Divers say that if you've never dived in the sea, you don't know what your missing, but once you do, you'll become an addict. Many people think that diving is a very specialized kind of leisure activity. But the reality is that both the young and the old can dive. As long as your circulatory and respiratory systems are normal, there's nothing wrong with your lungs, heart, ears and nose, and you haven't recently had surgery or a severe illness, you ought to be able to adapt to the change of pressure in the water and enjoy diving all the way from your teens to your sixties or seventies. Of course, besides needing a clean bill of health, another prerequisite is that you can't be afraid of the water. You needn't be a champion swimmer, but you can't have problems with panicking in the water.

Safety and pleasure

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of diving: "free diving"--better known as snorkeling-- and scuba diving. For free diving, the only equipment needed is a face mask, snorkel, flippers, and a life preserver to keep you on the water's surface. There you look down upon the world on the sea floor. When skin diving, you hold your breath and dive up to 8 meters under the surface. It gives you a taste of real diving. But because you spend most of your time floating on the water's surface when free diving, waves, current, water depth and visibility can all have a great effect.

When the sea water is clear and the sun is shining brightly through the water, floaters can clearly see the beautiful scenery on the ocean floor. But for safety's sake, it's best to snorkel near shore and to be led by a diving instructor.

The second kind of diving is that cool-looking scuba diving, where you really dive down deep into the ocean world. For this, a lot of equipment is required. Besides a mask, mouthpiece and flippers, you've got to wear a wet suit to prevent injury and keep you warm and lug a large tank of pressurized oxygen and a breathing regulator. And you've got to wear a special diving buoyancy compensator, as well as a weight belt, lead weights, a diving sheath, and so on. All told they'll weigh 20-30 kilos. Besides all this, because light may be reduced and people may lose their sense of direction while diving, a compass, pressure gauge, depth gauge and flashlight are all essential accessories.

In a weightless state in the ocean, the heavy equipment will be as light as a feather. The weight belt and lead weights will help you descend, but all you've got to do is flick on the air to your buoyancy compensator to control the depth of your dive, and with a gentle flick of the flippers go with ease in any direction you desire. Regardless of whether you're plunging or rising, the changing water pressure will affect your body, and for this reason it's best to take it slow, maintaining a balance in the pressure between your body inside and the water outside.

Scuba diving requires more skill, and there is more risk of danger: sudden turbulence, encounters with dangerous animals, disorientation, forgetting to check on the amount of air left in tanks, or poorly controlled loss of pressure. You should never scuba dive alone, and it's of paramount importance to receive training first. You should only go out on a dive after getting certified.

Divers are the party crashers of the sea, and can intentionally or accidentally disturb the ocean ecology. For instance, some people like to take fish spears underwater to catch fish. This not only results in a reduction of that species, but also affects the local food chain, or it forces fish schools to swim farther out to sea. Try to avoid disturbing the ecology. Also, many divers trample on soft coral or move pieces of stony coral, so that the algae and other organisms living on them die. All such behavior poses a threat to the natural world and should be avoided.

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World Class Diving Sites of the Southwest Pacific

(Chart: Chang Shih-chihe)