I cant tread and terrible swimmer but would love to scuba dive?
A question from a reader: Hi there..I would like to scuba dive and sign up for Open Water course. The thing is I am a terrible swimmer and I cant tread. I can only do freestyle and float horizontally, either face up or down. But I am comfortable in the water. I love snorkelling as well but of course I wear the life jacket when I go snorkelling. But snorkelling and scuba diving are completely different are they not?Do you think I can scuba dive? Thanks.
I used to teach scuba diving. We REQUIRED all students to swim the length of the pool underwater on one breath. We required all students to swim laps every lesson. IF you can’t swim well I would not certify you as a scuba diver. The diving community has done a pretty good job of self-regulation to offset the government from creating their own laws concerning this sport. It can be a dangerous activity. People do die when they make mistakes and there is little room for mistakes in this sport.
Yes, they are practically the same thing, so I’d say yes…
Do it! It’s an amazing sport, and honestly if you are only doing open water you don’t have to be on the swim team or anything, you wear fins and kick- and you don’t move your arms. Yes snorkeling and scuba diving are really different, you have to be really comfortable in the water, you are also kind of wearing a life jacket while diving, its your BCD, you can put air into it from your tank to make it float or empty it to go down. As long as you can do free style and are comfortable go ahead and try it out, you could always take some swim classes before your certification.
Don’t let this discourage you, and keep going for your goal.
Best of luck.
All legitimate scuba training agencies require you to possess basic swimming skills in order to become a certified scuba diver. Exact requirements may differ, but you will need to at least be able to swim a distance (possibly up to 200m), tread water/survival swim for 10 minutes, and snorkel swim with mask/fins/snorkel (maybe 450 yards). You may also have to swim underwater for 15m (50 feet) or so. The idea is that you should not be COMPLETELY dependent upon your equipment in the water.
If you are comfortable in the water but lack these basic swimming skills, my advice is that you spend time developing these skills before signing up for the course. You’ll be a lot more confident when asked to do these skills and will be able to enjoy the course that much more because you won’t be dreading the water skills tests.
So, yes, if you are comfortable in the water there is no reason you cannot become a scuba diver but you should spend some time developing better swimming skills before signing up.
EDIT; By the way, you say you can “float horizontally, either face up or down”. If you can float on your back for 10 minutes without support, that would satisfy the survival swim requirement in a NAUI course.