Mention Scuba Diving to non-divers and they will be intrigued to hear some of your stories from beneath the waves and will usually have a few questions of their own. How deep can you go? Have you ever seen a shark? Are there any Jellyfish? Scuba Diving is such an amazing hobby and lifestyle which touches so many cool and interesting areas it hard not to be obsessed with it. Here are some fun facts about scuba diving that you may not know.
1. Scuba is an acronym. It stands for ‘Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus’. The first aqualung was invented in 1943 by Jacques Cousteau.
2. Scuba divers never hold their breath. This is the Golden rule taught to all new scuba divers. Even if the regulator falls out of their mouth during a dive they will still keep breathing by gently blowing bubbles,
3. Things look bigger underwater. Did you know that through a Dive Mask, Objects look about 33% larger due to the flatness on the mask’s lens, a light refraction error?
4. We have explored less than 10% of the worlds ocean floor. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.
5. Sharks still have a bad reputation thanks to a 1975 Movie called ‘Jaws’ Only a handful of people are attacked each year by sharks. Sharks are considered to be apex predators and very important to our oceans. if you removed sharks from our oceans then the whole food chain would become unbalanced.
6. Scuba divers breathe compressed air. The air we breathe contains 79% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. Breathing air under pressure is fine for us holidaying scuba divers but to do some really deep sea diving it will then become a problem. The Oxygen becomes toxic and the Nitrogen can cause an intoxicating effect.
7. Water absorbs light. The color that is absorbed the quickest is red, hence the red filters for the underwater cameras. Red is followed by the rest of the colours of the spectrum. DIve lights allow you to see in true colour.
8. The world deepest Scuba dive was more than 1000ft. Going down is the easy part, It will only take 15 mins to get down to those depths but about 15 hours to come up. Ascending from a world record scuba dive would also require a large support team of safety divers and other highly experienced Technical Divers.
9. Sound travels four times faster in water than it does in air. When hearing a sound underwater, it is not as easy to know which direction the sound is coming from as the sound waves move much quicker through the denser medium of water.
10. You only have to be 10 years old to begin your scuba training. Yes, as a 10-year-old child you are allowed to join in the same Open Water class as an adult.
Scuba diving is great fun for all of the family and definitely an excursion that you should consider if you are holidaying by the ocean. Take a one-day try-dive experience and see for yourself.
