In the 7 years since I started scuba diving, I’ve had countless friends, family members, acquaintances, and even strangers ask me all sorts of questions about scuba diving. I remember when a close friend of mine started scuba diving around 2010, I had no idea what he was talking about. If I had understood, I may have even started diving with him!

My motivation for this article stems from that very experience. Shockingly, there is virtually no information for non-divers who are interested in learning more! Considering how friendly the scuba diving community is, I am surprised there hasn’t been a greater attempt to introduce non-divers to this incredible hobby.

Interested in Scuba Diving? What You Need to Know

1. Who this Article is for
2. What is Scuba Diving?
3. Is Scuba Diving Safe?
4. Scuba Diving Certification
5. How to get Certified in Scuba Diving
6. Insider Info for Open Water Certification in Scuba Diving

Who this Article is for

While a great deal of information exists for people already certified as scuba divers, there is very little information that would make sense to someone who doesn’t have any education. This article is intended for non-divers who are interested in learning more about scuba diving, and may even have an interest in getting certified. I’ve greatly simplified a lot of the specifics and technical jargon to make this approachable to the layman.

In that vein, that also means this isn’t intended to be a comprehensive manual on scuba diving.

What is Scuba Diving?

Scuba is an acronym, short for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. In other words, divers use equipment (usually a tank of compressed air) to be able to breathe underwater. There are many different types of scuba diving. This article is focused on recreational scuba diving.

Different Types of Scuba Diving

• Recreational. Most scuba diving is recreational, which means you are diving less than 40 m / 130 ft of depth, and within “no decompression” limits. In layman’s terms, “no decompression” means that you can safely ascend to the surface without making interim stops.
• Technical. Technical diving introduces divers to a host of new experiences. Cave diving, multi-tank diving, deep diving (beyond 40 m / 130 ft), and decompression diving are all covered within technical diving.
• Commercial. Commercial divers are not diving “for fun” but rather do specific tasks for commercial purposes. This does not include people who work at recreational dive shops.
• Scientific. Scientific diving is for those who perform scientific research in fields such as marine biology.

Is Scuba Diving Safe?

I’ll offer a quote here I heard from a divemaster when I was a beginner diver: “Scuba diving is safe. It’s divers who are dangerous.” What he meant was, it is divers who deviate from safety protocols or dive beyond their limits, who have dive accidents. In fact, scuba diving is considered a low-risk activity by insurance companies. The latest estimate of scuba diving fatalities is 1.8 per 1,000,000 dives. That’s very low!

In my personal experience, I have never seen anyone have a dive accident. On my recent trip to Cocos Island, my dive guide said in 20 years of diving in Cocos, he had never witnessed a single dive accident!

Moreover, beginner divers have fewer dive accidents than advanced divers. This is because beginner divers tend to stay close to the divemaster, follow appropriate safety protocols, and dive within their limits. On the other hand, advanced divers get overly confident in their abilities and push beyond their limits. They may stop checking how much remaining air they have, dive deeper than is appropriate, or underestimate current strength.

Of course, divers sometimes have accidents. Fortunately, most dive accidents are not fatal.

Types of Diving Injuries

If a dive accident happens, what are the different types of injuries that arise? Below, I highlight the 2 major dive injuries. This is not intended to be a full scientific treatment of the subject. If you decide to pursue a scuba diving certification, you’ll learn more about these in depth (no pun intended).

• Decompression Sickness (DCS): Also known as “the bends”, DCS occurs when a diver ascends too quickly after spending a long time in deep water. When the body goes into deep water (below 10 m / 33 ft), it absorbs additional nitrogen. This is not harmful to the body, as long as the diver ascends at a slow rate at the end of the dive. However, if the diver ascends too quickly, the nitrogen expands and causes DCS. In addition, to avoid DCS, divers are supposed to wait up to 18 hours after a dive trip before flying or traveling to high elevations.
• Lung Overexpansion Injury: This injury occurs if a diver holds his or her breath while ascending too quickly. Since gas expands as pressure decreases, holding your breath while you ascend expands the air in your lungs. If a diver ascends too quickly while holding his or her breath, the air held in the lungs expands too much and damages the lung tissue. Divers easily avoid this injury by slowly and continuously breathing during the entire dive, including during ascent.

Marine Life

I also frequently get asked about safety around marine life.

The reality is, to marine life, divers are just obstacles. My personal theory is that they don’t interact with us because we didn’t evolve with them. (I’m not a marine biologist and have no idea if my theory has any scientific merit.)

Creatures of the sea are never going to chase a diver out of aggression. However, they can and will protect themselves when necessary. Some species are extremely poisonous and can cause severe and permanent injury to divers who touch them.

Fortunately, the most dangerous species are the ones that are usually stationary or slow-moving! In other words, as long as the diver follows standard safety protocols (including never touching the marine life), you will never have the misfortune of touching a scorpionfish or lionfish. It is also worth highlighting that poisonous species are location-specific, so the types of poisonous fish found around Indonesia are not the same as those found in the Caribbean (for example).

Sharks

Probably the single most common question I get asked: What about sharks??? Admittedly, when I get asked this question in real life, I usually answer with a little bravado 😉 However, I’ll let my readers in on a little secret: no, sharks won’t attack you, and they aren’t aggressive!

In fact, the vast majority of divers consider it a blessing to see even a single shark on a dive.

Scuba Diving Certification

What are the Different Scuba Diving Certification Levels?

• Open Water. The Open Water (OW) is the lowest level of certification. You will be certified to dive as deep as 18 m / 60 ft.
• Advanced Open Water. Getting your AOW is actually not a much bigger step above the OW. Many shops will allow you to complete your AOW at the same time as your OW, with only 2 days of additional instruction. The primary benefit is getting certification to dive to 30 m / 100 ft. I usually recommend new divers complete their AOW shortly after their first dive experience if they think they will dive again in the future.
• Rescue Diver. Divers usually only get to this level when they have gotten serious about diving. This level of certification focuses on primary causes of dive accidents and how to rescue divers from different emergency situations.
• Divemaster. This is considered the lowest level of professional certification. You will learn more about the science of diving and complete a series of physical tests including a timed 400 m swim test. I completed my Divemaster training in 2019, though I do not practice professionally.

In addition to these levels, there are many different modules that cover specific aspects of scuba diving. Some examples include special considerations for diving in high altitudes, diving with special mixes of gases, or even courses for underwater photography and videography.

What You Learn When Getting Certified in Scuba Diving

I frequently get asked what exactly you learn during a Scuba Diving certification course.

• Dive Theory. This part is just about the basics of how pressure changes in deep water. It only covers essentials to prevent accidents. It is not a full scientific treatment, so don’t be alarmed if you are not science-minded!
• Dive Equipment. You will first get a visual lesson on your basic dive equipment including tanks, Buoyancy Compensators, and regulators. You will also get to work with the equipment hands-on.
• Pool lessons. Next, you will don your equipment and get in a swimming pool or other contained area. Your instructor will walk you through the most essential techniques of safe diving and basic hand signals. Most importantly, you will learn what to do in a host of different emergency scenarios.
• Pool Dives. Your instructor will watch you dive around the pool, ensuring you understand how to operate your equipment and communicate with other divers.
• Open Water Diving. Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for! After your pool dives, you’ll dive in a real environment (called “open water”). Your instructor will watch you closely and ensure yet again that you understand hand signals, can control your buoyancy, and manage certain emergency skills.

How to get Certified in Scuba Diving

If you’re wondering how to get certified in scuba diving, the process is actually quite simple!

To get your certification, choose a location you’d like to try scuba diving, and find a local shop that teaches the Open Water certification. They’ll walk you through the rest.

Certification itself is administered by a handful of agencies. The largest ones are PADI and SSI (through which I got my various levels of certification). Ultimately, the specific agency you choose isn’t important, as dive shops will recognize your certification from virtually any other agency.

Also worth noting is that certification is valid for life.

Choosing Your First Scuba Diving Location

How do you choose a good location for your first scuba diving experience? I tell people to find a place with good diving but not outstanding diving. The reason is that you want to motivate yourself to continue diving in the future, without seeing something so fantastic that you ruin it for yourself! I also try to recommend places without strong currents. I’d personally recommend any of the following locations for your first dives.

North America & Central America

• Cancun or Cozumel. These places are easy to access for those living in continental North America.
• Hawaii. The specific island doesn’t matter, though Oahu, Maui, and Kona are all popular.

Europe

• Canary Islands. I dived out of Tenerife and thought there was an awesome combination of beautiful topography combined with abundant marine life.
• Azores. While commonly known for its spectacular nature on land, many people miss the great diving to be found as well.

Africa

• Zanzibar. Abundant marine life and beautiful weather, not to mention the incredible beaches, make this an outstanding place to visit. Urmi and I visited Zanzibar in 2021 and it’s one of the most amazing and memorable trips I’ve ever taken!
• Egyptian Red Sea. Many Europeans call this the best diving they’ve ever seen, and with good cause. The diving is also particularly inexpensive in Egypt, but be sure to make sure your dive shop is real and affiliated with a major scuba agency. Scams are plentiful in Egypt.

Australia

• Great Barrier Reef. The GBR doesn’t need an introduction! You can access the GBR from Cairns or Port Douglas.
• Ningaloo. Accessed from Western Australia, I have heard many positive things about Ningaloo though I have personally not dived there.

Asia

• Koh Tao, Thailand. Prior to the pandemic, this was the 2nd most popular spot in the world to get OW certified, after the Great Barrier Reef. (I don’t know the latest statistics.)
• Maldives. The Maldives has a reputation for being a luxury-only location, however without much effort you can find hotels at very reasonable prices. I spent 6 days diving in South Ari Atoll for $1500, including domestic flight, food, and accommodations.

To be clear, there are many other locations around the world that have tremendous scuba diving; the above list is primarily for locations that have easy conditions in the water. In the future, I will write another article about my favorite dive locations for advanced divers.

How Long it Takes to Get Certified in Scuba Diving

For your Open Water certification, you can usually finish the class in 4 full days.

Now, here’s an insider tip for you, and what I tell everyone regarding their Open Water certification. I didn’t know this when I got my certification, and wish someone could have told me!

You don’t want to spend 2 days of a vacation sitting in a classroom watching instructional videos.

There is a program called a referral where you can complete your classroom instruction and even pool dives in your home city. You then complete your open water dives while you’re on vacation. In other words, you don’t have to burn precious vacation time sitting in the classroom! Instead, you get the “boring” work done at home, and use your vacation time seeing the exciting sites of the underwater world.

If you do decide to do the referral program, I would strongly recommend you complete the coursework not more than 2 weeks prior to your open water dives. Otherwise, you risk forgetting the material you learned by the time you complete your open water dives.

Requirements for Scuba Diving Certification

• You need to know how to swim. Doggy paddling counts! You are not tested on your technique, but you will have to prove you can swim 200 m using any technique (or lack thereof). There is no time limit.
• You will have to be able to clear pressure from your sinus system. If you are able to fly without sinus problems, you can clear pressure in the water, unless you are sick and have a stuffy nose. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do it now! You will learn specific techniques from your instructors during your course.
• You must be at least 10 years old. There is no maximum age imposed by the scuba agencies, though some shops internationally will not let you dive past a certain age. For example, in Okinawa, shops had an age limit of 60.

Insider Info for Open Water Certification in Scuba Diving

• Unless you live in a scuba-friendly location such as Florida, do a referral program at home where you get the classroom work done prior to your vacation.
• Don’t do the referral program too far in advance. I personally recommend you do it within 2 weeks of your open water dives.
• Many Open Water certification programs require you to own your own mask and fins. You may get better prices online.
• Be aware you will have to wait 18 hours after your last dive before flying again. You place yourself at risk of DCS if you fly too soon! Check with your dive shop before you book your course and/or flights.
• You won’t be able to use an underwater camera during your Open Water course. Some shops will have a cameraman in the water during your open water dives, and you can pay a fee to get a fully edited video afterward.

Are you interested in Scuba Diving and have additional questions? Are you already certified and think I missed something? Leave a comment below!