Scuba for Beginners: A Guide to Getting Started

By K. G. Muzia

"Scuba for Beginners" helps anyone that has ever had a dream of scuba diving get started. This book takes a look at the different certifying agencies, the necessary diving equipment, and explains the #1 thing that can make or break your certification experience. "Scuba for Beginners" will leave readers feeling confident in the steps forward in their scuba diving journey, and excited to get started.

Created by the host of the "So You Want to Be a Marine Biologist" podcast- the #1 rated marine biology podcast- this guide is perfect for anyone who is a complete diving newbie (and for those for whom it's been a while since their last dive). It's an easy read complete with recommendations, and funny personal anecdotes, guaranteed to leave you feeling ready to take the plunge to get certified.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. G. Muzia
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463214763

Book preview

Introduction

If you’re reading this, you’ve maybe heard of a small, blue thing on our planet called the ocean. It takes up nearly eighty percent of the earth’s surface, and provides over half of the life sustaining oxygen for all of us living here on planet Earth.

While the effect of the ocean on all of us is indisputable, it’s what lies beneath the surface that is truly captivating. In addition to the dolphins, rays, and fish that we can see from above, there’s a whole world awaiting discovery below. Corals with their polyps waving in the current, sponges in their brilliant colors, small nudibranchs in their iridescent and ungainly shapes. The list goes on. The longer you spend underwater, the closer you look, the more you see.

Scuba diving enables this. By donning the gear you, like the damselfish you may encounter, can breathe underwater. This is an enchanting thought; to be submerged beneath the sea far longer than our humanly abilities would naturally allow. To see the creatures that would otherwise only become real to us in photographs, or not be seen at all.

But if you’ve never spent time around divers or the diving world, you may have reservations or questions before taking the plunge. Or maybe you’re so excited about learning to dive, you want a lesson before the certification. That’s what this guide is here for. To orient you in the ways of diving, so that when you do decide to jump in, you have an idea of what you’re in for.

Read this guide and then go diving. A whole world awaits you.

Part I: Getting Trained

Do I have to get certified?

The short answer: Yes.

Yes, diving is pretty simple. Broken down to its simplest form the rules for diving can be broken down to two things: 1. Keep breathing. 2. Go slow. That’s it.

So why get certified in the first place?

Diving is a safe activity, provided you know what you’re doing. Just like an unprepared hiker can find themselves in trouble, such as by becoming disoriented or dehydrated, so to can a new underwater explorer who lacks some basic knowledge of their environment.

There is also some strange equipment involved with diving (we’ll cover that here in a minute), and through your certification process you get really comfortable assembling, disassembling, and lugging said equipment around.

Finally, there are some skills that are really useful to have underwater including buoyancy control, mask-clearing, and what to do if you run out of air. We’ll do a brief overview of these skills in this guide, but when getting dive certified, you will absolutely master these skills.

What does certification look like?

Typically there’s a classroom or book portion (which, more and more commonly, is done online), a pool segment or closed water portion, and open water dives. The amount of checkout dives can vary based on where you’re getting certified and the dive shop that certifies you.

When you’ve completed your certification, you’ll receive a C-Card. This shows you’re a certified diver- you will need to show your C-Card in order to dive with any outfit or rent scuba tanks.

Alrighty, so you’ve decided to get dive certified. Epic!

The next question is: Where? And by whom?

To answer these, there’s a few questions you need to ask yourself in order to gain a little clarity. Here’s a list of questions to get your started; you don’t have