SCUBA DIVING- 5 Rookie Errors not just made by Newbies

Scuba Diving is something that, if you are reading this blog, I have to assume you are qualified to do or, at least, are interested in learning someday. From our first day of training, there are a number of things that we are told we must do if we want to stay safe while we are in the water doing what we love. 

Hopefully, we take this all in and we become great scuba divers but there are certain mistakes that are easy to make when we are Rookie Divers that can also affect those of us with lots of experience from doing this for years.

So, here are just 5 Rookie Errors that are not only made by beginners in Scuba.

1. Watching your Air Gauge

As a new diver, there is so much to think about while you get your buoyancy sorted, used to the regulator in your mouth and the mask on your face, finning correctly etc, that it can often be, just the gentle reminder of your instructor, Dive Guide or buddy asking what air you have left that causes you to  check that little life-safer, the SPG (Submersible Pressure Gauge).

The SPG is very very important because, like the fuel gauge in your car, it lets you know how much longer you can keep swimming underwater without running out of air.

Ok, so Newbies have an excuse, so what about the more experienced divers.

It can get to the point, especially if you are diving the same sites regularly that you have an idea of how much air you are using at any given point. In fact, if someone asked me my air at any given point on a dive, I could probably tell them to within 10 bar based on the dive time and dive profile. I wouldn't need to check the gauge... but I do!!

I could have a leak somewhere in my equipment that is causing me to lose air faster than I think I am using it!

Maybe, I am feeling a little tired or the under the weather and my consumption has gone up. Don't mock, it can be a considerable difference, especially if you pair it with a current or a buddy that you are trying to assist.

Bottom line is, you have the gauge for a reason. Don't guess your air, you should know what you have at all times to ensure you can ascend safely from every dive and don't get caught short.

2. Not making Buddy Checks

As a new diver, you are taught to make buddy checks before every dive you do. There are usually 3-5 steps depending on which agency you learn to dive with and you learn them by doing the checks over and over. Then, the training finishes and you start to dive and the guide no longer makes you do the checks while watching over you and your buddy just doesn't seem interested.

For the experienced Divers, I get it! You have done this enough and can check your own gear before you get in the water. You know how your own equipment works and those rental ones are always the same controls! 

I know I switched my air on before I got into my rig and I am ready to go, if you aren't?  Tough!!!

Buddy Checks are a great way to make sure you know exactly where everything is on your system and your buddy does too. In the event of an emergency, this could be the difference between life and death.

Alternate Air Sources and Weight Releases can vary quite drastically from one rig to another and if the stuff really hits the fan, do you want something so basic like not finding the weight release to be the reason an incident becomes an accident?

If nothing else, buddy checks have often helped to catch those times when cylinder valves haven't been opened, opened fully or re-closed by a well-meaning "checker" who didn't know which way to turn the valve.

3. Not Dropping Weights in an Emergency

This one gets me, as I have heard Dive Professionals say to their students that weights should only be dropped as a last resort since they are so expensive. This is certainly not a mantra that divers should die by.

If there is any kind of problem and you cannot get yourself buoyant, release the weights. If your diving buddy is having problems and you need to help get them buoyant, drop the weights.

6 kilos of lead (average diver) here in Cyprus costs around €30. You cannot be replaced so easily! So, if you need to drop the weights, even if you just aren't sure, let them go. Better safe than sorry!

4. Rushing

I see this from all level of divers at all points in diving.

Completing skill circuits with beginners and Dive Masters alike, rushing through a skill often means you miss a step and mistakes happen. Take a bit of time, it gives you the opportunity to think through what is coming next and likelihood is, you will nail it sooner.

The other way to ruin your diving by rushing is when preparing for the dive. 

I myself, have spent so much time rushing around helping other divers that I have driven all the way to Limassol to dive the wrecks and then realised I have left all my equipment here in Protaras. Thankfully, I was able to rent kit, otherwise that could have been very embarrassing and a total wash out for my divers.

Moral of the story is, when getting ready for a dive, no matter what level you are at, you need to take a bit of time (sometimes just 10 minutes is enough, sometimes it is just better to get as much as possible organised the night before) and concentrate on you. When you are certain that you are prepared and ready for the dive to come, you can help others and be more productive.

5. Task Overloading

Many Diving incidents are caused, not by equipment malfunction or bad planning but by creating stress underwater by doing too much all at once.

When we start teaching Technical Diving, one of the main points of the Dive Plan is to set an Objective or a Mission. This is so each member of the team knows what the point of this particular dive is. To do everything you want to achieve may take several dives but you have the time on each dive to do this properly and safely.

For beginners and experienced divers alike, one of the biggest causes of stress we see comes from diving with things like underwater Cameras. Even something as minimal as a GoPro can be too much for divers that aren't used to using them and may be diving with new kit in new environments that could also be challenging for them.

The best tip we can offer anyone who is Scuba Diving is the KISS principle.

Keep It Simple Stupid. 

If you are making changes to your rig, make them gradually or, if you have new equipment or have gone for the complete overhaul of your kit, start off shallow at a dive site with gentle conditions to minimise stress and task loading and panic.

Scuba Diving Instructor- A day in the life!

Hello fellow scuba divers and welcome back to our blog.

I know, we haven't really shared much in the way of blogs over the winter season but, funnily enough, life has been pretty hectic, even in the "off-season".

We have renovated the new shop, serviced all the Dive Centre equipment; cylinders, BCDs and wings and regulators, so all are looking good and in excellent working condition for you guys when you come to visit.

However, it is time to get back to the nitty gritty and I thought a nice way to start the blog for the Summer Diving Season 2016 would be to give you an insight into the day of a Scuba Diving Instructor at Scuba Tech in Cyprus.

MORNINGS.

We are pretty early risers!

As I am sure you can imagine, the sun comes up pretty early in Cyprus and by 5am, it is shining brightly over Protaras, which means it is beaming in through our open windows, waking us up to another bright sunshiney day.

It is important to have a proper breakfast, since scuba diving uses so much energy and so first thing is first and we fuel up for the morning.

Once we are at the dive centre, the work really begins. Before Divers arrive, we have to check the compressor to make sure it is set for the day, get paperwork organised, answer emails and update Facebook, Twitter and all the other Social Media Portals and ensure all the equipment is dry and back where it is supposed to be, ready for your arrival. The water cooler needs to be switched on, so there is plenty of cold water to hydrate or hot water for teas and coffee.

DIVING

Our day is a cycle of getting paperwork signed, equipment sorted and together, heading out for the dive, diving, coming back to clean and dismantle equipment and re-fill the tanks.

We usually make 2-3 dives a day.

The diving side can be really varied depending on what we are doing and who we are diving with. Sometimes, they are training dives, so we practice dive skills or they may just be fun dives to get out and dive. Wreck diving, shore diving and getting out onto the Zenobia Wreck are just some of the things that we offer.

Sometimes, we may be introducing a diver to the underwater world for the first time and that is a great pleasure. Showing someone our world and seeing the big smiles when they surface, proud of their achievement, is like nothing else!

On occasion, we may also make night dives, so we put our torches on charge, wait until the sun goes down and pull out the Dive centre BBQ, so we can have some dinner before we go.

The great thing about the diving we do here at Scuba Tech, Cyprus, is the variety. We may do the same dive sites over the course of a week or a year but every one is different because they are with different people doing different things.

AFTER DIVING

Once the diving is finished, there is the final task of cleaning up and re-filling the cylinders for the next day of diving. Floors are swept and mopped, tables wiped and equipment locked away to dry overnight.

We have long days that are action packed, so it is no surprise that 9 times out of 10, we will be in bed, fast asleep by 10pm.

Good Night y'all.

World Environment Day

The UN has declared that every year on the 5th June, we will celebrate World Environment Day.

Created in 1972, World Environment Day is a means to highlight the issues facing our environment and raise awareness amongst the general population. Like the Olympics, it is hosted by a different City in a different country and this year, it is Italy's turn to host the events.

Each year has a theme and this year that is Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care!

With our Mediterranean neighbours hosting along with this year's theme, it brings forward thoughts of the plights of our oceans. There is so much reliance on the Oceans, to both make money and for survival, that it is really unsustainable to keep so much pressure on its resources from so many different places.

Besides sustaining life and supporting a whole underwater ecosystem, our oceans provide food (around 90 billion kgs of fish and shellfish are caught every year) and a means of transport for goods and people travelling. We mine our oceans for minerals such as; salt, copper, iron and nickel and, of course, we drill them for oil.

So, it is important that we look after them!

We need to manage our fishing and make it sustainable. Know which fish species are at risk and don't eat them because a lack of demand means the supply is no longer viable. Trawling and Dredging, gill nets and drift nets not only damage and destroy underwater habitats, they are responsible for over 27 billion tonnes of wasted fish and by-catch a year.

Don't Litter!

Sounds easy enough but when you are out on your relaxing cruise boat or even lying on the beach, be sure to put your empty cans, food wrappers and cigarette ends in the bin or in a bag to be taken away and disposed of later. Many a time, we finish a dive with 4 or 5 beer cans in our pockets that have been blown off the day boats as they cruise by, so a little care can go a long way.


This one goes out in particular to the Scuba Divers out there. Get your buoyancy right and watch where you put your hands and your fins in the water. Although here in Cyprus, it is mostly rock and sand, you don't know what little creatures and critters are hiding nearby and you can do untold damage to the life underwater just by being careless.


In the last 50 years, the world population has more than doubled from 3.3 billion to over 7 billion in 2015 so the impact made per person adds up to devastating proportions. It isn't just the Oceans but our forests, woodlands and animal life too. We need to be a bit more discerning with our actions to try to limit the damage and make a conscious effort to give back where we can.


As Mahatma Gandhi said...

"The Earth Provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."

HAPPY WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY EVERYBODY!

Scuba Diving: A Burning Passion or Burned Out?

It is a brand new season here in Cyprus and before the mayhem begins in earnest, we decided to have a little holiday and refresh in preparation for what is to come.

Since we are also celebrating our 5 year anniversary of being Scuba Tech, it seemed like a great time to get together with some good friends and get away... and what better way for Dive Centre owners in Cyprus and Cyprus Diving Instructors to relax but... Scuba Diving in Egypt!

How can you call it a holiday when you are still doing your jobs you may ask?

Ever heard the old adage, a change is as good as a break.? Well, it is true. We love Scuba Diving and although it is work, it is also a hobby for us and to remain this way over the 25 years I have been a Diver has taken some effort on my part.

Whatever you do, wherever you are, once you get complacent with something, you can easily get bored. This is particularly true if whatever you are doing is repetitive.

For example, I used to work at a diving centre where the bulk of business came from PADI Discover Scuba Diving. When I first started to work there I quite enjoyed the feeling of taking someone in the water for the first time. Seeing the smiles as they came out of the water and the achievement each new diver reached, especially those who initially struggled was a highlight. However, after 3 years of doing these experiences 2-3 times a day, every day, the sheen soon wore off.


We call it burn out!

So, how do we stop this from happening or re-find our enthusiasm if it already has?

For me, I wasn't sure where to go. Initially, I considered underwater videos and photography and did a few bits with that such as; underwater adverts and even some footage for the tv series "My Greek Kitchen". However, we soon realised that was more Shelley's forte!

Eventually, I found Technical Diving and, although I had always said I would never do it, it rekindled a spark for diving that hasn't left me since.

I attribute this to every day being different. Some days I guide qualified divers, some days I teach Technical Diving, sometimes I dive or teach the Rebreather and sometimes I am servicing Dive kit in the workshop. There are even times when I take beginners for Discover Scuba Diving Experiences and the satisfaction of taking a brand new diver in the water has returned.

To ensure the variety, it is definitely worth investing in your diving so you don't get burn out. If you find you are getting bored of the same old routine, it is time to shake it up a little bit.

There are many different aspects of diving you can look into. Try wreck diving or take an underwater camera with you and develop your photography skills. You could consider Technical Diving or a Rebreather Try Dive or, like us, just take a holiday and scuba dive in a different place, see different things and meet new people.


Variety is the Spice of Life!

Heroes in a Half Shell: Turtle Dive!!

We had heard rumours of his existence and apparently he always appeared at the same time every day.

This was it! My afternoon was free and I had no divers to guide and no students to teach so I attached myself to Pete's training session down at Green Bay, camera in hand and heart in throat.

Would he still be there waiting for me?

Yes, he was!

There is nothing so peaceful as watching a turtle graze at a dive site. Settling down as he moves gracefully across the seabed it didn't take long until he seemed quite comfortable with my presence. Almost a "don't disturb me and I won't run away" pact was silently agreed between us.

As I pulled out the camera, he gave me a quick second glance before returning to his dinner of Poseidonia sea grass, unperturbed by this monstrous black housing I was pointing in his direction.


I was certainly rewarded as he posed away for the camera, quite often looking directly into the lens for me. This was one very accommodating turtle.

When he had had enough of me, he simply turned his back and this, I took as my cue to leave him be to finish his feast in style.

Although it can be fairly common to spot turtles here in Cyprus, one which allows you to sit with it and watch is quite rare and a great privilege also. These are majestic creatures that are desperately in need of our protection.

Some cultures see turtles as a resource to be exploited for medicines and cosmetics or as a delicacy for the table. Some just want to have a turtle shell for decoration, which has led to between 48% and 54% of the 328 species of turtle being threatened.

The Green Sea turtle is considered a success story after having been declared a threatened species, steps were taken to protect it and numbers have been recovering. However, there is plenty more to do.

As a scuba diver I try to look out for the local wildlife by removing any rubbish and debris from the water to prevent them injuring themselves on it. For turtles in particular, removing plastic bags from the water is important, as they can mistake these for jellyfish and suffocate.

Only one thing left to day and that is to implore you to look after our wildlife and protect our turtles:

Heroes in a Half-shell.... Turtle Power!!!

5 best questions a non diver has asked

I have been scuba diving now for more than 20 years and the past 10 of those has been in holiday resorts.

For several years I worked in a dive centre that took 2 days out of the working week to head around the pools of the local hotels, trying to tempt divers into trying scuba diving for the first time. First try it in the pool and if you think you will like it, we head out to the local shallow dive site to have a proper dive and see the fish.

This isn't something we do anymore. We still take beginners for the first dive, but it is generally via word of mouth now rather than trawling the hotels.

When I look back, I do remember with fondness some of the random questions I have been asked over those years and I would like to share some of them with you all.

Do you Live on the Island?

Well, this is Cyprus and if I didn't, it would be a really long daily commute!

Do you see Fish when you scuba dive in the sea?

www.englishexercises.org

Unless its the Jeep Safari day out up to the Troodos for fish.

This was possibly the most common question I was asked by non-divers.

Its a loaded question because half the people wanted to see fish and the other half were scared of fish. Even the little tiddlers but you can rest assured that even in a place as over fished as the Mediterranean, you will see fish if you go scuba diving in the sea.

What happens if it is wet?

It is always wet when you go scuba diving! The point is to submerge yourself in the water and so you will get wet anyway.

Rain? Oh!

We dive anyway. If you are going to get wet, it may as well be under the water.

I really want to try Scuba Diving but do I have to wear all that equipment on my back?

Do you want to be able to breathe?

Unfortunately, the equipment is a vital part of the scuba diving experience. We have to take our own air underwater because we cannot breathe without it and we need a means of breathing from the tank of air and connecting it to our bodies.

Without the equipment, its just free diving and/or snorkelling.

When you Scuba Dive, How does the Snorkel change the Water into Oxygen?

This was my personal favourite. the best question I have ever heard from a non diver! If I knew the answer to this, I think I would be a very rich diving instructor and they don't come along often.

In a change from the norm, this blog was just a bit of fun, sharing some of the questions I have had over the years that have made me laugh.

Hopefully, some or all have put a smile on your face. Let us know what questions or statements you have heard over the years that cause a giggle and let's send the laughter round the Internet and spread the fun!

PADI Advanced Open Water Course-What dives should I choose?

The past few days we have been running a PADI Advanced Open Water Course here at Scuba Tech Diving Centre and it got me to thinking about what this course has to offer to Scuba Divers.

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course

The Padi Advanced Open Water course comprises five dives at various dive sites where you practice skills related to a range of different diving experiences.

Mandatory dives include a Deep Dive, where you see the effect of increased pressure down to a maximum depth of 30m and an Underwater Navigation Dive with relevant navigational skills practice.

In addition, you can choose another 3 dives to complete. There is a great choice of dives available for the diver including; Boat Diving, Wreck Diving, Fish ID, Underwater Photography or Video and the list goes on.

From our point of view, there are only several of these Adventure dive options that are going to help you to become a better diver. The others can be fun but don't really give much to you in terms of skills that you couldn't pick up from making a regular fun dive. While you are paying for training, you may as well get the most out of it!

Peak Performance Buoyancy

The first optional Dive I would recommend to all divers is the Peak Performance Buoyancy Adventure Dive.

As I have pointed out several times over previous blogs and articles, buoyancy is the most important skill you can have as a Scuba Diver.

Skills involved on this dive include; correct weighting and positioning of weights to achieve good trim in the water, Controlled Descents, Hovering without finning or sculling (using hands), breath control practice to fine tune buoyancy, safety stops and controlled ascents.

We also allow time for a bit of finning techniques practice on this dive, as good finning will assist divers with good buoyancy control.

Sometimes, these skills can be conducted over 2 or 3 dives to ensure the Student Diver is confident and competent with everything and the extra time and effort is definitely worth it when you have mastered the art of buoyancy.

Search & Recovery

Although you aren't likely to go out scuba diving specifically to search and recover an object from underwater, the skills you learn on this Adventure Dive prove extremely useful to divers in other ways.

You will look at search patterns underwater, which are covered again in the PADI Rescue Diver course, putting you one step ahead when you decide to advance your training to this level. Divers have been known to lose items while diving when they haven't been properly secured and so, these search patterns can be useful for retrieving these things.

The training also focuses on the use of lift bags to recover the items that you have found. Under this, you are taught to tie knots that will hold strong under pressure and are easily undone when needed. This proves useful to me in my everyday life not just diving scenarios.

The lift bag itself can prove useful for other diving tasks such as repositioning and recovering a shot line, which is a necessary skill in diving around the world, meaning that the skills you learn in the Search and Recovery Adventure Dive are applicable in other areas and will provide a solid foundation for future diving you may choose to do.

Night Diving

Although, in terms of skills, there is relatively little on the night dive, I have found this Adventure Dive to be the one that greatly improves a Diver's confidence in the water.

Diving into the unknown with a very narrow field of view (what you can see in your own torch beam) can be a bit nerve-wracking for some but all divers I have ever taken on a night dive emerge with a big grin on their faces. You see life you just don't get to see on a day dive and it all seems that much bolder and braver, willing to sit and be admired before taking off into the black.

On an Adventure Night Dive, you learn how to communicate with a buddy using your torches and low-light techniques. Divers acclimatise to the dark and get to put the navigation skills previously learned into practice with, for example, a compass run. It is good experience for scuba diving in darker waters and low visibility, gives confidence and is great fun all combined.

Other Useful Adventure Dives

The other Adventure Dives that will be useful for future diving are not always available everywhere you go, so you will have to ask your instructor if these are dives you fancy doing. These useful experience dives include; Altitude Diving, Drift Diving and Drysuit Diving but their usefulness will depend on where you will continue your diving and other variables.

I enjoy teaching the PADI Advanced Open Water Course and I think most instructors would probably say the same thing. The theory is minimal and so you get to spend more time where it matters... in the water and the range of different diving activities you can conduct are so varied, it is impossible to get bored but before you book on that Advanced Open Water course, just remember there is a serious side to scuba diving and to be prepared for it, you want to build up your skillset as much as possible.

Become a confident, competent diver that other divers want to dive with and the fun will come to you!!

Easter Diving: Avoiding Hot Cross Bunnies and Broken Eggs!

So Easter is just around the corner. It is the time for long eared, pink Bunnies and chocolate Eggs a plenty, which we have to hunt out in the April showers with the little ones.

The real meaning of Easter

For many Scuba Divers the real meaning of Easter comes from the hunt for Scuba Diving Equipment abandoned over the cold months of winter.

We are extremely lucky that Cyprus offers favourable conditions for year-round diving but some resorts/countries just aren't so lucky and some scuba divers prefer to only dive in the summer months. So at this moment in time, there are divers from all around the world preparing for the summer season to begin.

Old wardrobes are being opened to reveal moth eaten BCDs.

Long locked garages release the fusty stench of damp wetsuits and drysuits left hanging in the hope that they will dry completely, quickly masked by the smell of Aquasure glue as leaks and tears are repaired in time for that first dive of the year.

Dive Tables come out, computer batteries are replaced and regulators are handed over to a frustrated repair/servicing technician who has had nothing to do for 6 months only to find himself with 50 sets of regulators that all need servicing by the next day!

The Dive

The treasure that we find at the end of this Easter Hunt, is that joyous feeling of getting back into the water again. The water looks clear and blue and the sun has even come out to watch you on this tremendous day, making the water appear warm and inviting.

The BCD fills and you execute a perfect entry into the water. As your buddy joins you, you signal, deflate and exhale to drop smoothly under the surface.

Now, for most, it will feel like you have never been out of the water. Everything clicks back into place and the familiarity of your scuba equipment is like going out for coffee with a good friend. Everything is as it is meant to be.

What if it isn't?

The problem with having extended periods of time out of the water is that the feeling of familiarity doesn't always come back immediately. There could be problems with your equipment after it has been sitting for a prolonged period that you just don't find out about until you are in the water. Maybe, after Christmas and New Year, you just haven't got back to the same level of fitness that you had at the end of the diving season last year. There are many variables!

A Dive Instructor's Advice

I am not trying to put people off getting back in the water nor am I suggesting that if you are a diver you should be forced to dive year round but there does seem to be an increase in the number of dive incidents that occur as we approach Easter and the May Bank Holiday Weekends.

Just consider your experience and how long you have been out of the water before you decide to head out on that first dive and plan accordingly.

After a period of inactivity, we at Scuba Tech always start off with shallow dives that have easier entry/exits and conditions to minimise any stress while we check everything is in good working order and re-aquaint ourselves with the underwater world. 

Even highly experienced divers can feel some anxiety when getting back into the water after a hiatus, so start off easy. Pick a shallow(ish) site and don't pile on the kit for the first time. 

If you are a Tekkie, consider starting out with just the twinset, then add stages and scooters etc on successive dives.

Photographers can get in for the first dive without the camera to make sure weights and buoyancy skills are all still in good practice before adding extra distractions.

Take your time, stay safe and remember, there is a full season of scuba diving to come. Make sure you are able to enjoy it :)

Scuba Diving with Seahorses- 4 interesting facts

Scuba Diving with Sea Horses

As always, we like to keep our blogs current with what is happening at the Dive Sites here in Cyprus and over the past 12 months, we seem to be seeing more and more sea horses here around our Protaras Coastline. So, what do we need to know about Sea horses if we are Scuba Diving with them?

by Silverflight
www.mythicalcreatureslist.com

Seahorse's Scientific Name is Hippocampus

The name Hippocampus comes from ancient Greek. Hippo translates as Horse while Kampos (campus) means Sea Monster. 

I know what you are thinking... a tiny little seahorse as a Sea Monster, where did that come from?

Well in Ancient Greek Mythology, the Hippo Kampos was a creature that sported a Horse's head and shoulders while its hindquarters were coiling, scaly and fish-like. According to the mythology, the Hippo Kampos was closely related to the Sea Goat, Capricorn.

Males carry the Babies

There is a myth that Seahorses mate for life. Unfortunately, this is not true and they will readily switch if the opportunity arises. However, they may court for several days before mating and this may involve swimming side by side while holding tails or holding onto the same blade of grass while dancing around it.

Eventually, when ready, the male will open up a pouch on the front of his tail to show his mate that it is empty and she will fill it with around 1500 eggs. The female departs and the male will carry the eggs for between 9 and 45 days.

Once they are ready, the seahorses emerge. There can be, on average, between 100 and 1000 seahorses, which are extremely small but fully formed. At this point, there is no more care from daddy; Just a cheerio, best of luck, where's my next mate?

A Seahorse Swims Vertically

Alongside Razor Fish, sea horses are the only species that swim vertically through the water column. This makes them very vulnerable in high winds and rough seas, as they tire easily.

They move through the water by rapidly fluttering a dorsal fin while using pectoral fins that are located behind the eyes to steer.

Maybe it is for this reason that the sea horse doesn't tend to travel far. They make territories for themselves and the males tend to stay within a square metre of this while females can travel up to 100m squared.

The Seahorse is very Sensitive to Stress

A seahorse is very sensitive to Stress and to light.

When you see a Seahorse while Scuba Diving, keep a good distance and make sure you are neutrally buoyant. I find the Zoom works extremely well to get good photographs of a seahorse.

Use natural light where possible, as strobes and dive lights do stress these little creatures. If you must use a light, try a red filter to create a softer more diffused light which they should be less sensitive to. 

NEVER try to touch it!!!

It is great to see sea horses thriving like this in Protaras and I hope we can all come together to help these vulnerable little creatures to survive the odds, as it is fantastic to be able to see them on a dive. Although, I did hear tales of the Ayia Napa sea monster just a few weeks ago and I wonder now, if this is the creature they were talking about and he has a Hyde Side

Buoyancy Basics Part 4: Breath Control

Scuba Diving Basics

Breath Control for Buoyancy

As we continue to look at the basics of buoyancy control when Scuba Diving, we come to possibly the most common means of adjusting buoyancy, which is breathing.

As we discussed last week, the Buoyancy Control Device can be used to adjust a diver's buoyancy but the experienced diver will only use this for large changes in buoyancy such as ascent and descent. For minor changes, we prefer to use our lungs. Please bear in mind that this will only work for those using open circuit and rebreathers are a totally different kettle of fish!

Imagine you are scuba diving alongside a wall maintaining great buoyancy mid water at 30m when suddenly looming ahead of you is a beautiful Fan Coral in your direct line of travel. You decide that the easiest way to get around it is to ascend slightly and swim over it. What do you do?

One possibility is to add some air to the BCD to ascend but this will expand as you ascend and it gets a bit messy when you start adding and subtracting air from your BCD for these minor changes.

The best practice in this situation is to breathe in deeply. When we take a deep breath, we increase our buoyant force in the water (if you do not know what this is, please refer to our Buoyancy Basics 1 article) and become a little bit more positively buoyant. You will find that you begin to rise in the water, at which point, you simply have to begin to exhale for control.

Equally if you want to descend slightly, you can breathe out a bit further, making your lungs a bit emptier than you would normally have them. You will begin to descend and then you can just inhale for control.

REMEMBER 

At NO point should a Diver Hold their Breath!!!!

Using breath control to adjust your buoyancy is very easy but it does take a lot of practice to get it spot on. However, you will have already started to learn this technique with Hovering skills, ascent and descent training on your basic scuba diving courses.

I have seen a number of divers over the years that have insisted that all the dive should be controlled using breath control and only inexperienced divers have to use the BCD. 

THIS IS NOT TRUE

There is a reason we have a BCD and it should be used to make big changes in buoyancy while breath control is for the small changes. If we didn't need the BCD, we wouldn't have it!

So when you are learning to improve your buoyancy skills when scuba diving, remember there are a number of things to consider underpinned by Archimedes Principle and Volume/Density relationships (which we will look into at a later date) and you have been given the tools to control buoyancy, so make use of them. You will find that the easier you can make your diving; with good weighting, using BCD and breath control, the easier it will be to achieve perfection.

Buoyancy Basics Part 3: Buoyancy Control Devices

When you are Scuba Diving, it should not feel like you are exerting yourself. If diving feels strenuous, you are generally doing something wrong somewhere. Most experienced Divers (not the ones pushing the boundaries of scuba who can experience stress but for very different reasons) will tell you that diving should be a relaxing, easy past time... and they are right.

Perfecting your Buoyancy Skills is the best way to make your diving strain free and now we understand the basic principles behind buoyancy, we can look at what we can do to make our diving better by improving this core skill.

There are a number of things that affect buoyancy and we have previously discussed weighting for scuba diving and, hand in hand with weighting is use of your Buoyancy Control Device (BC).

Whether you dive in a wetsuit or a drysuit, your primary means of buoyancy control should be your BCD or Wing, which makes this piece of diving equipment crucial to perfect buoyancy control and having the correct BC for the diving you do is essential.

So, a BC (whether jacket style, wing or sidemount BC) is basically a bladder to which you can add or subtract air to control your position in the water column. It will have some means of actually adding the air and this is usually through a low pressure system, allowing you to add air from the cylinder, while dump valves are used to release air, alongside an Over Pressure Release Valve (OPRV) to prevent over filling.

The BC must have sufficient lift capacity to hold the diver and full kit at the surface with their head comfortably above the water line...Just as a note to this, if your BC will not hold you at the surface but you have 20kgs of lead on your weightbelt, drop some lead before you go out and buy a bigger BC... you have overweighted yourself and this will cause problems both at the surface and in the water...

Before any dive, you should check your BCD is working correctly by connecting it up to the cylinder and inflating it fully until the OPRV kicks in. Then check all the dump valves to make sure nothing sticks open or closed.

On the dive, you should add air in small amounts on the descent.

As we descend, the increasing water pressure causes the air we put into our BC to compress and we need
to add more air to equalise it to the ambient pressure.

Equally, as we ascend, the decreasing water pressure causes the air in our BC to expand and we need to release some. Again, this release of air should be in small amounts and you should ensure that the valve you are using to subtract the air from the BC is the highest point in the water, as air rises.

If you are using the Over the Shoulder Inflator/Deflator, you must hold this up above your head and come into a more head up position in the water. If you are an advocate of the kidney dump to stay in trim, you must roll slightly to make the kidney dump the highest point in the water.

It is important that you know how to operate the BC and know where all the controls are without having to fumble, so you can make a speedy adjustment, if needed. This is where a check dive can be invaluable if you are hiring equipment and getting advice from someone who knows what they are talking about is second to none when buying your own kit.

BCs are pretty standard for a reason. They work! Variations are quite often just gimmicky sales pitches that are more likely to hinder than help and with a piece of Diving Equipment that is so central to the core Diving skills, it is important to get a BCD that works for the Diving you will do.

Buoyancy Basics Part 2- Salt vs Fresh Water

Scuba Divers in Seawater

Continuing on from our first buoyancy basics blog last week, we will move on to the difference between buoyancy in salt water compared to fresh water. If you haven't read last week's basics, please do, as it underpins what will be read here.

During our scuba diving beginner courses, we learn that if we dive in Fresh water, we need to use less lead weight on a set diving equipment rig than we would in salt water. Generally speaking, if we move from the salty sea to a swimming pool, we drop around 2kgs off our weight belts.

But why is this?

The answer is actually quite complex but we will look at it in the most simple terms possible.  Again, it relates back to Archimedes Principle.

Salt water is water with salt in it, therefore, it is heavier (for a given volume) than fresh water, which is water without salt!! 1 litre of fresh water weighs approximately 1 kg while salt water is more like 1.04kg per litre. This increased weight means the salt water has a greater upward or buoyant force.

Archimedes principle states that an object will float or sink depending on the weight of water it displaces. If the weight of water the object displaces is more than its own weight, the object floats, while if the weight of the water displaced is less than that of the object, it sinks.

So, imagine our 80kg diver is neutrally buoyant in fresh water. This is because s(he) displaces 80 litres of water giving an 80kg buoyant force counteracting the 80kg down force.

If we move our diver to the sea, the additional weight of the salt in the water causes the buoyant force of the water to increase to approximately 83.2kgs, (80 x 1.04) which is greater than the 80kgs down force of our diver, making them more buoyant and in need of a few extra weights.

Neutral Buoyancy in Salt Water Caves

However, the amount of salt in the sea varies depending on where in the world you are. Even diving in the Mediterranean, the seawater is much more salty around Cyprus than around the Western Med and of course, diving in the Dead Sea would require an awful lot more weight than pretty much anywhere else. So this isn't exactly a science that can be mathematically computed pre-dive.

Tried and tested is to get in the water, do a weight check and scuba dive. You will eventually get the knack for guess-timating the weight that you will need as your environment and diving equipment changes.

5 Diving Myths Dispelled

People who don't scuba dive may form preconceptions about what it is that we do and how easy or difficult it is to learn to scuba dive. Well, here are 5 commonly heard around the hotel pool myths that we can cancel out right now

1.  I'm too Old/Young to learn Scuba Diving

Quite often people are put off learning to dive because they think they have passed the age where they are fit enough to take part and young enough to "learn new tricks".

You can in fact learn to scuba dive at any age. Children as young as 8 can try scuba and we have a member of our diving club in the UK that continued to scuba dive into his 80s. A recent article online has told us of the oldest diver who only started diving at the age of 53 and is now in his 90s.

2.  Its a man's sport

Over the years, scuba diving has very much been marketed at men, as they were the adventurous ones who would partake but things are changing and although, scuba is still very male dominated, there are more and more female divers coming on the scene.

To the point now, where dive equipment manufacturers have started producing dive kit specifically designed and marketed towards the female diver. Female instructors are becoming more and more commonplace too.

3.   Diving is Expensive

Like anything you do, diving can be expensive or it can be cheap. It all depends on how far you want to take your new hobby and how much you want to invest in it.

Learning to dive costs around 400 euros (including all manuals and certification fees) which is quite cheap when you consider what you get. A diving certification can take you anywhere in the world and you will see sights that most people in the world will never get to see. 70% of our planet is water... do you really want to be confined to just 30% of it!!!

Diving equipment varies in price from absurdly cheap to out and out wallet squeezing but if you don't want to invest in your own kit because you only dive on holiday, you can always rent kit when you dive. Second hand equipment can often be found on auction sites and/or social media pages at very reasonable prices too but be aware that, while bits such as wetsuits might be ok, always get life preserving equipment checked out by a diving technician before using it to make sure they are safe to use.

Diving can be cheap... life is not!

4.  I live too far from the sea

Diving can be a full time hobby or something you just do occasionally on holiday but it doesn't matter how far
you are away from the sea. Anywhere you can find a body of water, you can go scuba diving!

In the Uk, many people dive in old quarry sites, many of which have "attractions" put in for divers. Other countries make use of inland lakes and for the hard core divers, the puddle in your back yard from all the rain this winter ;)

5.   It takes too Long

You can learn to dive with just 2 spare days. This will allow you to achieve the PADI Scuba Diver course. It is half of the open water training (1st full certification) and you will only be certified to dive with another qualified PADI professional but it is a step on the qualification ladder and can be upgraded at any time.

During this course you are shown how to control your buoyancy and breathing and other basic skills needed to go scuba diving, and these will be built upon as you progress in your diving career.

Hopefully then, I have dispelled any reasons you have for not learning to Scuba Dive. It really is an inclusive sport where different kinds of people from all different backgrounds can get together and have a great time. It doesn't matter who you are, where you live or what you do... at heart, we are all just Scuba Divers!

Alive and Inking! Its the Occie in the Rocky

When beginning a Blog about sea creatures, our first port of call is to do a little research and that, inevitably, means a Google search. Imagine my dismay when the top of the rankings for Octopus is the nutritional information of a cooked Octopus.

Now, being based in Cyprus where Octopus is a delicacy (we are often asked in restaurants to "bring a couple up for the grill") I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised but as a Scuba Diver, I prefer my Octopi (yes, Octopi but you can also use octopuses or octopedes as the plural form) alive and inking!

So, what do we know about the Octopus?

The octopus is a cephalopod of the order Octopodo. This literally means 8 feet and the Octopus has... wait for it...8 legs!!! There are over 300 species of Octopus but the most common, unsurprisingly, is the Common Octopus, which can be found anywhere from Coral Reefs to sandy bottoms, shipwrecks and... breeze blocks?

Although they have 3 hearts, the life span of an Octopus is pretty short and reproduction is a death sentence. Males die within months of mating while the females tend to neglect eating during the month it takes for the eggs to hatch and die of starvation.



Octopi have a soft body with no skeleton, which allows them to squeeze into tight spaces. The only hard part of the body is the short crushing beak, which is used for eating crabs, molluscs and worms. Sometimes they crush their prey's shell while other times they drill down into the shell and inject the prey with a paralysing saliva before excavating the soft body.

It is important to note that ALL OCTOPUS ARE VENEMOUS!!! Even that little cute one below!

The only one that is known to be poisonous to humans is the Blue Ringed Octopus.

A predator it is but the Octopus also falls prey to other creatures in the sea. They have a number of defence mechanisms they employ to protect themselves.

1. Primary defence is their ability to camouflage or hide from their Predators.
2. Fast escape is the secondary defence in case the predator had already spotted them
3. Inking. The thick black ink is thought to affect the olfactory organs so predators cannot smell the Octopi
4. Some Octopi can even detach their arms, like a lizard does its tail, to distract the predator while the Octopus makes its escape. This is species specific and not all octopus can do it.

Clever little Occie

Remember Paul the Psychic Octopus?

Maybe not that clever but scientific experiments have shown that Octopus have shown the capability to store long and short term memories and differentiate between shapes and patterns while enjoying playtime and using tools. In fact, Octopi are so intelligent that the common octopus, as an amendment in 1991, was listed as protected under the Animal Scientific Procedures Act of 1986, which regulated the use of animals for research in the UK.

The biggest Octopus known is the Giant Pacific Octopus, which can weigh up to 15kg with the biggest ever recorded weighing in at a whopping 75kg with an arm span of 4m. Much as I love to see Octopus, that isn't one I'd like to meet on a night dive.

So the next time you are scuba diving and spot that Octopus racing across the seabed, just remember to respect it because he has a memory like JAWS! and Daddy Occie might be right around the corner!