Diving goes way beyond exploring beneath the surface of the water. From once a year divers to career divers, diving is a lifestyle, and being an ocean ambassador is a lifetime commitment and from day one Scuba begins to transform your life.
In this article, we highlight some of the ways in which becoming a scuba diver can enrich your life.
The World Becomes A Bigger And More Beautiful Place
From the moment you take those first breaths underwater your world becomes bigger, 70% bigger if you take into account that water covers that much of our planet. This can be overwhelming as it means there are even more adventures awaiting you in life.
NB: You can’t actually dive this whole 70% but you get the big idea!
Underwater is so nice, just like Bob Marley said, I’d like to do it twice. Each time you descend you are entering what feels like a new environment as the dynamic waters of the world is ever-changing.
From relaxing weightlessly in the calm of the abyss to watching the busy underwater world go by, diving with sharks or whatever floats your boat, let the water heal you while you follow your breath and enjoy the journey of active meditation.
Holidays Become Missions
Once qualified and keen, must-visit destinations beyond your wildest dreams and you will notice that landlocked places get filtered out. Holidays will be booked to hot tropical climes that see you pack your drysuit and thermals and forevermore will result in bad tan lines, post-dive beers, and weird and wonderful friendships with buddies who share your passion.
Missions include but are not limited to: spotting a particular marine creature, penetrating a radical wreck, or discovering caves. Previously weekends spent on city break will be swapped for dive training and exploring local dive sites often in remote places near obscure towns, adding to the adventure. From deep dark murky inland local sites to the best pelagic experiences in the world and everything in between, suddenly visiting the Louvre doesn’t seem as enticing. “Oh sorry Paris I can’t make it this weekend, I’m heading to Wraysbury instead to go diving…”
Forget Flying Dreams, You Will Dream Of Diving
Make your dreams come true and learn to fly, underwater. Once you have cracked neutral buoyancy you can easily navigate your way safely around all sorts of marine environments gliding effortlessly into exploration. Given the choice between flying in the sky and underwater, what would you choose?
A recent survey found that 92% of divers dream of diving, OK we made that up but we are sure that once you have caught the diving wave you will dream of it.
Learning Ahoy
From your first diving experience, building knowledge will soon become a natural way of life- seeking new skills, information, and fun factoids. You will need to know how your equipment works, understand how the body reacts under pressure, and regularly update this knowledge to stay with the times.
You will learn important things like the eight tentacles of an octopus are more like arms, not tentacles. You will become fluent in waxing lyrical about out of this world technical topics and understand how to apply random physics to real-life situations. From cool marine life to the nuclear history of a sunken fleet of wrecks that lies in the paradise lagoon waters of Bikini Atoll, the learning never stops.
As a new ocean ambassador, you can then take joy in sharing knowledge with the vibrant community of divers and non-divers alike.
A Whole New Lexicon
From the first time, you log into your online manual, watch dive videos, dive with a local club, and go on trips you will find yourself being exposed to some surprising new lingo. Topics of conversation amongst divers rarely stray far from underwater exploration, the name of that fish, funny diving stories, or discussion about dive kit.
Hot SALES tip: know your audience! Tone down the technical talk and for your non-diving friends to keep them interested whilst talking about diving, and you might just land yourself a new dive buddy if you hit the tone right!
Buddies
One of the nicest aspects of diving is the dive buddy. From a safety point of view, it is very important; they will help you kit up, do checks with you, catch anything you miss, stay close to you in the water to check on you, and generally share the wonderful adventure with you.
The world of scuba is a remarkable place, shaped by the personalities that are attracted to the exploration of the underwater world. Friendly, active, sociable, nerdy, and adventurous are some qualities that are pretty common amongst divers, but everyone comes from a different background so it is an opportunity to broaden your horizons through meeting others. Look forward to hours spent discussing all aspects of sport and life. Also, the vast majority of divers are in it for a good time and one thing is for sure, we divers know how to have fun.
Exercise
Contrary to public opinion, you do actually have to have a certain level of fitness to be able to safely complete the tasks you are undertaking before, during, and after a dive so we are generally a fit bunch! Moreover, diving in itself is a gentle way to keep active, from carrying a heavy kit around topside to finning underwater the whole activity can be a good workout.
Get in shape with some cardiovascular exercise, eg. running, swimming, or cycling (as well as getting the ticker pumping, this will help develop flexibility, tone, and strength in the core muscles of the back, abdomen, and legs). A lighter, more hydrodynamic physique will benefit you before, during, and after dives.
Do bear in mind it is not advised to do vigorous exercise before a dive and avoid doing any hard exercise for several hours after the dive (this includes lugging all your kit uphill) – bubbles are liberated from off-gassing tissues for some time after you’ve surfaced, and the less they are agitated the better.
Becoming A Storage Master
Three things about dive kit:
- Buying dive kit can be very moreish.
- You will always ‘need’ more tools for the job.
- It is chunky.
Three reasons that storage can be tricky when you become a diver! Unless you live in a mansion or have a rather handy basement so it takes some clever planning to efficiently store your kit at home. Be prepared to sleep next to cylinders, lose half your wardrobe to your selection of wet and drysuits, and have fins sticking out of your shoe rack.
Storage comes after, of course, you have mastered the art of drying kit without a designated heated room scenario.
Netflix Completed? No worries, you will have a whole new genre to binge
Divers spend a vast amount of time journaling life underwater through video, images, podcasts, and writing both on and offline and for good reason (because we all ran out of shit to watch on Netflix). Explore your passion from the comfort of your surface interval (time between dives) and immerse yourself in some of the beautifully curated content that divers produce, available on all the usual watching platforms.
Also, why not spice up your #SoMe (Social Media) algorithm with a bit of daily inspiration by following some of your favorite explorers, divers, and underwater accounts to add a splash of the big blue to your feed. Try something new, sign up to GUE’s new video subscription platform that hosts a mega library of content getting refreshed all the time, and never run out of epic underwater footage to watch.
Career
Diving isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life. And you can make a pretty cool career out of it too! From teaching people to learn to dive to working as James Bond’s underwater stunt double, like Andy Torbet, and everything in-between there is a wealth of opportunities to tap into.
The sea space is so vast and there is an opportunity to monetize your passion for it. Take time, research, and get creative with your ideas.
Hot tips: curate a great Instagram, be passionate, be prepared to adapt and learn to move with the waves.
What has changed for you since you became a diver? We’d love to hear about your experiences, share them with us in the comments below.
Featured image courtesy of Leo Grower
