It's Always Safety First in Scuba Diving

Scuba diver training can be very frustrating.

No one learns to dive because they want to lurk at the bottom of public swimming pools, where the only 'marine life' are the spiders and other insects who've fallen in. But for the first few weeks that's where we spent our time and I suspect most other divers do the same.

In this bland, tiled environment I was put through a series of exercises and drills that weren't what I signed up for. My ambitions for scuba diving were swimming along the seabed watching the antics of fish, crabs and other creatures in their own habitat. I wasn't terribly interested in learning how to recover a buddy who's in trouble, switch to using my buddy's emergency regulator or, my least favourite, clear a mask full of water.

But tiresome though they may be, familiarity with dealing with these situations is vital. For all the fun and wonder to be had in scuba diving, you mustn't forget that you're in a potentially hostile environment. Humans weren't designed to live underwater and when something goes wrong it's easy for a minor problem to escalate into a very serious issue with potentially deadly consequences.

I discovered this for real during a recent dive off Swanage. It was only my second dive in the sea and my first to a depth of 12 metres and I was still feeling very reliant on my buddy for guidance.

So I was surprised to turn around and find he'd vanished. We'd been drifting along the seabed and I'd got slightly ahead of him. Visibility wasn't too bad - probably about 5 metres, perhaps a little more, and we were reaching the end of our agreed time underwater.

Every minute or so during the dive I'd checked that he was nearby. This can be harder than it sounds when you're diving - your field of vision is restricted so it can take a moment to do a full 360 degree sweep. It was a good few seconds before I accepted that he really wasn't nearby.

A train of thoughts rushed through my head. I was alone at the bottom of the sea, being pushed along by the current. The dive boat could track my buddy's position because he had an SMB (surface marker buoy) but I didn't. If I moved too far from them when I surfaced I'd simply be a tiny black speck in the sea, difficult to spot from a distance. These were unhelpful thoughts which, if left unchecked, could lead to anxiety and panic.

Common sense kicked in. I still had a plenty of air and the first thing to do was the separation drill. I was already satisfied that I couldn't see my buddy from the seabed, so I rose a couple of metres and checked again. He still wasn't in sight. My training said I should now surface.

This is where I faced a dilemma. Rising from a depth of 12 metres I should have performed a safety stop at 6 metres, floating for 3 minutes to help ensure correct decompression. It's not a mandatory requirement but it's recommended best practice. I'd have needed to be at that depth for a lot longer before a stop became an absolute requirement.

I decided that my concern about drifting away from the boat overrode my need to do a stop. Another principle I'd picked up from training was that in an emergency the most important thing is to get to the surface - other issues can be dealt with after that. Okay, this wasn't exactly an emergency, but it was a 'situation'.

The good news, as it were, was that I was able to surface without injecting any air into my BC (jacket). Another valuable lesson from this dive had been about controlling buoyancy with minimal use of the BC inflation controls. That can be the subject of another blog post and suffice to say I was able to float to the surface easily.

When I got there the boat, and my buddy, were nearby.

In hindsight I wish I'd done a stop. Not only would it have taken away lingering concerns about decompression, but it would have allowed me to stay observe the surface from under the water. While the vis at 12 metres wasn't bad, as I approached the surface my vision became a blur of bubbles and light. For the last few seconds I couldn't see where I was going and no longer felt in control. I raised my arm to protect myself from an encounter with the boat, just in case.

It turned out that my buddy, a much more experienced diver, had suffered a free-flow which had caused him to surface suddenly. So I hadn't simply moved too far from him underwater; he'd run into difficulties and been forced to surface immediately, at a moment when I hadn't been watching him.

To be honest, if I'd seen him suddenly shooting upwards I would probably have been even more concerned.

Learning to dive is a bit like learning to drive. When you start there's so much to think about you wonder how anyone manages to make it look effortless. But over time more and more becomes second-nature. This is why all those safety drills in the pool become so important - if the unexpected happens you need to know what to do and have the confidence to make decisions for yourself.

Diving instructors can't deliberately put trainees into mildly challenging situations, but if they happen it's a powerful learning experience. It's made me think through a number of issues, including what I'd do differently next time and whether I should carry my own SMB in future, just in case.

As we went through all those frustrating drills in the swimming pool our instructor kept telling us that it's unusual for something to go wrong during a dive. But as my experience in Swanage proved, it does happen, and that's when you realise the value of all that preparation and practise. It might be frustrating, but it's not a waste of time.