What to do once arrived at the dive site

If, however, conditions are suitable for diving, you should then get all your equipment together, check that you have everything and assemble your aqualung before putting on your wetsuit.

Before entering the water you should re-examine some aspects of the plan. For example, who is going to lead the dive? The important factor here is not each scuba diver's certification or experience, but how well a diver knows the site. Go over the standard and special signals you will need on the dive, the depth and time limits, the route and the emergency procedures, etc. Check that all the communication systems are working correctly (radio, telephone or mobile phone).

It is obvious that you need to agree on all of the standard signals with your buddy or group. Depending on the type of dive, there are also other signals, such as those you became familiar with on your first level course. How did you instructor tell you to "repeat the exercise", "OK", "the exercise has finished", "well done"? Other special signals can be established by knowing the exact three-dimensional route of the scuba diving. For example some of the special signals used on a wreck dive may be: "engine room", "meeting point", "pass from route A to B", etc. You became familiar with various non-standardized signals during your first level course. For example, in the briefing before each dive your instructor undoubtedly showed you signals that would be used to indicate that you should perform a particular exercise or technique.

Making the dive

Once you are actually in the water, you must follow all the plans you made exactly. This is not always as easy as it seems, even though you probably think that it is not difficult to respect the limits you have established. This is true, and when planning the dive you also agreed on various procedures for solving possible difficulties that may arise during the dive. These procedures can be divided into two general categories: "curative" and "preventive". Obviously preventive measures are much safer than curative ones because they prevent a situation from becoming potentially dangerous and evolving into a serious incident. In order to establish any type of procedure or action to take, it is not enough to just repeat what others do or study just the "theory" of the topic in great detail. You also need to develop the ability to foresee what may happen in a particular situation. In fact, the main difficulty lies not in identifying a risky or dangerous situation and deciding on which of the preventive procedures you had previously established to put into action, but realizing that "something is going wrong". Doing this in a tense or even dangerous situation requires a clear head. This means the brain must be well supplied with oxygen. Therefore remember that in cases of danger or problems (either real or perceived), the first thing to do is breathe calmly and deeply so your lungs exchange as much air as possible. Do not rush into the situation, but stop and think while breathing slowly and calmly.

The worst enemies in diving are recklessness, typical of young people, or disregard of danger (not to be confused with courage, that enables you to face dangerous situations after having evaluated and understood the risks). By paraphrasing a saying from the Air Force, we can say "There are old divers and there are bold divers, but there are no old, bold divers".