Scuba: A Great Way To Cool Off

By Christina Lowe

If you can’t take the heat, go scuba diving!

Summer will be here before you know it! It’s time to start planning for all of the wonderful outdoor sports and fun activities that Arizona offers for the whole family such as boating, fishing, waterskiing, hiking, mountain climbing, and of course, scuba diving.

With our planet being approximately 75 percent water, being able to explore the underwater world while scuba diving is a surreal experience that not many people ever experience.

Scuba diving is easier than you think and is available for people of all ages and sizes to enjoy. You do not have to be a great swimmer to enjoy scuba diving.

Special programs such as the Scuba Rangers (developed for 8-10 year olds) allow children to get comfortable with scuba diving in the pool — only until they are old enough to get Ocean Certified. Anyone who is 10 years of age or older, comfortable in the water, is healthy and has the desire to see beautiful marine life will love scuba diving.

There are so many places to explore from the kelp forests of California, shipwrecks of North Carolina, to the coral reefs of the Caribbean; there are plenty of destinations to enjoy!

Scuba Sciences, Inc. has been teaching Safe Scuba Diving Courses since 1971. We spend over 18 hours of training in the classroom and a minimum of 18 hours of training in the pool before we head to the ocean.

During the classroom training, we cover everything from the safety requirements of equipment, how equipment fits/works, planning safe dives, oceanography, marine life identification, first aid, trip planning and much more.

The pool training is designed to teach our divers to be comfortable in the water, handle emergencies and have a safe and enjoyable dive. We start first with water comfort and swimming skills then progress into the snorkeling skills — working with our masks, fins, snorkel, boots, gloves and snorkeling vests.

This helps divers become familiar with their equipment, make adjustments, and how to care for it. Snorkeling skills are the fundamentals for scuba diving. Divers need to know how to complete snorkel dives (diving under water), water entries (various ways to enter the water safely), equalize their ears to the increased water pressure (this is so important to avoid hurting our ears), rest on the surface and assist our dive buddy if needed.

Scuba diving skills start with what equipment is needed to dive safely in various diving situations, what safety requirements are necessary to ensure our equipment is working correctly, and how to assemble, use and maintain the equipment. Our instructors spend a lot of time with students in the pool to ensure the divers are comfortable, confident with their skills, and safe to move onto the ocean for certification dives.

Scuba Sciences offers many different scuba diving trips and vacations to the best diving destinations around the world. Trips are available to California for beach and/or boat diving two to three times per month. Trips are also available to Florida, San Carlos, Mexico; Roatan, Honduras; Bonaire, and Fiji – anywhere the scuba diving is fantastic!

So, if you are ready to take the plunge give us a call at (602) 253-6622 (Central Phoenix Dive Center) or (602) 995-5926 (Metrocenter Dive Center) or visit our Web site at www.scubasciences.com for more information.