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Scuba diving is a sport in which you can lose yourself to the beauty of the underwater world and escape gravity for a short time. You can wander among kelp forests or swim with sleek noble sharks. You can find a fortune in Spanish ducats or lose yourself in the beauty of the underwater realm. Some may say though that diving is an extreme sport and that it is too risky for anyone, it's just for the wild hooligans. Scuba Diving is a safe and enjoyable hobby despite the small risk involved. Haven't you ever wondered what it was like to swim with the fish?
Or see why all of those people would want to were all that funny looking gear and go under the water? The going below the water is little like being above the water. While underwater there are forces and laws that dictate how your body will respond to being under so much pressure. The first rule regarding the pressure water puts on the air spaces in your body is Boyles Law. It says that as the pressure increases on a given mass of gas the volume will decrease. This rule explains the popping sensation you fell when you go up in an air plain and the squeeze you feel as you go under water (The Skin Divers Bible 37, 41).
Another law is Dalton's law of partial Pressure. It says that pressure of mixed gasses is equal to the pressure exerted by the individual gas. So if a mixture of gas is say 5 % carbon dioxide then it would account for 5 % of the total pressure of the gas, because of this law the concentration of harmful gasses must be less when you are under water otherwise you can be poisoned or experience the effects of the gas that would only occur at a higher concentrate! on at sea level (47). And the last major law that governs you while underwater is Henry's law. It simply states that you can dissolve more of a gas into a liquid at higher pressure and the opposite when you release some of the pressure.
It is like when you open a bottle of pop, the gas and pop are pressurized to carbonate it and when you open the bottle bubble's form, because the pressure isn't great enough to hold it in (48). The first thing to consider when weighing the risk of Scuba diving is how good is the instruction that you need to become certified to dive. There are several major certification courses and most are recognized world wide. The following is An overview of the kind of training you will receive through the PADI Scuba diving certification course, most all diving certification courses are similar in content and requirements for certification. The first you learn is how to use and wear Scuba equipment (PADI Open 50, 108).
Some of the other skills are that you should never hold your breathe, how to operate the Scuba equipment, and proper technique for entering the water all of these basic skills and several other will be taught to the students by an instructor who has been trained to teach the skills effectively and to determine wether you are competent to Scuba dive. As you progress through the class you are taught in a classroom setting for about half of the time and then the! other half of the time is spent in a swimming pool where the students can master the necessary skills for diving without having the pressure and risk of being in the open water. Near the end of the class the students begin to dive in the open water with the instructor so that they become acclimated to being underwater in conditions that are not as secure as say a swimming pool. With the instructor along side the student the student's fears are quelled and the student is safer, because if anything were to go wrong the instructor would be right there to remedy the problem or to assist the student to the surface. During the open water dives the student demonstrates to the instructor that they can handle the conditions and that the can perform the skills that they have been taught.
Some of the skills that would have been mastered at this point are. How to breath from a buddies spare regulator, in the unlikely event that you should run out of air and how to help your buddy if they run out of air. How to clear water out of a flooded face mask (176). Then show that how to disassemble and maintain the Scuba Equipment you use (246). Most importantly yo! u get time to look around and enjoy a realm that most people have never before seen, and while you are underwater you can see it up close and personal.
Even though the training to get certified as a Scuba diver is very thorough there are a few risks that even the most seasoned diver runs into. Some of the problems include decompression sickness, stress, the squeeze, and the uncontrollable elements. The most common problem for most divers is a pain in their ear, sinuses, or teeth. This phenomenon is known as the squeeze, and it occurs as a result of the increased pressure of the water pushing in on the tissue in air filled cavity such as the middle ear and sinuses. This affect is caused Boyles law or that as the pressure increases the volume decreases, so the lower volume pull at the soft tissue causing pain (13 - 19). The pain caused by the squeeze can often be excruciating, but it can easily be remedied by equalizing the pressure in those airspace's.
Equalizing can be done in several ways. The first is closing your mouth while plugging your nose and then gently blowing out. Another technique is that of closing your nos! e and then swallowing or you can do it is by pushing your jaw forward and then yawning or swallowing (The Ears). These work well but to avoid the intense pain of getting the squeeze it is not recommended that you dive while you have a cold or your sinuses blocked.
One other type of the squeeze is one that occurs when there is a air space under a tooth, although this form is very rare to get when you do get it causes mind numbing pain that can last until you can get to the dentist and have the pressure relieved (PADI Open 13 - 19). One of the biggest causes of death while Scuba diving is something that could well be avoided, it's name is stress. In the years between 1976 and 1988 nine-teen percent of the deaths were directly linked to stress and panic. Most inexperienced divers can become panicked, because...
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