Beat the Headache Blues

The tranquil underwater world may put your mind at ease, but for many divers, the hours that follow can be one big headache. Don’t let throbbing pain put a damper on your next dive.

Loosen up: Your hood is tight. Your wet suit is tight. Your mask is tight. You’ve got your jaw in a death grip around your regulator. Pay attention during the dive to how you hold the regulator in your mouth: Are you clenching it? Bite down gently on your mouthpiece. And a well-fitted mask doesn’t need to be cinched within an inch of its life. The more restricted and constricted you are, the more likely you are to emerge with a headache.

Check your tank position. If the back of your head keeps hitting your first stage, adjust the position of the cylinder as needed.

Breathe Carbon dioxide buildup is one of the most common causes of post-dive headaches. CO2 can only build up when you don’t get enough oxygen. So it’s common in people who take small sips off their regulator or “skip breathe” by pausing after every inhalation and holding their air before exhaling. Avoid CO2 build-up headaches by taking full, even breaths off your regulator.

Drink up. Dehydration will make your headache in a hurry. Between the hot sun and the long days on and under the water, it can be easy to let your fluid intake slide. Have a fresh, full bottle of H2O with you at all times. And avoid alcohol. Too much alcohol leads to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, leaving you head aching, fuzzy-headed, queasy and fatigued the next day. Drink Up explores the negative aspects of dehydration in more detail.

Clear those sinuses. Sinus barotrauma or “squeeze” is another common cause of post dive head pain. These skull crushers are especially common in divers who have problems equalizing. When you shift depths without properly equalizing, your sinuses may take a squeeze causing a shot of pain across your forehead and eyes. This one requires medical help. Once the condition is resolved, you'll need to figure out a way to equalize successfully. Be sure to descend and ascend very slowly, equalizing every step of the way.

About Author: The auhtor of this blog has done research on diving in goa.

Secrets to Saving Air while diving

Do you consistently run through your gas supply faster than other divers on the boat? Do you frequently have to end the dive before the rest of the group?

Here stretchers to try, starting with the obvious first step.

Fix the Small Leaks

Even a tiny stream of bubbles from an O-ring swivel adds up over 40 minutes, and may be a sign of more serious trouble ahead anyway. Ask your buddy to look behind you to be sure. A mask that doesn't seal is another kind of leak in that you have to constantly blow air into it to clear out the water. It's also a source of stress, which needlessly elevates your breathing rate and thereby reduces your breathing efficiency.

Dive More

Inexperienced divers are famous for burning through their air supply at a furious rate. The reason is anxiety. A new diver is understandably nervous, and his body's automatic response to danger is to raise his metabolism, his heart rate and his breathing rate. It's hard-wired, the body revving its engine to be ready for fight or flight, though the result is a lot of air cycled through his lungs but never used, just dumped into the ocean.

Take a Class

Any class, almost, will reduce your gas consumption just by making you feel more accomplished and therefore more comfortable. But the best bet is probably a class to improve your weighting and buoyancy control. When you get that dialed in, you can control your altitude mostly with your lungs, so you're not squirting that valuable gas into your BC and then venting it to the ocean. Most important, you can now forget (nearly) about the mechanics of diving, drift like a fish, and relax.

Swim Slowly

The energy cost of speed is even more than you might think because it's an exponential function proportional to the square of the speed. So swimming twice as fast requires four times as much energy and air. But the reverse is true, too: Swim half as fast as you do now, and you'll use only one-fourth as much air.

Minimize the Lead

If you're over weighted, you have to put more air into your BC to float it and be neutral. The inflated BC is larger and requires more energy and oxygen to push it through the water.

An extra eight pounds of lead means your BC is one gallon bigger when inflated enough to make you neutral. Imagine the extra effort of having to push a gallon-sized water jug through the water.

Adjust Your Trim

If your body is horizontal in the water, when you swim forward, your legs and fins will pass through the "hole" in the water made by your head and shoulders. You'll disturb less water and expend less energy and air. Adjust your trim by moving some lead from your hips to your back--to trim pockets on your BC or to your tank.

Seek Neutral Buoyancy

Always being exactly neutral is the key. If you're not, if you're slightly heavy or light, you're constantly using fin power (and air) to maintain a constant depth. If you're not neutral, you can't glide between fin strokes and you can't hang effortlessly.

Streamline Your Gear

All fast-swimming fish have smooth skins with few or no protuberances. That minimizes drag so they can swim with the least energy and oxygen consumption. Divers, by contrast, have rough, convoluted surfaces with all sorts of attachments from scuba tanks to whistles. Anything disturbing the flow of water past your body creates drag and wastes air.

Streamline Your Movements

Keep your arms close to your body. Straighten your legs and keep them as close together as your fins will allow. Kick with short strokes so your fins stay within the slipstream of your body. Some fins do require a wider stroke so you have to compromise between efficient propulsion and streamlining. But usually you're better off finning faster instead of wider.

Get in Shape

Diving can be surprisingly strenuous because water is so much denser than air. Swimming into a current, it's not difficult to elevate your breathing to the very wasteful rate of huffing and puffing. But even much lower levels of exertion will cause your breathing rate to rise. How much it rises and how soon depends mostly on your aerobic conditioning. A diver in better condition will have less increase when the workload goes up, so he will use less air. The other part of getting in shape is to lose fat and achieve a more streamlined shape.

About Author- The author of this blog has done research on diving in goa.

Amazing Facts About the Manta Ray

The manta ray is a large species of flattened fish, closely related to other cartilaginous fish such as sharks. The manta ray is the largest species of ray in the world with some manta ray individuals reaching up to 9 meters wide. 

The manta ray is most commonly found in the warmer, tropical of waters of the world's oceans, typically around coral reefs and along the continental shelves where food is in abundance. However, due to their enormous size, manta rays are also commonly spotted hunting out in the open ocean.

Here are some amazing facts about Manta Ray:

1. Except during mating season, mantas are not known to be social; however, the great fish regularly congregate in areas with plentiful food.

2. Like most reef fishes, mantas regularly attend cleaning stations where certain species of fishes pick parasites from their hovering bodies.

3. Mantas give birth every other year to a single pup, or a pair of four-foot pups that arrive rolled up like burritos.

4. It is not known why mantas leap from the water. Theories abound: to impress females, to help control parasites, to escape predators, or as a means of intraspecific communication.

5. Mantas can grow to nearly 25 feet from wingtip to wingtip, live for a quarter century, and will consume about 60 pounds of plankton and small fish each day by filter feeding.

6. Mantas and their smaller kin, mobulas, were once tagged with the unflattering name “devilfish” because the cephalic lobes attached to each side of their mouths resemble horns. When extended, the flattened lobes help direct food into their mouths.

7. Currently only two species of mantas have been scientifically described, although a third, similar-appearing species inhabiting the Caribbean and Atlantic is suspected.

8. Although useless and nonfunctioning, a manta has approximately 300 rows of skin-covered teeth in its lower jaw.

Today, although the manta ray is not considered to be a species that is in imminent danger of extinction in the wild, the manta ray population numbers have been declining more quickly in recent years. Manta rays are particularly susceptible to pollution in the water and are quickly affected by over fishing in certain areas, and therefore a lack of food.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

About Author: The author of this blog has done research on diving in goa.

7 Parrotfish Facts

1. Parrotfish — like their close kin, the wrasses — use their paired set of pectoral fins primarily to swim, with an occasional flick of the tail fin for a burst of speed.

2. Measuring more than four feet in length and weighing in at 100 pounds, bumphead parrotfish from the Indo-Pacific are the family's largest member.

3. When bedding down for the night, a few species enshroud their bodies in mucus bubbles blown from their mouths (as in the photo here). The translucent nightgowns protect the slumbering fish from bloodsucking parasites and predators.

4. The fused-beak structure, which is the origin of the parrotfish's common name, can often be found while beachcombing.

5. Many divers first notice parrotfish because of their rather unpleasant habit of eliminating clouds of waste while swimming. Seventy-five percent of the material is reef rock incidentally ingested while hunting for filamentous algae.

6. Sunbathers beware! Much of the crystal white sand forming tropical beaches is former parrotfish poop: After digesting coral rock, it's excreted as sand.

7. With the loss of a harem's dominant male, the group's largest female will, in a matter of weeks, change sex, which confers a gaudy new coat and the exclusive right to mate with the remaining ladies.

About Author: The author of this blog has done research on scuba diving.

Scuba Gear Bags

Gear Bag

Whether you’re driving to your local dive site or getting on a plane headed for the tropics, a sturdy gear bag will help you organize, protect and carry your scubadiving equipment. Your main bag needs to be big and tough enough to hold all your gear and stand up to the abuse of salt water. You’ll probably want secondary bags, such as a lightweight mesh bag, for your mask, fins and snorkel, or a padded bag for your regulator.

Standard Scuba Gear Bag Features

• Sturdy design made from heavy-duty fabric with reinforced stitching to withstand pointy, heavy dive gear and to survive being wet, sometimes for days.
• Strong and corrosion-proof fasteners and hardware, like zippers, snaps, clips and handles that can endure the stress of dive equipment and the dive environment.
• Weight-supporting straps that are heavily reinforced, or pass all the way around the bag so they won’t tear under load.

Optional and Desirable Features

• Wheels that allow you to roll down the dock to the boat or glide through the airport.
• Backpack straps that let you haul it on your back, leaving your hands free to carry other items.
• Pockets, both internal and external, for special items like fins; even pockets that detach so you can carry items separately when desired.
• Drain holes or mesh areas to let out excess water.

Scuba Gear Bag Styles

In addition to your main big bag, which will either be a backpack style, roller style or duffel bag, you may want these other bags:

• Mesh bags – small, medium or large, both duffel and backpack styles.
• Padded regulator bag – not only protects your regulator and gauges while in your big bag, but allows you to carry your regulator separately while traveling.
• Dry bags – small, medium or large for all the other things you bring and want to keep dry – towel, log book, wallet, etc.

Take Care of Your Scuba Gear Bag

The key to getting the most out of your gear bag is to pack well. Pack the items you need last on the bottom and what you need first on the top. For air travel, make sure breakable items, like your mask, are well padded (wetsuits make good padding). Empty and rinse your dive bag after each use, and allow it to thoroughly dry before storing.