Scuba Diving Vacations and Safety Tips

If you’re planning on scuba diving while on your next vacation, you’ll need to be aware of a few general safety tips. Don’t confuse Scuba diving vacation activities and snorkeling-they are completely different animals. In order to scuba dive, most states require that you be certified by a school.

Never go into the open water without an insulated wet suit-or a dry suit. Water is twenty five times more efficient at carrying heat away from your body. This means, essentially, that even in water you’d normally consider safe, you’re in severe danger of hypothermia. Make sure that your diving suit is thermally insulated. If it’s ripped or torn anywhere, or if the material is frayed and showing through, it is vital that you get it repaired before taking it on another dive.

If you’re learning to Scuba Dive for the first time, you should take a medical examination and have a doctor OK the expedition first. Swimming against an ocean current three hundred feet below the water’s surface is a completely different animal from swimming normally, and the danger cannot be emphasized enough. Take a swim test first, too; if you aren’t proficient enough at moving underwater, Scuba diving will just be an elongated form of suicide.

After you’ve been certified, make sure to stay away from areas you aren’t qualified to be near. Ship wrecks, coral reefs, and waters populated with sting rays, sharks, and jellyfish all require special certification and training to dive in. There may also be waters that are off-limits altogether because of politics. Scuba Divers have caused international incidents in the past because they are easily mistaken for combat divers and covert information gathering units. If certain places are off limits to you, respect those limits. They’re there to keep you from dying. (Or starting a war with México.)

That said, have a blast on your scuba diving vacation.

 
 Top of page