A few months have passed since I wrote about my first dive in the Tuscan sea, in Cerboli, near the Island of Elba. The enthusiasm that I had expressed on that occasion for this new exciting enterprise has certainly not exhausted, indeed it has only grown, thanks to the winter months (with the small detail of a global pandemic) of forced inactivity.
After the initial certification (Open Water Diver) I am continuing my activity to take the next coveted certification, the Advanced Open Water Diver, which will open the doors of the most famous diving spots for me. In fact, not only in the depth range between 18 and 30 meters things get more interesting because there are forms of marine life that do not get near the surface, but for most of the best dive sites in Italy (and in the world), the Advanced certificate is required not only because some more technically difficult dives require more experience, but also because only divers with a certain experience and mastery of their movements are allowed, in order to protect the environment of the protected areas.
So what does the activity of the diver consist of, and why do I find it so exciting?
Let's start with an obviousness, which, however, personally before starting my journey I had underestimated, or perhaps taken for granted: the life of the diver allows you to experience the sea in a much more direct way which for me, who am a lover of the sea, it can only be a big advantage. As I said, it may seem obvious, but before starting my training path I had no idea how the diver's day was structured, how much time was dedicated to diving and what collateral activities were functional to the dive.
The typical diving day usually takes place away with a club; nothing prevents you from organizing an excursion on your own (very hardly alone, because the couple system is a basis of the safety protocols of recreational diving), but partly for logistical reasons, partly to divide the costs that otherwise would become quite high, diving is done at a diving club that organizes equipment, guides, boats. So, if I am from Milan and I want to dive on Elba Island, it is possible that I participate in an excursion organized by my Milanese diving club, or contact some diving club on Elba Island to find out what excursions they have planned for a given day.
A typical recreational diver's day involves two dives; it is possible to do 3 dives in one day, especially if you end a day with a night dive (amazing experience!) but it is difficult to exceed this number of dives. If you go diving in pleasant places like the Maldives, it is possible to do up to 4 dives a day, under the conditions that I will say below, pulling the rope to the maximum to amortize as much as possible the opportunity and the cost of a trip which cannot be done many times in the course of a lifetime.
This number is due to a number of factors; first of all the capacity and duration of the tanks; an experienced diver consumes less air during a dive than a beginner, but a dive with a 15-liter tank tends not to last more than an hour; immersion and ascent involve the absorption of a certain quantity of nitrogen by the body which must naturally dissolve in the blood before being able to make another dive; therefore there are rules governing the duration of a surface stop between one dive and another, which normally lasts no less than an hour; in the middle there is a whole activity of dressing, undressing, preparation, assembly and disassembly of the equipment that are quite time consuming; moreover, diving is tiring, just as collateral activities (for example moving tanks) also require a little energy; among the certification levels of more experienced divers there is a certification for the use of a particular air mixture (Nitrox) which allows you to extend the number and duration of dives up to four dives per day, but, having done a maximum of three dives in a day so far, I guarantee you that at the end of that day I was literally overwhelmed by fatigue. But a summer day gets 15 hours of light and so what happens in the other hours? Well, net of the collateral activities (briefing before the dive, transport, travel, dressing, undressing, assembly and disassembly of the equipment) you spend a lot of time on the boat, and are many hours spent close to a cliff to smell the sea, to be lulled by the waves (more or less marked), to become familiar with the sea (even when it shows signs of nervousness ...) to scan the surface of the water to suddenly see the jump of a swordfish or the fin of a dolphin. Well, all this allows you to get in touch with the sea as perhaps only those who own a boat can do, and it is an aspect that I initially underestimated, focused only specifically on actual diving.
What else is diving? I would say that it is the closest thing to meditation that comes to mind. One aspect that initially fascinated me about diving was the prospect of spending time in an (alien) world characterized by absolute silence; I am quite impatient with the many forms of noise that torment us in daily life, from the constant trill of cell phones, to the neighbor on the train who screams on the phone for tens of minutes talking about his own business, careless of other passengers, to the inappropriate noise in places which would require refraining from unnecessary sounds, such as museums or the wild nature;as Salvator Rosa used to say "aut tace aut loquere meliora silentio" (better shut up, if you can't say anything better than silence) which would be like saying that silence is usually the best condition, which can only be broken for valid reasons (for those who are passionate about silence like me, I suggest this book). After all, wasn't it the famous documentary by Jacques Cousteau who opened the eyes of the world on diving called The Silent World? Well, I have to say that this expectation was a bit frustrated; ok, down there there are no ringing phones, nor inappropriate conversationalists willing to involve you in a petty conversation about the weather forecast, but what disturbs the silence is the noise of the regulator, which is rather deafening! With each breath, the sound of the bubbles of air coming out of the regulator and flowing up to the side of the ears is decidedly loud, much more than I expected.
So: + Sea: wow; - Silence: partial disappointment; ok I don't have to be too picky, but I was expecting something different; however, being in Via Toledo in Naples on Saturday afternoon is way much worse.
On the other hand, what was rather unexpected is everything related to self-control, which requires a mastery of one's movements, a mindfullness and a concentration that I absolutely did not expect. After weeks and weeks of existence spent in the water since early childhood with a mask and fins snorkeling, I thought that scuba diving would be no different, just 20 meters down. Obviously I was wrong; expert divers repeat over and over a phrase that initially seems a bit apodictic, but turns out to be more and more true as experience is gained: "diving is buoyancy", as if to affirm a litteral identity. But what do they mean by buoyancy? It is the ability to maintain a neutral position in the water, regardless of the depth to which you dive; in other words, regardless of being at a depth of 10, 20 or 50 meters, the ability to float in perfect suspension without having to adjust one's position with the movement of the fins, hands or the adjustment of the BCD (the inflatable jacket). The ability to maintain a perfectly neutral buoyancy is one of the main characteristics that distinguish an experienced diver from a newbie; the reason why it is so difficult to maintain a neutral buoyancy is that the buoyancy varies continuously with the varying depth and is determined by the simultaneous competition of more than one factor including the breath, because with each breath the lungs expand, increasing the oxygen content and therefore the buoyancy. The achievement of the neutral attitude therefore requires a perfect mastery of one's breath similar to the type of breathing that is taught in the meditation courses, in addition to the maximum economy of movements, which can only be achieved with absolute proprioception.
The importance of the buoyancy, and of the rather complex technique necessary to master it, stems from a whole series of implications that the holding of a neutral buoyancy has underwater: the mastery of the buoyancy allows you to move in complete control without overwhelming other divers, allows you not to move like an elephant by damaging the seabed and moving clouds of sand and annihilating visibility, but above all the mastery of the buoyancy is the first form of protection against the main danger of diving. Contrary to what one might think, the main danger during diving is not drowning from exhaustion of the air (yes, in theory it can happen and this eventuality is also part of the training, but let's say that it is a decidedly theoretical eventuality), nor plunge into the abyss (this too can theoretically happen if you are particularly inexperienced and clumsy, but this too is a more theoretical than a concrete risk); the real danger that hangs over inexperienced divers, the boogeyman that is told to novice divers on Halloween evenings in front of a bonfire, is the so-called "shooting up". The diver's main enemy is Archimedes; if you think about the image of a diver, all the equipment is not designed to prevent the diver from drowning, but to keep him down, by dint of weights and ballast, because as the great Greek scientist teaches us "a body immersed inside the water receives a push from the bottom up" and emerging too quickly, without the necessary safety or decompression stops, is the greatest danger, with the potentially lethal consequences of pulmonary overdistension, decompression sickness, etc. However, if at a depth of 20 meters it is the pressure of the water that effectively counteracts Archimedes' principle, the closer you get to the surface, the more difficult the upward thrust becomes to counteract; this is why the mastery of the buoyancy is the first, fundamental skill that a diver must acquire.
The search for this state of control of one's breathing and the movements of one's body, in a state of immersion comparable to that of a fetus in the maternal fluid, is extraordinarily relaxing, to the point that I come to appreciate even the boring training dives in the pool.
The last positive aspect is the most obvious one, namely the opportunity to discover worlds, submerged landscapes, animals and plant species that others can only see in video or photography.
And let's not forget that the taste of a pint of beer at the end of the third dive of a day has a sublime flavor.
For now, therefore, diving is a wonderful, compelling, daily discovery.
Obviously the practice of scuba diving also involves risks and dangers and it is a frequent practice for experienced divers, in the long hours of inertia between one dive and another, to tell newbies, like boy scouts in front of the fire, horror stories in which everything that could go wrong strictly followed Murphy's law (partly to make fun of them, I suppose, but also to make them more risk-conscious). I have already had the opportunity to learn about several cases of divers who, as great enthusiasts, have suddenly stopped their activity due to some accident serious enough to induce the enthusiast to put aside his passion overnight, so my enthusiasm as a neophyte must be evaluated with the appropriate objectivity and prudence.