Daily diving dilemmas dexterously defeated (Part 2)
Aside from seeing and breathing underwater, divers have a lot more problems.
Although, diving may seem very dangerous, it can be safely enjoyed, with proper training and equipment. More important than equipment is training.
There’s no point in having top of the line equipment if you don’t know how to use it, but if you are trained and something goes wrong with the equipment, you will know what to do. Imagine a diver 130 feet below the surface of the water, and as they rise,
they become lightheaded and dizzy. Proper training would have the diver knowing that it is unsafe to do so, due to changes in pressure, and small health problems such as these result in much bigger ones if ignored.
However, before worrying about deep diving, the diver must first worry about overcoming the common problems in diving.
A common, yet easily corrected, problem in diving is being nimble and swift underwater. The most popular, and cheap, method of swimming faster and stronger is to use fins. They are easy to use and are usually strapped on. Using these, a diver can propel
him/herself through the water with more agility and less effort.
A more expensive and dangerous, yet faster, way of moving through the water is using what is referred to as a DPV, or Diver Propulsion Vehicle. Although, it is heavy and bulky on land, it allows divers to navigate at high speeds with little or no effort.
They are, however, hazardous if the operator is inexperienced. It is easy to get carried away and go astray, or surpass a secure range of return in the event of vehicle malfunction.
One of the biggest problems for skin divers is hypothermia. Since water conducts heat 25 times more than air, even mild water temperatures can result in hypothermia. There is a simple method to overcome hypothermia, using what is known as a diving suit.
Diving suits are available as wet or dry diving suits, and also protect divers from cuts, stings, grazes, and sunburn. Wetsuits allow a small amount of water to enter the innermost layer of the suit which is heated by body heat.
A dry suit is exactly what the name states. It is sealed off at the hands, ankles, and neck, along with a waterproof zipper, to keep water from entering the suit. Some diving suits for colder waters cover the entire body except for the face and feet, utilizing
a hood. Some drysuit users also carry argon tanks alongside their oxygen tanks, to inflate the suit, seeing as argon is a much better thermal insulator than air.
Cold water commercial divers utilize hot water suits, in which surface supplied mixture of air and helium, as well as a separate system to supply hot water to the wearer’s body. Under these conditions, hot water suits are not for comfort, but instead for
survival, as in the case of hot water failure, the diver could die within minutes.
Controlling the diver’s buoyancy is also a major problem for divers. As humans tend to float, diving belts, with weights attached can be used to help the diver remain relatively stationary underwater.
Aside from belts, the buoyancy of most diving suits can be changed by changing the amount of air within the suit. A buoyancy compensator can also be used to counteract buoyancy. Usually in the form of a jacket, the diver’s oxygen supply is attached to the
jacket, and allows the diver to change their buoyancy.
These three problems, along with breathing and seeing underwater, are the major and most common problems of diving. Although they might seem like common sense, there are deaths every year from malfunctions in equipment, choices of wrong equipment, insufficient
training, and not knowing one’s own limit. If the diver is uncertain as to whether they should go further or not, the answer is always not. Know your limits and never, ever do anything that could put you or other divers in danger.
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