When you dive into the sea, you dive into another environment that is not at all similar to ours. It is important to know its characteristics to live it in a safe, respectful and FRIENDLY way.
Let's start Friendly Fins!
Importance of temperature in water
Tropical seas have very high surface temperatures that touch 30°C with low seasonal temperature variations. For temperate seas, however, it is very different: the Mediterranean Sea for example varies from 12-18°C in winter to 23-28°C in summer.
This explains why we only swim in the summer!
Knowing the temperature of the sea you are diving into is essential: in water our body loses heat much faster than in air.
So we feel the cold first!
The first step to becoming Friendly fins is to decide on the right thermal protection to slow down this cooling process as much as possible. Wetsuits come to our aid: long or short, wet, semi-dry or dry, with hood, boots, in lycra, neoprene and so on. They must protect us from the cold! But not only that!
How long do we stay in the water?
Another factor to consider is the time we want to dedicate to our snorkeling or diving, because the longer we stay, the more heat we will lose.
We address snorkelers: it is always advisable to wear a wetsuit in temperate seas because, even if the water is warm in summer, after a certain time we begin to feel cold and without protection we will be forced to abandon the marine world before our will.
Conversely, never go snorkeling in warm seas without a wetsuit or a cotton T-shirt on, not because it is cold (obviously it depends on how long we will be there) but because the sun, with the reflection of the water, on the back, bottom and calves, can easily transform a person into a lobster!
We are addressing divers: the surface temperature of a temperate sea is often different from the depth temperature, especially in the Mediterranean summer we find a surface temperature of 27°C and then drops to 15-20 m and finds itself at 10 degrees less. Why? Because there is the THERMOCLINE: a transition layer that separates the warm surface waters from the cold depths. Choose the right wetsuit for what you want to do!
Conversely, in warm seas, we can choose between wetsuits of different thicknesses based on how sensitive we are to the cold: we start with wetsuits of 5 to 3 mm, up to 0.5 mm. In general, we feel very comfortable with a 3 mm wetsuit in seas with temperatures between 28 and 30 degrees (like the Maldives) and 5 mm wetsuits with temperatures that range from 25 to 28 degrees (like the Caribbean and Madagascar).
The salinity of water
Salinity is the amount of salts dissolved in water, it is different depending on the sea we are in. Without going into too much detail, the seas are saltier than the oceans: the Red Sea is one of the saltiest, followed by the Mediterranean Sea.
Salinity is very important to know for a Friendly Fins:
We are addressing snorkelers: the saltier the water, the more we will float without any difficulty, enjoying the marine spectacle with minimal effort.
We are addressing divers: the saltier the water we dive into, the more we will need “help” to go deeper. To better understand, it is important to do a “correct weighing” to find a trim that allows us to enjoy the marine spectacle, without risking endangering ourselves and the environment around us!
Importance of weight belt and the right amount of kg:
Too many kilos:
If we had too much weight we would struggle to move lightly and find our balance, risking touching the bottom and damaging it,
The effort in movement would be excessive and would make us consume much more air than necessary, ending our dive before it should have.
Too few kilos:
If we were too “light” we would struggle to stay at the chosen depth and so we would try in every way to hold on to something to stay there.
We would not enjoy the dive because we would be too worried about controlling our breathing; in fact, it significantly affects the variation of our trim!
Be careful! Sometimes it may seem like we have too few kilos but it could also just be that we are inflating our lungs like two bagpipes due to the agitation! This does not allow us to dive peacefully! So Friendly Fins, take a deep breath and dive peacefully!
The right weight does not only depend on the sea we are in but also on the thickness of the wetsuit we are wearing, the material of the tank we are using (steel or aluminum) and our own body size!
Tides:
Tides are periodic movements of water masses, even very large ones, due to the interaction between the Moon, Earth and Sun. Beyond the mechanisms that generate them, tides radically influence marine life both in reproductive behavior and in everyday life. The period between the minimum tide peak and the maximum tide peak is about six hours, this means that in one day we witness the phenomenon of low tide twice and the phenomenon of high tide twice. Tides have always been studied a lot and today there are tables that determine the time of day in which these changes occur.
However, the tides do not manifest themselves in the same way everywhere: in some places there are almost no tidal variations like in the Mediterranean while in others the difference between minimum and maximum can reach several meters, like in the Indian Ocean.
It is important to know the difference in level of the tide in the place where we want to go: first of all because the sea can "literally disappear" for hundreds of meters and this makes shore activities such as swimming impossible.
Even more incidental, however, is on snorkeling and diving. You should always find out about the daily low and high tide times to avoid getting "stuck" on the coral reef without being able to return to shore.
Relying on a guide and a qualified center is always the wisest choice to best manage these extraordinary natural phenomena, also because the currents are closely linked to the tides.
The currents:
More or less accentuated based on the intensity of the tides, the winds, the differences in temperature between one body of water and another, currents are present in all seas. Thanks to them, there is a mixing of the waters and therefore an abundance of food and animals. It is no coincidence that large predators such as sharks and cetaceans are found in places with a lot of current.
The presence of currents requires special precautions, especially when they are particularly intense:
We are addressing snorkelers: “current snorkeling” must be done with the support of a boat and above all with a guide. It is a very simple and fun adventure: just let yourself go in the direction of the current and do not try to overcome it!
The basic rule for a successful Friedly Fins is to stay with the group and never go away. In a group you are more visible from the recovery boat and by staying close to the guide you can listen to the interesting curiosities of what you are observing!
Furthermore, a conscious Friendly Fins will not snorkel alone from the beach because if he encounters a strong current that pushes him offshore, he could put himself in danger.
This is especially true in places with very accentuated tides that in low tide conditions, the masses of water are pushed offshore and it is very difficult to overcome this force. Better to stay near the shore and never beyond the limit of the coral reef.
How do we understand the limit?
Looking at the colors of the sea: the clearer water with blue hues indicates the presence of a coral reef while the sharp blue color indicates the beginning of the deeper sea and therefore more subject to currents.
We are addressing divers: drift diving offers an extraordinary variety of life regardless of where we are. During the dive it is imperative to stay in a group and follow the guide and his instructions. Generally, during drift dives you let yourself be carried by it but sometimes it is necessary to fight it for short moments during the dive.
An attentive Friendly Fins treasures this little trick: everything that creates an obstacle to the current slows it down: so if I fin close to the bottom or close to a wall I will feel the effect of the current less and will have less difficulty in overcoming it, I will use less air and I will enjoy the dive more!
The sea gives us great emotions but it is always better to address it formally without ever underestimating its power and majesty!
Now we are ready to dive into the water with more safety and awareness Friendly Fins!