Scuba Diving Rules and 4 Safety Tips

Scuba diving is one of the most popular activities in the entire world, particularly in the warmer summer months as well as in warmer parts of the world.

What you may be pretty surprised, however, is that recreational diving itself is a relatively new sport/pastime that, although created back in the 50’s, didn’t become popular until the 1970’s, and even then it was nowhere near as popular then as it is right now.

Several factors have helped make scuba diving so vastly popular, with one of the leading factors being the advances in equipment and modern technology.

Despite being popular, it is still potentially very dangerous and should be treated with the utmost respect.

Here we’ll be taking a look at four scuba diving rules and safety tips that should be followed at all times. Related full face snorkel mask review.

The 4 Scuba Diving Rules:

1. Boat operators

One of the most effective safety tips when it comes to scuba diving is to always scuba dive from a boat which is operated by an experienced operator. That doesn’t matter whether the boat is yours, or the operator, you should always have the most experienced boat operator at the helm to help ensure everybody remains safe and is kept in the safest possible hands. Put simply, you should NEVER scuba dive from a boat unless there is a capable and experienced operator at the helm.

2. Reverse dive profiles

Another of the slightly less known scuba diving rules is that reverse dive profiles are in fact allowed, in that you may indeed dive deeper into the water on your second dive than on your first. This is a relatively new concept. In the past divers were encouraged to dive to the deepest depths as early on in the dive as possible, and to then begin to work upwards getting shallower and shallower. Nowadays, however, you may go deeper later on in the dive.

3. Reduced ascent rate

No article talking about scuba diving rules and safety tips would be complete without mentioning the ascent rate, and there’s an excellent reason for that as well. Nowadays, new rules dictate that you should ascend at around one foot every two seconds, which is 30 feet for every minute. The old rules allowed for 1 foot per second, which was 60 feet per minute. The reason for the change is that 30 feet per minute, allowed for far fewer cases of DCS than 60 feet per minute.

4. Visibility

To help you stay visible to other boaters in and around the water, experts recommend that you not only wear brightly colored scuba diving gear but that you also bring a large inflatable, bright orange wand with you known as a “safety sausage”. The idea is for divers to hold this device up above them upon surfacing; allowing other boats to be aware of their presence and to therefore not hit them as a result. It’s one of the simplest yet highly effective scuba diving rules as it helps save countless lives each year.