Are you ready to take a plunge into the incredible underwater world? Then this scuba diving guide should cover everything you need to know to get started.
Scuba diving is a magical experience, unlike any other sensation in the world. While it’s amazing fun, there’s also a lot you need to know to dive safely and responsibly.
In this complete scuba diving guide, we’ll cover all the essentials to help you get started. This is a great resource for first-time divers or existing divers looking to brush up on their knowledge.
Let’s dive in.
Getting Certified
Before we get deep into this scuba diving guide, let’s cover the most important thing you need to know: if you want to become a scuba diver you have to get certified.
That means taking a recognized course, and learning how to scuba dive from a registered instructor.
So, that kind of means that the rest of this scuba diving guide is unnecessary, as your scuba instructor and course will teach you everything you need to know. Well, kind of, as we’ll still share a few tips and essential bits of knowledge to help you get underwater.
When it comes to getting your scuba diving certification, you have a few different options. Let’s break this down.
Try Scuba Diving Before Committing to a Course
Taking a scuba diving course is expensive, and it can take a few days before you get your certification. If you’re doing this on a vacation, then a scuba diving course can be a pretty big commitment.
If you’re not sure about whether scuba diving is for you, then we recommend taking a Discover Scuba experience first. This lets you experience the sensation of breathing underwater and diving without committing to a longer course.
With a Discover Scuba experience, you’ll learn the basics of diving and get underwater the same day. You don’t need to do a Discover Scuba experience before taking a certification, but it can be worthwhile before committing to a multi-day course.
Taking Your First Scuba Diving Course
When it comes to scuba diving certifications, PADI is the gold standard. Pretty much every quality diver center you go to will offer PADI certifications, which are recognized all over the world.
As a new scuba diver, you’ll first need to complete your PADI Open Water Diver certification. This is the fundamental scuba diving course, which allows you to dive to a depth of 18 meters/60 feet – or 70% of the ocean.
Once you get your Open Water certification, you can use it all over the world, and it won’t expire.
What does the course involve?
First, there’s the theory. You’ll study the official PADI guidebook (yes, you can do this part online), which you’ll need to take a test on.
Then, there’s the mini dive, which is usually done in a pool. This is where you’ll learn about your scuba diving gear and how to use it. You’ll practice a few basic diving procedures during this dive too, like clearing your mask underwater and practicing scuba diving hand signals. You’ll also be assessed on basic water fitness and your ability to swim.
Next, you’ll be ready for the ocean. You need to do at least four open-water dives to complete the course.
This is often done over the course of two days – where you do two dives each day. Add a day for the pool and theory, and it’s possible to complete this certification in three days. However, it usually takes a bit longer.
When I did my open water course, I went on two diving excursions over the course of two consecutive weekends in Thailand. The theory test and pool dives were done during the week before the first diving trip.
During these dives, your instructor will take you through a few basic scuba diving exercises, such as using a compass and sending up a surface marker buoy. These exercises are all pretty straightforward.
Once you’ve completed the four dives, you’ll be a certified scuba diver and can take your certification to any PADI-recognized dive center in the world.
Here’s a picture of me on my very first scuba dive – clearly still working on my trim!
Taking Advanced Courses
Many scuba divers end their certification with Open Water, as it allows you to explore loads of the ocean’s most popular dive sites. However, you can also take more advanced dive courses, which let you reach greater depths and perform more specialized diving procedures.
Check out the full range of official PADI dive certifications to see how you can advance in your diving career. These courses are optional, but if you’re serious about scuba diving, they’ll equip you with valuable knowledge and skills.
Top tip: scuba diving is expensive, and paying for individual dives quickly adds up. If you’re serious about scuba diving, we recommend taking your Advanced Open Water Diver course. You’ll probably spend about the same on this course as you would doing five scuba devices, but you’ll end the dives with a better certification and new skills.
How to Prepare for Scuba Diving
As we’ve already mentioned, the first step to scuba diving is finding a good instructor and getting the right certification.
Why is this important?
Because there’s a lot you need to know when scuba diving. You’re entering a completely different world, and breathing underwater is a totally unique sensation.
Taking a course ensures you learn how to use and assemble your scuba equipment. It ensures you have the right practical knowledge of what happens to your body underwater, and that you know how to deal with any potential emergencies underwater. Not to mention you also learn how to responsibly view life under the ocean.
So, what do you need to prepare for your first scuba diving experience?
You need to be able to float or tread water for 10 minutes, and you need to be able to swim 200 meters/yards wearing a mask, fins, and snorkel without stopping.
If you have any medical conditions that you think might need attention, it’s a good idea to get approval from your doctor before you go scuba diving.
You’ll also need all the right scuba diving gear – which your dive shop will provide.
Importantly, you must have a dive buddy whenever you head underwater. This will be your instructor when you first learn how to scuba dive. But, any dives after this will require you to have a dive partner. You never go scuba diving alone.
Basic Scuba Diving Equipment
One of the main elements of learning how to scuba dive is getting familiar and confident with all the gear.
While there are loads of scuba diving accessories you could use, like a dive torch, you really just need to understand the basics. These are:
- A wetsuit or dry suit
- A scuba tank
- A buoyancy control device (BCD)
- A regulator
- An SPG and/or a dive computer
- A mask
- A snorkel
- Fins
Image source: PADI
We won’t get into too much detail about this gear, but if you want more information on these items and how they work, then check out our complete guide to scuba diving equipment.
Any good dive shop will be able to provide this equipment. If you decide to get serious about scuba diving, then you might want to invest in your own equipment.
Just be aware that you’ll always need to go to a registered dive center to fill up your dive cylinder/tank. Never do this yourself or with an unregistered service.
Of course, you’ll learn how all of these different pieces of equipment work during your dive course. Scuba diving heavily depends on the equipment you use, so you need to make sure that you know your gear before heading underwater.
Gear Checks Before You Dive
On the topic of scuba diving equipment, let’s quickly go over the essential gear checks you need to do just before you dive.
Before diving, you have to conduct thorough gear checks to ensure everything is in proper working order. You should do this with your buddy, where both of you check each other’s equipment to ensure you’re safe.
Start by inspecting your mask for any cracks or loose straps, ensuring a snug fit. Test your regulator to confirm it delivers air smoothly and without leaks. Check your BCD for any signs of damage and ensure all clips and straps are secure.
Verify that your fins are strapped securely and that the straps are not worn out. Finally, examine your dive computer or gauge console to confirm they’re functioning correctly and have enough battery power.
Scuba Diving Guide for Beginners: Fundamentals of Scuba Diving
There’s a lot you need to know before you start scuba diving. While you’ll learn it all in your scuba diving course, we’re going to cover some of the most important bits of information.
This can be a useful reference whether you’re brand new to diving or just want to brush up on your knowledge before your next dive.
Understanding Volume and Pressure
One of the most important concepts to understand in scuba diving is that of volume and pressure.
Water is heavy, which means the deeper you go, the greater the pressure becomes. To be specific, pressure increases about one atmosphere for every 10 meters of water depth. As pressure increases, volume decreases.
Let’s break it down:
- Pressure: Imagine being at the bottom of a swimming pool. You feel the weight of the water pushing down on you. That’s pressure. The deeper you go underwater, the more pressure there is because there’s more water above you pressing down.
- Volume: Volume is simply the amount of space something takes up. Think of it like squeezing a balloon. When you squeeze it, the volume inside gets smaller. When pressure goes up, volume goes down. And when pressure goes down, volume goes up.
- Scuba Tank: Your scuba tank is like a balloon. As you descend deeper underwater, the pressure increases. This squeezes the air inside your tank, making it take up less space. That’s why you need a regulator to control the airflow so you can breathe comfortably.
- BCD (Buoyancy Control Device): Your BCD helps you control your buoyancy underwater. When you add air to your BCD, it expands, making you float more. But as you ascend towards the surface where the pressure decreases, the air inside your BCD expands. That’s why you need to release air gradually to stay safely buoyant and maintain your trim.
- Staying at Depth: When you stay at a certain depth, the pressure stays constant, and so does the volume of air in your tank. Your regulator adjusts the airflow to match the pressure so you can breathe normally.
- Resurfacing: When you ascend towards the surface, the pressure decreases. This causes the air in your tank to expand. If you ascend too quickly, it’s like releasing the pressure on that squeezed balloon all at once, which can be dangerous. That’s why you need to ascend slowly, giving the air time to expand safely.
This relationship between volume and pressure doesn’t only apply to your scuba tank, but also to nitrogen and oxygen in your bloodstream – which is incredibly important to understand. This is what decompression sickness is all about – the thing you really want to avoid when scuba diving.
Your dive computer or SPG is an essential tool for helping you understand how long you can stay at a depth because of this, and how quickly you can ascend.
Depth and Safe Diving
Knowing how deep you can safely dive is crucial.
Beginners should stick to shallow depths, around 18 meters (60 feet), until they gain experience. Of course, this is your limit if you’re an Open Water diver.
Deeper dives can get a bit more complicated, and they require more skill and training. Always monitor your depth gauge and ascend slowly to avoid decompression sickness.
Understanding Displacement and Maintaining Trim
Displacement is how your body interacts with water.
Proper buoyancy control and trim help you move smoothly through the water without disturbing the environment. This can take a few dives to get right and is quite a strange sensation in the water.
Practice keeping your body horizontal and your equipment streamlined to reduce drag. The more you dive, the better you’ll get at this.
It’s also important to mention that a big part of maintaining your trim involves finding the right balance between your dive weights and the air in your BCD. While it’s easy to keep inflating and deflating your BCD, this will make you go through your oxygen a lot faster – which is not ideal.
So, try to inflate your BCD in small increments, and know what will happen to this inflated air as you descend.
Image source: Divecampus
Getting in the Water
Getting into the water is a part of diving that often confuses people. It also requires a very specific routine you need to follow.
Before entering the water, do a final equipment check. Make sure your gear is secure and your buddy is ready. Enter the water slowly and with control. Keep your mask on and breathe calmly as you descend.
There are two main ways you can enter the water from a boat – stepping over the side in a big stride or tumbling backward over the side of the boat. It’s a good idea to get comfortable with both techniques when learning how to dive.
Understanding Basic Safety
Safety is a massive topic in scuba diving, and it must always be a top priority. There are many safety rules you’ll learn when you take your course – make sure you don’t take shortcuts and always follow the correct procedure.
Always dive within your limits and follow the buddy system. Check your gear before each dive and communicate with your buddy throughout the dive. If you encounter any problems, signal your buddy and ascend safely.
Scuba Diving Hand Signals
Communication underwater is essential for safe scuba diving. But, how do you do this when you can’t talk? You use hand signals.
Learning these signals is a crucial part of any dive course. Scuba diving hand signals are also globally recognized, so it’s important that you follow the right system and don’t just make up your own signals.
Signals for “okay,” “not okay,” “ascend,” and “descend” are important for safety and coordination. You’ll also need to know how to communicate how much air you have left in your tank and know how to tell your dive buddy if there’s a problem.
Image source: PADI
Go With a Buddy
Diving alone is risky, and something no recreational diver should ever do. This is one of the first things you’ll learn when you take a scuba diving course.
Always dive with a buddy who can assist you in case of an emergency. Stay close together and keep an eye on each other throughout the dive.
You also five with a spare regulator attached to your tank, which you’ll use as an emergency oxygen supply for your buddy in case there’s an emergency.
Not only is diving with a buddy an essential safety procedure, but it also makes your time underwater a lot more fun.
Boat vs Shore Dives
As a beginner scuba diver, you’ll have two different diving experiences available: boat dives and shore dives. This really just depends on where you’re diving and what the conditions are like at this place.
Both boat and shore dives offer unique experiences. Boat dives often take you to deeper or more remote locations, while shore dives are more accessible and convenient.
Shore dives are easier for beginners, as you slowly descend following the gradient of the ocean floor. With a boat dive, you drop into the water and just go straight down.
Follow the guidelines of your dive operator and choose the type of dive that suits your preferences and abilities.
Logging Your Dives
Logging your dives is important when you get started, and it’s something you should try to keep up throughout your diving career.
Keeping a dive log is like creating a scrapbook of your underwater adventures. Record details such as dive location, depth, time, and any interesting sightings.
Logging your dives not only helps you track your progress but also provides valuable information for future dives. You can do this online or in a physical book.
Essential Scuba Diving Tips for Beginners
We’ve covered all the essentials you need to know in this scuba diving guide. However, there’s always more to learn, and just a few tips and tricks can make your underwater experience a lot more fun.
Here are some things to keep in mind before you go scuba diving.
Practice Proper Breathing
Scuba diving is all about breathing. It’s basically just a form of underwater meditation.
Breathing calmly and deeply is key to conserving air and staying relaxed underwater. Focus on slow, steady breaths to prevent hyperventilation and conserve your tank’s air supply.
Get this right, and you’ve mastered the biggest part of being a scuba diver.
Master Buoyancy Control
We’ve already mentioned the importance of good trim, and we’ll bring it up again.
Achieving neutral buoyancy allows you to hover effortlessly underwater.
Practice buoyancy control by adding or releasing small amounts of air from your BCD as needed. This skill enhances your comfort and reduces your impact on the environment.
Learn to Clear Your Mask
It’s pretty much guaranteed that at some stage in your diving career, water will seep into your mask. This is uncomfortable and can obstruct your vision.
Practice clearing your mask by tilting your head back slightly and exhaling through your nose while lifting the lower edge of the mask. Clearing your mask quickly and efficiently ensures you can see clearly throughout your dive.
It’s best to practice this in the pool before you’re faced with the challenge of clearing your mask while at a depth in the ocean.
Respect Marine Life
Remember that you are a visitor in the underwater world, so treat marine life with respect.
Avoid touching or disturbing coral reefs and marine creatures. Maintain a safe distance and observe without interfering with their natural behavior.
Stay Hydrated and Energized
Scuba diving can be physically demanding, so it’s important to stay hydrated and fueled before and after your dive.
Drink plenty of water to prevent dehydration, and eat a light, nutritious meal to sustain your energy levels. Avoid heavy meals or alcohol before diving.
Practice Your Emergency Procedures
Familiarize yourself with basic emergency procedures such as buddy breathing, sharing air, and performing an emergency ascent. You’ll do this all in your course, but running these processes over with your buddy is always good practice before you dive.
Knowing how to respond calmly and efficiently in unexpected situations can make a significant difference in your safety and that of your buddy.
Follow Dive Guidelines and Regulations
Each dive site may have specific guidelines and regulations to protect the environment and ensure your safety.
Familiarize yourself with these rules before diving and stick to them throughout your dive. Respect the marine environment and follow responsible diving practices to preserve the beauty of underwater ecosystems for future generations.
Conclusion
That covers the basics of what you need to know and consider before you scuba dive. However, this scuba diving guide still doesn’t include everything you need to know – you’ll have to get certified with a trusted instructor to ensure you learn all the right knowledge.
If you’re unsure of scuba diving, we highly suggest you just take the plunge and try it out. Once you’ve taken your first breaths deep in the ocean, you’ll be hooked for life.