Gordonmc
Well-Known Member
You have sparked an interesting thread with a lot of diverse opinion.
My ha'pennyworth is that learning to dive would certainly be worthwhile, more so if your partner does the same.
While I have and would dive alone under specific circumstances, it would only be after assessment of the risk gleaned from 25 years qualified experience. Not for the newly qualified novice.
There has been some comparison of snorkel diving and scuba which seems to suggest if you can hold breath for a few minutes scuba must be a doddle.
That is dangerous. I have done safety for apnea divers and watched them go to depths far greater than possible for compressed air scuba. The physiological effects on the human body of breathing compressed air (or bi-mix, & tri-mix) are completely different to holding breath.
Example: is that at normal atmospheres the human lung volume reduces by a factor of two at a depth of only ten metres.
Accidents happen because people get disorientated for various reasons. Example: a very experienced UK inland waterway diver I buddied with in the Med lost it through vertigo when he saw the bottom 30 metres below.
To clarify one point that come up in the thread; the "bends" is decomression sickness caused by pressurised nitrogen entering the bloodstream and forming bubbles as pressure decreases. Nitrogen narcosis is something else altogether; its the toxic effect of nitrogen which mimics drunkeness; it hits the same part of the brain as booze.
In short, get the proper training and you will be better able to make judgements about when you should get wet.
My ha'pennyworth is that learning to dive would certainly be worthwhile, more so if your partner does the same.
While I have and would dive alone under specific circumstances, it would only be after assessment of the risk gleaned from 25 years qualified experience. Not for the newly qualified novice.
There has been some comparison of snorkel diving and scuba which seems to suggest if you can hold breath for a few minutes scuba must be a doddle.
That is dangerous. I have done safety for apnea divers and watched them go to depths far greater than possible for compressed air scuba. The physiological effects on the human body of breathing compressed air (or bi-mix, & tri-mix) are completely different to holding breath.
Example: is that at normal atmospheres the human lung volume reduces by a factor of two at a depth of only ten metres.
Accidents happen because people get disorientated for various reasons. Example: a very experienced UK inland waterway diver I buddied with in the Med lost it through vertigo when he saw the bottom 30 metres below.
To clarify one point that come up in the thread; the "bends" is decomression sickness caused by pressurised nitrogen entering the bloodstream and forming bubbles as pressure decreases. Nitrogen narcosis is something else altogether; its the toxic effect of nitrogen which mimics drunkeness; it hits the same part of the brain as booze.
In short, get the proper training and you will be better able to make judgements about when you should get wet.
