Common Surface Descent Issues & How To Solve Them

Learning to scuba dive is definitely an amazing experience. However, beginner divers can face some challenges every now and then, especially when moving through the water with your scuba gear. Before you dive, it is important to read these common issues you might encounter when ascending or descending with your dive kit.

Mask getting lost

A lot of times when you're diving, you're doing a backwards roll or you're doing what's called a giant stride. When you’re doing this, it is really important to prevent your diving mask from slipping off. Make sure you have your hand on your mask to prevent your mask from flying off and disappearing which could result in a fairly unpleasant dive (you don’t want to use a mask from the boat that’s already been used by many strangers).

Free-flowing regulator

Apart from losing your mask, another issue you might encounter is getting a free-flowing regulator. This can happen for a couple of reasons: not having been serviced for a long time or not washing it properly. These things can cause the salt from the water to build up over time and get stuck in your regulator, causing it to free flow.

It's very important to have your occy stowed correctly. You can have it attached to your hip, some people have got what's called an integrated occy or integrated alternate air source, which means there's a regulator integrated with part of their inflator hose. It doesn't take much to stop an Occy, a regulator from free-flowing.

The most important thing to remember is when you're looking at it, if your regulator free-flows the first thing you have to remember is: don't panic. Lean out to the side where you gather your regulator, or if it's floating in front of you, just grab it and pop it there.

The other option that you can do is pop it into your mouth. But if you're on the surface, the easy thing to do is just take a little tap of the finger and that's going to stop your regulator from free-flowing.