The Other Half of Our Planet

The tallest mountain and the deepest of the oceans are about the same distance from sea level. We have spent most of our lives in a small space at or just above sea level, bound by gravity. As you become a diver, you will have the ability to explore just beneath the surface of our waters, where you will float free like an astronaut in space. The weightlessness you experience as a diver is the closest most of us will come to feeling what space travel is really like. Thus the point, that we are discovering the other half of our planet earth. When you compare the surface area, just over 70 percent of the earth is covered with water. Once you complete this course, you will be able to visit the wonderful world beneath the surface, our Innerspace! Dave Barry wrote: “There is nothing wrong with looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point.”

You have adapted well to your terrestrial life. You walk around held to the ground by gravity; you breathe air and are surrounded by it ultimately living in an air-filled space. In order to spend time below the surface of the water, you first become wet. Then, because you are surrounded by water, you will swim rather than walk. And you will need something to provide you with the much-needed air to breathe like you are right now on the surface. Of course, that sounds rather simple. In reality it is a bit more complicated.

Water, unlike air, makes you buoyant. Achieving control of that buoyancy is an additional experience and skill that will allow you to be totally supported by the water environment just like an astronaut out in space. To do this well requires some practice and skill on your part, and that will be included in this course.

The biggest challenge is having something to breathe so your body can receive life-giving oxygen to exchange for the carbon dioxide your body produces.

For that, we have a device for that called SCUBA. Yes, Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Again, a simple concept, but you will find it to be more complicated as you learn. The air in that tank on your back doesn’t last very long. The deeper you go, the faster you use it, and it is necessary to return to the surface before it runs out.

On a chilly day you put on a coat when going outside. When you enter water, unless the water temperature is near your body temperature, you will need a way to keep warm. Water carries heat away from your body at a much greater rate than air, and you become chilled faster. A simple exposure suit can do the job quite nicely. You just dress for the temperature wherever you are, in air, or beneath the surface in water.

As you descend into the water realm, there are some additional challenges that you must learn about. Because water is heavier than air, descending below the surface produces pressure around your body at a much greater rate than walking down a mountain path in air.

You will learn to adapt to those changes as they occur, as you become a diver. Clearing your ears so they don’t hurt as you descend is important too. Dealing with changes in buoyancy so you will neither sink nor float will take you into a gravity-free world, which is one of the neatest things about diving, neutral buoyancy.

An additional thing to consider is the effect on your mind. You don’t think much about walking on the surface or breathing the air because you have done it all your life. When you dive underwater, there tends to be some level of anxiety you must learn to control as you travel beneath the surface. So, what seems rather simple initially becomes a bit more complicated as you study to become a skin diver who must be on the surface to breathe, and then a scuba diver who takes air down with him. You will learn as you read, and your instructor will add to what you see here in this text. The more comfortable you become swimming in water, the more it will increase your enjoyment during the water portion of this course. After the classroom work you will spend time with your instructor in a pool or confined water learning all about skin diving and how to use scuba. When the confined water portion of the training is completed, you will be invited to make several dives in open water as you actually become a certified Open Water Scuba Diver. We always dive with a buddy, both for safety, and to share the experience of diving; going places we have never seen before.