What to Expect and Consider before Your First Time Scuba Diving | The Try Dive
[reading time: approx. 7 mins.]
In our first blog post we want to talk about what points to consider when you decide to do your first Try Scuba Dive and what to expect.
You’re on vacation right now or planning it? You want to be part of the beautiful marine life and not just a snorkeling black silhouette on the surface for the underwater inhabitants? Or you just want to try something new and exciting? Then scuba diving is exactly what you are looking for.
The Try Scuba
To find out if you like diving without taking a course before, you can do a Try Scuba Dive. You will be part of a so far unknown but spectacular world and see what it’s like to breathe and float underwater. But no worries, your diving instructor will take care of everything and you will just go until a maximum depth of five meters. The Try Scuba Dive is the perfect solution for you when you don’t want to invest time in learning the whole diving theory before and just want to jump in and try it.
Happy faces after our Try Scuba in Malta
Your First Time Diving
So this is what your first dive will look like:Before the dive you’ll get a detailed briefing from the diving instructor explaining the essential „rules“ and exercises for your first dive. You will not learn any complicated calculations, but these easy exercises are pretty important for your safety.
Just a few examples are breathing smooth and steady, equalizing your ears and how to get water out of your mask under the surface. Furthermore you will be shown the most important dive signs for an easy communication and you will learn how to handle your equipment for going up and down underwater. For you that might sound pretty much at the beginning, but we promise that it’s easy and that your diving guide will also take care of your safety, so you don’t need to think of everything on your own.
Diving buddies since our first Try Dive at the Whitsundays, Australia
Diving Buddies
Afterwards the group is divided into couples – called diving buddies. That’s why diving is not a solo sport, you’ll never go diving on your own, always with a buddy on your side. It will first of all be your partner/friend or another diver of the group. Buddies always stay together underwater to help each other in any situation. But of course in the Try Scuba the diving instructor will help you first of all.After the introduction the divers put on their equipment with the help of the instructor and go into the water – usually the Try Scuba starts in shallow water from the coast or the beach. There are maximum four divers on one instructor and to be honest, if there are way bigger groups, maybe it’s not a good diving center. Just imagine - in case of emergency – how should one instructor handle a few people at the same time?
Pro Tip: Look for a good diving center! You have no experience at all and you need to trust your instructor. They’re responsible for your life! We know that nobody wants to hear that aspect, but diving is nothing the human body is made for. But don’t be deterred, driving a car is way more dangerous. Back to our point: Especially if you are a rather fearful person, you will feel more comfortable with a good instructor. For further information about that have a look at this blog post: How to find a suitable diving center for beginners.
Discover the beauty of the underwater world
Let's Get Wet
When everyone is in the ocean, you will hold your face in the water with your regulator in your mouth (the tool the air comes out of) and you start to breathe. The group won’t descent until everyone is feeling good. And even then, you’ll just go down to maximum one meter. It’s just normal that you’ll feel strange and not comfortable at the beginning. Breathing is an instinct on the surface, you don’t need to think about that, everyone just does it. But as soon as you’re underwater, you can’t think of anything else – it’s all about “I need air” in your brain. Breathing underwater is nothing humans are familiar with immediately.For me it was also not easy at all – I had the feeling of getting not enough air and therefore just tried not to panic, I was breathing like 50 times a minute! I wanted to stop the dive before it really started and showed the instructor the sign for GOING UP. But luckily she reacted absolutely right – she pointed to the anemone fish in front of me and suddenly I was feeling better. I was concentrating so much on breathing without realizing the underwater world around me. Don´t give up to early – humans are creatures of habit, you will get used to it.
Pro Tip: Choose a beautiful underwater world for your first Try Dive. You will see that your nervousness will go away easier when you get distracted by the corals and creatures. And don’t focus too much on breathing! You can breathe through the regulator just as above water and nothing will go wrong. Your instructor will always take care of your remaining air!
Diving equipment on a boat trip in Egypt
Three Safety Exercises
When everyone is fine with breathing, one after another needs to do three exercises. They might not be fun for you at the moment, but very important for your safety.Mask Clearing
Exercise number 1 is called mask clearing. While diving, sometimes a little bit of water comes into your face mask, for example because your mask doesn’t fit correctly or because you have a beard. Therefore you need to learn how to bring that undesired water out. You just need to tilt your head back, press your mask against your forehead and exhale through your nose. Et voilà, you have a clear view again.Finding your Regulator
Exercise number two is another safety aspect for how to bring your regulator back to your mouth if for some reason it’s not there anymore (never had that situation). If your regulator is beyond your sight, just tilt your body to the right – because the regulator is always installed on the right side – and swing with your right arm. You now have the regulator on your right side and can bring it back into your mouth. Remember to exhale first or press the air shower button (at the front of your regulator), otherwise you’ll breathe some salty water.Out of Air
The third exercise is nearly the same, it’s for the unlikely situation that you’re running out of air. Because then you’ll need to breathe out of your diving buddies octopus (his second regulator). So in this exercise your buddy gives you his octopus and you’re breathing out of that one for a few seconds. And that’s it!Let's Start Diving
Your instructor will ask again if everything is alright. If not – don’t hesitate to tell them. Doesn’t matter what it is – they will always help you! Now that everyone is feeling good and safe, the dive into the beautiful new world starts – and that´s it from our side for telling you how it will be, because every underwater world is totally different! But we promise, it’ll be exciting and overwhelming!Pro Tip: Don’t be unrealistic – otherwise you’ll get disappointed. Don’t expect a huge colorful reef in Malta, a turtle on your first dive or a blue whale in Egypt. Adapt your expectations to the location you’re diving at or – the best option – don’t have any expectations. Let yourself be surprised and you won’t be disappointed.
The dive itself will approximately take between 30 and 45 minutes and for sure you will be relieved when you’re back on the surface. After taking off the equipment and getting dry it’s talking time – you can speak with your instructor about unknown animals you’ve seen, difficulties you had underwater or at best you already want to talk about the next step – a diving course :) That would be great! Have a look here for information about the Open Water Diver Course.
The Next Step
To be honest, after the Try Scuba many people are just happy to be able to breathe normal and don’t even want to think about diving again. But we once saw a quote:That’s a pretty funny quote – but it’s so true. Don’t write off diving after one dive, the nervousness and the insecurity will become less and less. We’re sure you’ll do great on your first try dive – just relax and enjoy!
If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. There's a first time for everyone.
Tami & Chris
