Open Water Scuba Diver

Plan to end your dive with at least 500 psi (34 bars) in your cylinder. This is a reserve that will provide a margin of safety for both you and your buddy. If you are caught in rough water or on the wrong side of a kelp mat, your swim to the exit point may […]

The interval between dives is an opportunity to sit back, relax, warm up, talk of the things you saw on the first dive, record information from the first dive in your log book and plan for the second dive. You should take advantage of this opportunity to re-hydrate. Drink plenty of water between dives. Drinking

To help reduce your risk of DCS, you should always plan to make a safety stop during ascent from any dive deeper than 30 feet (10 meters). The safety stop gives your body tissues a chance to off-gas nitrogen naturally reducing the potential of harmful bubbles. When the depth of the dive(s) has been beyond

We have covered decompression sickness DCS and arterial gas embolism AGE in this chapter. A combination of these two is called Decompression Illness (DCI). DCS is an over exposure to nitrogen and AGE is an over expansion injury. We classify them both as DCI as the treatment for both is the same. High concentrations of

If the diver has held their breath on ascent and the result was a lung overexpansion, it is possible to have air trapped in locations other than in the blood stream. The presence of air between the plural linings of the lungs can cause a lung or a portion of a lung to collapse. This

We have already said our number one rule is to always breathe normally and never hold your breath while scuba diving. However, a highly stressful event like running out of air at depth and panic may cause this to occur as you ascend. If you hold your breath during ascent, the reduced surrounding water pressure

During a dive, the nitrogen portion of the air we breathe dissolves into our body tissues. Nitrogen is an inert gas, meaning that is not utilized by our bodies like oxygen. The longer a diver remains at depth, the more nitrogen is dissolved. When divers remain at depth for too long and ascended too quickly,

If during ascent you feel pressure in your ears, this can be a reverse block that I described earlier. Stop your ascent and wiggle your jaw or rock the head back and forth to open the Eustachian tubes. If unsuccessful, descend a few feet and attempt clearing the ears as if descending, then continue the

When you and your buddy determine it is time to ascend, something that should have been included in your dive plan, exchange the appropriate hand signals. Begin your ascent. In all cases there are several things to do:

When going to depths beyond 100 feet or 30 meters, divers can be affected by a condition called nitrogen narcosis. There has been research demonstrating that dives deeper than 80 feet may have the narcotic effect. This is a narcotic effect that makes the diver less able to think clearly, much like the effect of