you should consider to be a limitless diver!
When should I use a reef hook?
Umm, how about never?
Reef hooks… Such a pet peeve of mine…
It’s hard to agree with the general idea of reef hooks in the first place if you are concerned about the health of a reef, but some people swear by it!
How strong the current is, is the wrong question
Any sign of a strong current and divers start to bring out their reef hooks. Sigh…
I think that’s the wrong question though, not all current is strong enough that you need to hook onto a reef.
Where are you going, is the correct question
It’s more important to have an idea of why you are staying in place and not drifting with the current.
Some sites, like shark watching or manta cleaning stations, require you to stay in one position while you’re watching the show, so that you don’t drift forward and interrupt the animals.
However, I think that’s putting a band-aid on the symptom and not solving the real problem of why people can’t hold their position in the water.
Is it any wonder that Makassar Reef in Komodo (mantas) and Monad Shoal near Malapascua (thresher sharks) are full of coral rubble, and there’s barely a reef left?
Kick you must, or drift you shall
In places like these, I’ve found that the current is never strong enough that you can’t really kick against it.
If the current was really that strong, the animals wouldn’t be able to stop and hover at the cleaning stations either.
Learning to kick efficiently and maintaining a streamlined trim position is the correct solution.
Rather than relying on tools like reef hooks and pointers to hold your position.
Patience you must have, my young padawan
As divers, we should be patient when at these cleaning stations.
Observe what we came to observe, and leave when the time is right.
After all, how long do you really need to see a manta be cleaned?
Be like the water, and flow
In certain cases, sure, the current can be stronger than you can handle.
In those situations, I would recommend just putting a finger down on a rock or the sand.
It’s much less intrusive and damaging than a piece of metal that doesn’t have any feelings.
You’ve no idea how many times I’ve seen a reef hook dragging through a reef like a plow through wet mud.
I’ve even seen a metal pointer get broken in half because it was stabbed hard on a rock.
I shudder to think how many other corals died along the way.
Once it’s time to go, then be like the water, and flow.
Drift on, my friend…