Dan the Diver and SCUBA

The Great Barrier Reef is amazing but we must always remember that we are in another world when we are underwater on SCUBA. We need to breathe air. Unlike the fish and corals, we carry our air with us in a tank on our back. “What’s happening with my air,” said Dan the Diver. “There are bubbles everywhere. I need to surface but not in a hurry.” Dan knew that air expands as it rises in the water and his lungs would do the same. He should be OK. “My gear got caught in a cave and my air hose was broken. Luckily, it was shallow as I couldn’t breathe at all.” Dan knew that if he had been much deeper, then he would need to decompress slowly which was impossible. Divers try to come up no faster than their bubbles but if Dan runs out of air, he has no choice unless he can buddy breathe. If he comes up too quickly from depth, he can get decompression sickness from nitrogen bubbles in his blood. Dan tells how shallow water blackout occurs when snorkelers hyperventilate by repeated deep breathing followed by breath holding. This had happened to him when he was young and luckily a friend was there to help. “It was a close call.” “You always need to have a dive buddy,” said Bobby. “You never know what could happen and it is so different down there.” Annabel agreed completely. “Even if you’re only snorkeling, it is much safer with a dive buddy,” she said. Dan tells a story he heard from old Arthur who lived on a creek way up north of Cairns. These two kids told Arthur that they had rowed in from the Reef. He could hardly believe them but Dan knew that they had both been very lucky. Dan remembers on one dive they found a shipwreck. It was only in shallow water but as the wind picked up Dan’s boat dragged its anchor. Luckily, there was another boat to bring it back or Dan would have had a big swim for it. And there was another, that had washed up into the shallows and been abandoned. It was surrounded by venomous stonefish. Dan had collected venomous marine creatures when he was young so he ventured carefully. “When it comes to the sea, anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” said Dan. “You better check all your gear properly or you’re going to wish that you had.” Dan knew this from bitter experience and wasn’t trying to scare them. “It doesn’t take a meteorite shower to sink a boat or drive it aground,” was one of Dan’s favorite quotes. He wouldn’t say where he had heard it but it was probably old Arthur by the creek up north. He’d seen everything for sure.