I Wish I Knew This When I Started Scuba Diving

Did you think scuba diving would be easy? I did, and now after logging over 500 dives, diving has become second nature for me. But let me tell you, it was a grind in the beginning, and I wish I'd known how to make the process faster, safer, and honestly a lot more fun along the way. So to help make scuba diving easier for you, here are 13 things that I learned that will help you when you first start scuba diving. Let's get into it. I'm Thomas Hughes, a professional scuba instructor, and on this channel you'll see videos on scuba education, equipment, experiences, and environmental awareness. Lesson number one. When I first started diving, I was so worried about doing something wrong on a dive. I kept thinking things like, what if I messed up something for one of my dive buddies, or what if I screw up and hurt myself, right? I'd get stressed and anxious before a dive, and honestly it made me unsure if I wanted to keep diving at all. But lesson number one is to relax. Remember, diving is supposed to be fun. This level of anxiety and stress just isn't needed, and just remember your training. Focus on those fundamentals and get out there and enjoy your diving. Lesson number two. On my first dive trip ever, I witnessed a dive emergency that could have turned into a serious incident, but luckily everyone was able to end their dive safely and they all got back home okay. In diving, it's a bit of an international signal that if your scuba cylinder has a dust cap on the valve, that means that it's a full cylinder, and when you use a tank, you're taught to never put the dust cap back on, which makes sure that someone doesn't mistake it for a full tank, right? You should always be checking your air pressure before you get in the water, but mistakes happen. And, well, on this trip, a dive instructor ended up grabbing a nearly completely empty tank by mistake because they were in a rush, okay? The first time they checked their SPG was about five minutes into the dive when they took the last breath of air off that rig and their SPG read empty. Luckily, they were near their dive buddy who donated their octo and they made a safe ascent, ending their dive early. So, lesson number two is don't become complacent. Always do your pre-dive safety checks, even if that means that your buddies have to wait an extra minute before you get into the water. Lesson number three. I remember after getting my open water certification, I had the feeling of, like, what's next? And I wanted to just immediately jump into the next class. I was hooked, right? I really felt like I had a lot of knowledge already just from the basics, and more training would just open even more doors for me, and just I had this thirst for knowledge at the time. Unfortunately, what actually happened is as I learned more, I realized there was even more I didn't know about diving, and that really impacted my confidence. I started to get a bit more anxious again and wondering if I would ever improve and be able to enjoy dives like all of my dive buddies seem to. But then I realized this is just what's known as the Dunning-Kruger effect taking place. Lesson number three is understanding that the more you learn about a topic, the more you realize you don't know about that topic. Okay, this is normal, and it's important to stay humble, not be complacent, and continue learning gradually as you gain experience. Lesson number four. The first time I ever put on a wetsuit, it was a brand new five millimeter that did not fit me very well. It was so tight. It cut off my circulation in my arms and in my legs, and because it was brand new, it made me way more buoyant than I was used to. I struggled so much with my buoyancy that day that I gave up and decided I just wasn't going to go diving that day. Now luckily, an instructor friend told me that struggling with buoyancy is normal, and helped give me some tips so I could work on it. Lesson number four is to focus on your buoyancy early and often. You'll always be working on it. Once I started to dedicate time specifically to just focusing on buoyancy and trim, my dives were way more enjoyable, and now I can stay neutral in just about any position underwater. Lesson number five. As I was focusing on my buoyancy, I had to learn a few things as well, right? I wasn't perfect, obviously, at the beginning. I kept struggling to hold my position in the water column, and I felt like I constantly had to add puffs of air or release air from my BCD to kind of raise and lower myself over and over again. But then I realized something. My lungs were like an internal BCD, and the BCD itself was more for just kind of becoming neutrally buoyant at first at a different depth, right? So lesson number five is to understand the link between buoyancy and breath control. Once this clicks for you and once it clicked for me, I was able to easily rise and fall with just my breath and only needed to touch my BCD if I decided I needed to become more neutral again because maybe I went to a deeper depth or to a shallower depth. Lesson number six. Believe it or not, when I took my advanced open water course, I almost quit diving because of how bad I was in the water. I was frustrated by terrible air consumption, horrific buoyancy control, and I really lacked in just the basic fundamentals of diving. I remember still, I walked into the dive shop and told the owner, I don't think this is for me. Do you have suggestions for selling my scuba gear? Because I went out and bought everything after open water thinking that this is the new career for me. Now, luckily, they talked me out of quitting diving completely and suggested that I just take some time trying to enjoy diving before getting too worked up about classes and whether I'm being bad or good in the water and all these different things. So I got more dives in and he was right. Everything became easier as I gained more experience. So lesson number six is that more time in the water helps everything from buoyancy control to air consumption. And if you feel like you're struggling to improve, you may just need to spend some more time underwater in order to relax and improve. Lesson number seven. When I am teaching a class, especially open water students, I almost always see them using their hands to swim and turn underwater, right? It's a natural response because if you know how to swim, you would swim with your arms normally, right? But this is very ineffective and wastes a lot of energy and air when we're diving. Instead, I teach them to cross their arms or hold on to their BCD straps or clasp their hands so they just occupy themselves and stop flailing so much underwater like one of those wacky inflatable marketing things that you see on the side of the road here in the US. Now, in every single case, this helps them to improve their air consumption and protects them from hitting corals or rocks and things like that by accident and getting hurt underwater. So lesson number seven is to not use your hands to swim or turn underwater. Use your fins instead and learn how to do things like helicopter turns and stuff like that over time, okay? It's going to save energy, it's going to save air, and you'll be amazed by how much this can help with your air consumption alone. Lesson number eight. After I got certified as an open water diver, I was absolutely hooked on diving and like I said, I went to the shop, I asked about the next course, and I bought a full set of gear including a dive computer, regulator, and BCD. As my diving continued, I realized there were a lot of things I wish I had that my BCD and regulator just couldn't really provide for me and they're things that I really wanted. Now, this was anything from like D-ring placement on my BCD to the number of ports on my first stage. And later, I ended up having to replace most of that initial gear because I needed more than what it could offer me and kind of wasted money on that initial investment. I ended up selling a lot of it on Facebook Marketplace and other parts I just wound up donating away. So, lesson number eight is that you do not have to buy all your gear at once. Take some time diving to learn what you do and don't like about rental gear and look at what other divers have and ask about their kit that they're wearing. You're going to learn a lot this way and it can save you from wasting money on gear that you're just going to end up replacing later. Lesson number nine. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get past ten. So, a few years back, I had just moved to North Carolina from Texas and outside of a couple family members, I didn't know anyone here at all. And as we all know, making friends as an adult can be tough. But I went to the local dive shop to see what kind of diving was in the area, kind of ask about charters, trips, things like that. And honestly, I had a great time. I ended up hanging out there for over an hour chatting with the shop employees and some of the divers that were in and out of the shop as well. And it kind of just turned into a little hangout spot. Now, I didn't really know anyone well at all, especially that first day, but they invited me out to a local beer garden and I made a bunch of friends, including my now best friend. So, lesson number nine is to be sociable. Divers love talking about diving and it's a great way to make friends since you already have a hobby in common. If you see someone with a dive flag on their car or a diving shirt like this one here or something like that, don't be afraid to stop them and start talking about diving. You might be surprised, you might find a new friend there. Lesson number 10. When I went on my first dive trip, I had less than 10 dives total in my logbook and that included my initial checkout dive. So really, it was more like four or five dives, right? But during that trip, we dove three to four times a day for five days straight and I added 18 dives to my logbook. So in one trip, I more than doubled my time underwater and it made a huge impact to my diving. Diving that many times, day after day, back to back like that allowed me to gain so much confidence and improve my fundamentals tremendously. Now, lesson number 10 is to go on dive trips. They truly accelerate your skills by so, so much and are incredible experiences as well. If you're new, you're gonna see so much improvement back-to-back diving like that and if you're more experienced, you get to see amazing things that you can't get back home. I love dive trips so much, it's one of the reasons why I'm gonna be hosting my own coming soon. So click that first link in the description to get my newsletter so you don't miss out when I start offering those trips so you can go diving with us. Lesson 11. So now, speaking of experience, I often hear divers talk about the number of dives they have or how long they've been diving. Some like to show off which certifications they have too and try to prove how experienced they are, right? Well, the funny thing is I've learned that even people who have been diving for 40 years may not be that experienced still. Diving often and in varied conditions is really way more important than the total number of dives or total years of diving that you've had. If you dive twice a year for 50 years versus 50 times a year for two years, you both have 100 dives. But I'd argue the person diving more frequently may actually be a little bit more experienced in the water just because of how often they get that repetition. So lesson number 11 is that certifications, years of diving, and total dives don't automatically equal experience. Experience comes from diving frequently and experiencing many different diving conditions as well. Once I realized this, I learned who I wanted to take more advice from and who I would listen to, but honestly maybe I'd ignore their advice overall because they just aren't as experienced as they might sound on paper. Lesson number 12. I had just finished that first dive trip that I mentioned a little bit earlier and one of the divers on the trip asked me when my next one was and where I was going to be going next. I remember I looked a little bit sheepish and mentioned how expensive trips are and that I wasn't sure when I would be able to take off time from work to go on another trip like that. And she asked me a really important question that's always stuck with me. She said, do you live to work or do you work to live? And that question has just stuck with me ever since. Now I make sure to really invest time and money into the right trips where I can get the best experiences possible because I work to live. I don't live to work. Lesson number 12 is that dive trips can absolutely be expensive, but they're also absolutely worth it. Especially if you do it right. Do not let life pass you by because you're so caught up in work that you never take time to enjoy what you're actually working for and getting to live life as well. Lesson number 13. Now speaking of trips, I used to stress before every dive trip making sure I packed everything I needed and then some. But then I was anxious about keeping the baggage weight under the limit as well because I didn't want to have to pay extra fees for either extra bags or overweight bags. The thing is, once the dive trip was over, I usually would realize that I had a bunch of stuff that I packed that I never even used from dive gear to extra rash guards, clothes, and just things I didn't need. But then I started keeping a packing list for everywhere I've gone, especially noting the things that I never even used on the trip or things that I wish I had. And now I just use my packing list and make small edits as needed, removing all that stress and worry. So lesson number 13 is to keep a good packing list for your trips. Learn from others and adjust it based on what you actually use on the trip, not just what you brought on the trip. And if you want to see my generic packing list for scuba travel, you can click the link down in the description below and I'll send it over to you. Now I did say 13 lessons, but I wanted to share one more with you because I think it's an absolutely critical tip if you want to improve as a diver. The thing is, it's a bit of a longer one, so watch this video next where I give you a With that, stay safe, have fun, and let's go diving.