Week 5: Diving

Nowadays diving is getting more and more popular. Millions of people are charmed with underwater life. However this extraordinary experience might be also a scaring and hazardous activity. My question is what makes diving so attractive?

For those who have never dove before, diving may seem like an intimidating experience. The thought of being submerged in deep water can definitely be stressful. Let's be honest: humans are not meant to survive underwater! The stress is common for most of first time divers, but this anxiety doesn't stay forever. With time people start to feel safe and comfortable with their dives. In fact a vast majority of those people change into diving addicts, who continuously return to discover new dive experiences, appreciating diving more and more and never get enough of it. And that is how my adventure with diving started. At first I didn't even like the idea of diving. I was faced with the choice of lying whole day on an uncomfortable, billowing boat or give diving a try. It wasn't until next summer holidays, when I truly began enjoying it. What made me to change my mind was inaccessibility of diving for regular people. When you dive even in the most crowded sites (and trust me on some popular sites it gets really crowded) you feel like you're exploring a new world with a large variety of unknown (for me) or simply rare or hard to find creatures.

From this big ones: dolphins, mantas, sunfishes, sharks...

Till these smaller ones like pipe fishes, seahorses, snails...

I've also started to luxuriate in feeling free and light, almost without limitation while swimming in the deep water. Last but not least reason is the atmosphere connected with diving. People you meet with the same interest from various countries and cultures. Friendships, which starts there. And how fun boat rides might be? Feeling the wind in your hair and the occasional splash of ocean water. All these things build unique memories.

Mentioning sharks. Do you know what is one of the first questions, which I am asked regarding diving? Non divers always ask me if I have seen a shark and if I'm not afraid of diving because of them. To overthrow the myth for once and for all please look at below statistics. Sharks are not as dangerous as most people think.

To be honest I have seen only reef sharks such as the white tip shark, which are smaller and let's say less aggressive. However it's common knowledge, that animals do not attack without any reason. Of course sometimes people do not realize what they have done, but it is said that the only unprovoked sharks attacking are these from the famous Steven Spielberg movie, the great white sharks. Anyway there are other creatures, which causes biggest problems for humans than sharks. It's mostly because their inconspicuous appearance for example Stonefish. There are two reasons why it is so dangerous. First it's the venom and second as I already wrote is their look. Stonfishes are usually hard to notice as they camouflage itself. Their color is similar to the color of stone. When diver accidentaly touch it, the fish is able to inject an amount of venom fatal for humans. As this is not the only dangerous species there is an underwater rule to keep your hands close to your body, meaning do not touch the reef. The other reason for this rule existing is to not destroy reefs. It's extremely important as corals are growing really slow. It depends on coral type, but it takes for some stony corals about one month to grow around 5 mm, while others such as deep water corals may grow much slower.  What's more when coral die all reef life dies too or migrate to other places, because corals serve as home and food for many underwater animals. I do not remember exact proportion however once I have read that reefs cover less than 10% of world oceans, but 90% of ocean life is dependent on reefs. Sadly every year a huge amount of coral reef is dying. There are many causes for that. Starting from these global ones like sea temperature and it's level increasing or pH changes from ocean acidification. Finishing on local ones such as coastal development, pollution, overfishing, disease and digging of canals.

At the end please look at this short diving movie. It was made by the company, which I was diving with last summer holidays. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/lajFEbYg-ws?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=TzZa6atQJr1TELD1rYb6rQ&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever tried diving or maybe you are an experienced diver? If yes what are you enjoying the most in it? If not do you want to try it? Why yes/no?

In your opinion what makes diving attractive?