Serious Fun

We all know the joy that comes from scuba diving. It’s why we are divers and continue to pursue new underwater sights and adventures. You may remember getting lost in the moment of the overwhelming magnificence of a Caribbean wall that plummets into the abyss, letting go of time while we marvel at the abundance of intricate life on a coral reef, or feeling like you went back in time and became a swashbuckling pirate while diving on an old three-masted schooner shipwreck. These are the feelings and emotions that diving can bring you. But there is a time and a place for getting lost in those moments.
Diving is fun but it is also very serious.
No matter how beautiful a sight is, how moving or majestic… it can’t take you away from the fact that you are a human being underwater. You can never, for even a second, forget that you have a buddy underwater counting on your attention, that you have a limited amount of gas to breathe, and that you will need to ascend in a controlled manner to efficiently decompress your body. The marine life is second, the picture you want to take is second. This is where new divers get into trouble and lose their buddy, get too deep and violate their computer limits, or run dangerously low or even out of gas.
Safe diving requires a detailed focus and attention to minute details. This is developed in the practice and experience building dives that lead up to the big day. If the only time you dive is on the big exotic trip you don’t have the time to train your mind and body to be in the moment. Seeing the school of sharks swim past, framing and focusing and taking a picture, controlling your buoyancy, monitoring and reading your gauges, communicating with your dive buddy are all different tasks that will steal your awareness. If you focus in too much on your buoyancy control you’re not going to have the mental space to also manage your camera settings. If you are constantly looking for your buddy and worrying if you are going to get separated, you will never even see the sharks swim by.
There is a time for fun and there is a time for business.
Taking the fast track to escalating certifications gets you the minimum amount of knowledge to start experiencing diving at that new level. The C-card however does not give you the real experience that is essential in the long term. The “Deep Diver” class and the card should show you what you need to do the “deep” dive. It might show you how to use a light and maybe how to double check your dive tables. But becoming a good “deep” diver will take time and experience doing it repeatedly. Eventually, you will develop the comfort and awareness to see potential problems that without your experience would go unnoticed.
Building this awareness takes time, it simply can’t be issued with the certification card. Having a coach, mentor or a teammate with a shared goal will help guide you and accelerate the process.
Focus on this part of the journey, the work.
This is the fun stuff. This is where you grow and develop your own style and personality in the water. It is where you become and good diver and a good buddy. You are building your skills and awareness so that you are a pleasure to have on a dive boat and favorite customer of the dive master and boat captain.
Too many people get focused on just the big dive. To say that they have been there and that they have dived that, forgetting that the time and practice to do that dive well is really where the magic is. Not just getting a picture of a school of hammerhead sharks but also having maintained your depth and buoyancy control, adjusted your camera settings to get the right picture not just a lucky one, never lost sight of your buddy and communicated the shot with them, ascended on time never violating breathing gas reserves and staying completely in control throughout the whole ascent and safety stops.
When you take the time to build the rest of the experience that goes with the responsibility at your new certification level, you will be able to enjoy more of the dive and have more fun. Back on the boat or looking at pictures with everyone later is the time to get lost in the moment. Lost in the magic and memory of how wonderful the dive was and how well you executed every part of it.
That is also something to add to your logbook.