Why Buy New Scuba Diving Gear?

"Don't buy new equipment because there's plenty of almost-new gear out there."

That's the advice I've been given over and over by more experienced scuba divers. Most of them seem to dive with equipment they've sourced through eBay or picked up elsewhere, having already been used by someone else.

Whatever you call it: second-hand, pre-owned or used - there's apparently no shortage of it and it represents great value for money, if you know what you're looking for.

The main source of this strong supply is over-enthusiastic novices, apparently. There's a fair crop who pour a large amount of cash into a complete set of new dive gear during their training, only to find that the sport isn't for them.

Some realise the error of their ways fairly quickly and try to recover a reasonable proportion of their investment through a quick sale. Others are slower to acknowledge their mistake, or simply need time to pass before they conclude that they'll not putting the shiny kit to good use. They pay a higher price when they sell up, simply because their equipment has spent years under the stairs.

As predicted by my instructors, I've benefited from the enthusiastic purchases of a trainee diver. I've never met the chap, but a contact heard he was selling off all his gear and immediately thought of me. Geography was a slight problem, as we lived at opposite ends of the country, but last week I got to see what was on offer.

I'm no expert and at first I was sceptical. When you're being asked to part with hundreds of pounds it's easy to be reluctant, particularly when what's on offer isn't new and shiny. But when you look at the list prices of new equivalents it becomes easier to take a bit of a risk and agree to take the lot.

So I'm now the proud owner of a dry suit, BC, regs, at least one cylinder and sundry other stuff. It hasn't seen service for a few years and while a visual inspection revealed no issues, that's no replacement for a professional assessment. I won't be diving with it until it's been signed off as being in working order.

But it proved the point. If you keep your ear to the ground you can pick up scuba gear for a good price.

Scuba Divers are Destroyers

I just read the BBC News story of divers who've discovered what may be the oldest surviving champagne in the world.

It came from a wreck in the Baltic. The world's seas are littered with sunken ships, many of them in shallow coastal waters because that's where the majority of people sail, within sight of land.

As a history lover, I'm looking forward to diving on wrecks. There's something special about getting close of old artefacts of any sort, and swimming around an old ship that relatively few people have seen for decades must be particularly exciting. Especially if you're one of the first to be there following its discovery.

But, sadly, it appears that not all divers respect the historic significance or integrity of a wreck. They're more interested in taking away souvenirs, and damaging the remains in the process. I've already heard plenty of stories of divers who've lifted objects from wrecks in British waters, and I've only been diving for a few months.

I can understand the magpie urge to take away bright, shiny stuff. And I would not be immune to temptation myself. Until I've had the opportunity myself, and made the decision about what to do, I'm not going to judge the behaviour of my fellow divers.  After all, if I find something that's interesting and portable, but leave it behind, the next diver who comes along is unlikely to do the same. So why shouldn't I take it?

Unless active measures are taken to protect a wreck, the reality is that it'll soon be stripped of anything that's easy to lift. And I'm sure not all of it is taken for personal pleasure, but is quickly sold on for a profit. The law says anything removed from the UK's seabed should be reported to the Receiver of Wreck, as it's someone else's property. I wonder how many calls they get from divers?

Removing items from wrecks is one thing - wanton destruction is another. I recently read posts on a scuba diving discussion forum about the destruction of items placed underwater in a quarry, as landmarks for divers.

It seems that some divers can't resist the urge to smash objects simply because they can, without any regard for the inconvenience and annoyance it causes to others. These are the sort who shouldn't be allowed near wrecks at all, because they'd simply break things up for the the sake of it. Not only would they spoil the submerged historic landscape for other divers, they'd also be at risk of wasting vintage champagne!

If you want to read the BBC News article about the discovery of champagne in the Baltic, click here.

Testing Times for Scuba Diving

It's a long time since I sat an exam.

But I had to take one yesterday. Learning to be a scuba diver involves plenty of practical work, in the pool and open water, but there's also a stack of theory to take on board. And your knowledge is tested with an exam.

Our training has covered diverse subjects including human respiration, how to plan a dive, the organisational structure of BSAC, how to dive a wreck responsibly, and more. We've mastered the BSAC dive tables and how to discipher the markings inscribed into compressed air cylinders.

If taking an exam isn't challenging enough, the pass mark is 80%. That's high, but it's all stuff that a diver needs to know.

Before the exam we had a revision session where we went through an example paper. A reasonable number of questions could be answered from common sense and general diving knowledge, while some required an understanding of how to use dive tables or remember technical terms.

There's always a slight nervousness before any exam. Do I know enough? Should I spend a bit more time reviewing my notes? The BSAC exams are marked on the spot, meaning you find out whether you've passed, or failed, there and then.

We were handed the paper and given 30 minutes to complete a multiple choice answer grid. Within moments I spotted questions that I would struggle to answer. Help! Turning the page I began to wish I'd spent more time reading the BSAC manual earlier that morning. My approach was to answer the easy questions and go back to the more difficult ones, and I was skipping too many to be comfortable.

So I was relieved when, moments later, it was discovered we'd been given a more advanced paper by mistake. No wonder I was having difficulty - we hadn't been taught most of this stuff!

We started again with the correct paper and it took me 15 minutes to complete a test for which I'd been given 30. Fortunately this wasn't school and we weren't forced to spend the remaining time in bored silence, waiting for the minutes to tick by.

The good news is that I passed, as did my daughter. But neither scored 100% and we spent time talking through the questions we got wrong. One or two technical terms had escaped me, and some points of procedure were open to interpretation, to me at least.

I have one lesson to complete and that's it, I should become a fully-fledged BSAC Ocean Diver. Which sounds grand, but it's the lowest level of qualification. I'll then have to decide whether to move on to the next level, Sports Diver.

At least I now have a better idea of what that involves, having had a sneak peek at the exam!

Vobster Quay is a Dump

Don't get me wrong - Vobster Quay Inland Dive Centre is a well-equipped dive location.

But there's no getting away from the fact it's a dump. Not that it's very different from other dive centres I've been to or heard about. They're all dumps.

It's curious how an old car, disused aeroplane or a boat that's past it's sell-by date suddenly become more interesting when it's sunk in an equally redundant quarry. Every weekend a fair proportion of the UK's diving community head for one of these holes in the ground, spending their precious recreation time swimming around flooded junk yards.

Today was my first dive in Vobster. During my hour underwater (two 30 minute dives) I encountered several sunken boats, a sliced-up aeroplane, the bridge section from a ship and a garden gnome with a fishing rod, complete with fish. According to their website and map I missed out on various other features including submerged cars and an industrial tumble drier.

The only aquatic life I encountered were hordes of trainee divers, mainly clustered around the many underwater platforms.

I didn't take up diving to see everyday objects in a slightly unusual environment. A disused boat or car isn't any more interesting, to me, for having been sunk.

To be fair, the main function of inland dive centres is to provide an opportunity for diver training and practice. They tend to be old quarries, filled with water, and without the various pieces of discarded machinery they'd be featureless pools where divers would quickly become either bored or lost. Or both.

The apparently random assortment of random rubbish is in fact a collection of carefully placed landmarks, allowing divers to navigate their way around underwater while giving them something to look at. It's also a great way of re-using old stuff, although I don't know how environmentally friendly it is. I assume the stuff is cleaned of toxins, such as oil, before it's tossed in.

I'll probably have to go to Vobster at least one more time to complete my training, and if I keep diving I might dip into an inland site once in a while. But I'm much more interested in diving in places where there's lots of marine life to look at, or interesting underwater features to explore.

That said, our seas have also been used as dumps for hundreds, if not thousands of years!

Scuba Mask Clearing is Easy

If you're struggling with mask clearing, take a break from it.

The other night I spent an hour and a half in the local swimming pool with the sole objective of overcoming this obstacle on my road to becoming a BSAC Ocean Diver.

I went along slight nervous. It's been a few week since my last dive, at Swanage, so I was feeling a little out of practice. I turned up to discover the club's monthly pool dive session was packed with novices on try-dives, getting their first scuba experience.

This was good news because it meant I didn't have an instructor to look after me. They each had a novice to care for and I was left pretty much to do what I wanted. The only thing required was that I completed the mask clearing exercises under supervision.

I've documented my mask clearing problems before. This time, with two sea dives behind me, I felt more confident. While diving off Swanage I'd had to do some minor mask clearing 'for real' when water leaked in. I also just felt more confident being underwater.

Climbing into the pool I found a quiet corner and ducked under. I tried to kneel on the floor of the 1.2m pool and after struggling to stay down I spotted the first problem of the evening - I'd forgotten to pick up a weight belt.

Moments later, with a borrowed 2kg of ankle weights around my waist (yes, it's possible and not because I'm particularly thin) I tried again.

I spent a minute or two kneeling on the pool floor, watching the novices as they were being shown the basics. I was still a little concerned about the mask clearing but it had to be done, so I allowed a small amount of the water in and then cleared it.

No problem. Okay, let some more in and clear. Again, no problem. I encountered none of the issues I'd had before - an inability to blow hard through my nose and subsequent inhalation of water, which had led to anxiety.

Something's either very wrong, I thought, or very right. So let's do the big test - I pulled my mask off completely and then put it back on my face, blowing air out through my nose all the time and clearing it in seconds.

I did it again. And again. It was ridiculously easy. One of the instructors came across to observe me do it and he added a new test, pulling the mask off my face while I looked the other way, and putting it in my hands. Again, I put it back on and cleared it in a moment. I went to the 3m pool, sank to the bottom and again, removing, replacing and clearing the mask presented no problem. I was even enjoying it!

I also witnessed the novice divers being introduced to mask clearing during their try dives. They too appeared to be finding it easy. It was a reminder that not everyone struggles with that particular exercise.

My advice to anyone struggling with mask clearing is to take a break from it and spend more time learning to be comfortable underwater. That worked for me. My two sea dives in Swanage didn't involve any training exercises - we just enjoyed the diving experience. But it gave me the confidence boost I needed to overcome mask clearing.

Some trainee divers, like me, aren't big fans of water. That meant I found it hard to relaxed in the stuff, which in turn made mask clearing a struggle. Those precious extra minutes of dive time have enabled me to become more comfortable, which in turn allowed me to conquer this particular challenge.

I mustn't become over-confident, because that brings its own problems. But I am almost looking forward to my final mask clearing exercise, in open water, this weekend.

Beware Scuba Diver - Hand Signals Only

I forgot something really important the last time I dived.

Hand signals. It's bugged me that during my first dive in the sea I neglected one to follow one of the most basic procedures in scuba diving. When you enter enter the water and when you surface after a dive the first thing you should do is indicate to the boat crew that you're okay, using a recognised hand signal. I forgot.

My neglect was sort of excusable. Learning to dive is a bit lit learning to drive. There's so much to remember that you wonder how anyone manages to appear relaxed while doing it. I forgot to use hand signals because I had too much to think about.

While it's a great excuse, it's not something I want to repeat. Failing to signal your intentions when driving could lead to difficulties. Failing to signal when diving isn't quite as risky, as no one's likely to run into you as you perform an unexpected manoeuvre. But it's good practice to let the dive team on the boat, and your buddy, know that you're okay.

Successful diving relies on use of hand signals. They're the main form of communication what you're underwater. I was taught early on about the importance of the 'I'm okay' signal, which isn't a thumbs up, as you might expect.

The 'I'm okay' signal is both a question and a statement. When you give the sign to your buddy you're saying 'I'm okay, how about you?' and it prompts a response - usually 'I'm okay'.

This isn't the place to go into a list of hand signals, and it appears that they vary between the different diving groups. Suffice to say, a good grasp of the basic signals is important and they should be discussed with your buddy in advance, to reduce the risk of potential misunderstanding later.

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.