Due to the island’s crystal clear waters, wealth of marine life, and captivating lava tubes, scuba diving on the Big Island of Hawaii has become a popular activity. Although there are great diving sites all over the island, the West Coast tends to have the best diving due to calmer waters and more attractive diving sites. However, there are different sites for divers of all skill levels. If you are new to diving or are unfamiliar with the diving areas throughout the Big Island, you can opt for diving tours where you dive with a group of people under the instruction of a trained and skilled diver, or diving classes where you can learn how to dive in a more controlled environment such as a swimming pool. Another alternative is snorkeling, or snuba tours, which is like a cross between the two.

The Big Island offers a wealth of shore diving, boat diving, night diving, and cave diving, but the Kona and Kohala areas are often the most popular diving areas. Most of the island’s dive operators are located in these areas, with Ulua Cave and Horseshoe Reef being popular diving sights. Although the Big Island can be a bit rocky in some diving places, they are often more accessible than diving sites on other islands, where boats are often required to get to the most popular sites. While diving you will be able to explore beautiful reefs and maybe see some marine creatures including tropical fish, turtles, sharks, rays, octopuses, monk seals, moray eels, and maybe even dolphins.

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Scuba diving is a fun, exciting, exhilarating sport. Scuba divers get to explore the depths of the mysterious underwater world in a safe way, assuming they follow the rules and regulations of scuba diving. When scuba divers get hurt, people refer to the incident as a “scuba diving accident.” However, a trained, careful diver should very rarely have an accident. A majority of scuba diving incidents leading to injury or death can be avoided. In other words, these incidents are not accidents, but usually failures by the divers to scuba dive safely and carefully.

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If you were to analyze scuba diving safety rules and regulations, you would notice that they are designed to eliminate almost all chance for any accident to occur. Safe scuba divers follow these rules, leading to good diving habits, and unsafe diving is caused by bad diving habits. Almost all scuba diving “accidents” can be avoided by following good diving practices and creating good habits. Some of the most common bad diving practices leading to scuba diving accidents include deep air diving, diving alone, diving without the proper training, diving in a medically unfit or overweight condition and failure to maintain certification and proper training.

Good scuba divers who are generally able to avoid all scuba accidents never dive beyond the limits of what their training has taught them. They regularly practice and improve upon scuba diving skills and always dive with another experience scuba diver. They also stay in good shape in order to avoid accidents caused by being unable to swim for an extended period. Finally, they always plan their trips in safe locations and keep an eye on weather reports in order to avoid scuba diving accidents related to storms or choppy water.

It is also important to realize that not everyone can dive even if they receive the proper training. In order to avoid accidents, people who have breathing problems, are over-weight or are cluster phobic should not dive regardless of the extent of training they receive. People who have had bad experiences in the water, are poor swimmers or have an abnormal fear of drowning should also avoid scuba diving. It is also important to be able to react calmly and quickly if equipment malfunctions, or any other problem occurs, and therefore, people with panic or anxiety disorders should also avoid diving.

Although almost all scuba diving accidents are avoidable by maintaining safe diving habits, a small percentage of scuba diving accidents are unavoidable due to unknown external factors. For example, some years ago two German divers died in Yugoslavia when a local started using dynamite to fish at the dive-site. The explosion knocked the two men unconscious and they drowned. Scuba accidents like this are almost impossible to avoid, but luckily they are also very rare.

Suggested Reading:

+ Night Scuba Diving
+ Scuba Diving Vacations

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