Safe Diving Practice and Problem Solving Part 1 – Know Your Limits

One of the most important skills a good diver needs is to be able to handle and solve any problem that arises underwater. This then allows then to make a controlled and safe ascent to the surface to dive another day. Most major problems arise due to a series of lesser problems, which after a point can really leave you in it. For example running out of air is caused by not checking gauges often enough, not having enough gas for the dive you have planned (depth or time), not properly maintaining kit (free flows) and being too far away from your buddy or not having a redundant air source. All of these are simply solved problems that can result in catastrophe.

The above diagram (the Pit of Despair) shows the chain of events that can lead to a lung overexpansion injury, one of the easiest diving injuries to avoid.

This part of problem solving is going to focus on knowing your own ‘Personal Limits’. All divers should be aware of how good a diver they are and the point at which they start to feel outside of their comfort zone. Don’t kid yourself; we all have limits and points at which we are no longer comfortable (these may also change from day to day, dive to dive). Know these limits and stay within them.

The easiest limit you can identify, and yet the one most often broken, is that of certification and depth. This limit is stated in black and white on your certification card and diver training. To an Open Water diver you might not see the difference in diving to 30m over diving to 18m or a deep diver the difference in diving to 50m over 40m and some of the time there might not be a noticeable difference.   However, you haven’t had the training to plan a dive beyond your qualification and how to deal with the situations when it goes wrong. Think back to your Open Water course, you spent most of the time learning what to do if it goes wrong:

• ·         You run out of Air
• ·         Your Mask floods or comes off
• ·         You lose your Regulator

Diving itself is pretty easy and very enjoyable when it is going right. You swim around, breath and look at some amazing sights, but when it goes wrong you need to know how to deal with it. Trust me a problem at 50m is much different to that at 40m and at 30m it is very different to that at 18m. So first of all to be a good and safe diver able to deal with problems know and stick to the limits of your certification and experience. Remember they are not targets to be met but limits to be adhered to, this means a newly qualified Open Water diver should build up to 18m and not make it your first unaccompanied dive after certification .The same goes for whatever level you might be. Think of the limit set on any certification you get as the limit for an experienced diver of that level.