Scuba diving safety

NZ is an island country. We love swimming, fishing, sailing and some people enjoy scuba diving. However, nine scuba divers have died in NZ, in the past four months. This is a very sad situation which shows that diving can be dangerous if divers don’t follow safety rules.

Scuba diving has become more popular these days. The weather this summer has been fine and warm so maybe more people have been diving. Scuba divers need to take a dive course before they try diving but even experienced divers can make mistakes. In February 2006, Robert Hewitt, an experienced Navy diver, went missing while diving alone near Wellington but he was found in the water 3 days later. He was in bad shape with the skin peeling off him from the hot sun. He was taken to hospital but recovered later. He now teaches other people about water safety.

The most important rule for divers is to stay with your partner. Divers also need to be fit. Diving is a sport which requires good fitness. It can be very tiring swimming with diving equipment.

Before they get in the water, divers need to check their equipment. While diving, they have to keep an eye on the tank to make sure they have enough air and also check they do not go too deep. They learn that they should carry the catch bag in their hand and not tie it onto the body. It’s easy to drop the bag if they get into trouble. If the diver has trouble getting to the surface of the water, he or she also needs to drop the weight belt.

Vocabulary

• Navy – army on ships
• bad shape (idiom) – a bad condition
• peeling – coming off him
• tiring (adj) – an activity which makes someone tired
• keep an eye on (idiom) – watch carefully
• catch bag – to hold the fish they catch
• surface (n) – the top of the water

4 thoughts on “Scuba diving safety”

  1. Hello,

    First of all thank you so much for sharing those articles regularly. I have been reading them and I found it very useful to practice my English skills (including the kiwi accent) and also those articles are very interesting to keep me informed.

    Regarding this particular article, I would like to add a few comments. The first one is regarding the catch bag. As far as I know, scuba divers are not allowed to catch fish because it is considered unfair to the animals. Usually the ones who can do it are free divers (the ones that do not rely on a breathing apparatus).

    The second comment is regarding the option do drop the weight in case they have trouble getting to the surface. In this case, I’m not sure if it is a good idea. If they do that, they may loose control of the speed going to the surface. If they go too fast, it may cause very dangerous effects in their body. Maybe the best thing to do is to control the air in the buoyancy compensator jacket.

    Once again, thank you very much for publishing those articles.

  2. i really like the articles, it helps improve my english while reading them, thank you for the publisher whos doing so,
    it would be great if there is one new article everyday, thank you esl news

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