If it has been long since you last dived, you should refresh your skills for the next diving adventure. While diving is one of the most exciting water adventures, if you are not careful, it can turn into a matter of life and death. That is why you need to hone your skill every so often.

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Why should you refresh your scuba skills?

Mostly, you do it for your own safety, as well as the safety of the other divers. Again, diving is a very technical sport, and so you want to be as keen as possible when taking to the water. The gear itself can be complicated to set up and one wrongly placed strap could end your dive sooner than you expected.

By refreshing your scuba skills, you will be reminding yourself that the ocean can be both your friend and your most sinister foe. Thus, you not only refresh your skills, but you also refresh your mindset.

When you refresh your skills, you can dive with confidence. Every diver should have a lot of confidence to be able to explore newer depths. If some time has passed since you dived last, your skills may be in doubt. As a result, you will not feel confident when you dive again.

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Five ways to refresh your scuba skills

Take a refresher course

One of the most popular refresher courses for scuba diving is called the PADI Reactivate. You can take this simple course anywhere, and sometimes, they say you can even take it on dry land.

PADI refresher courses can take place for a few hours to a day, depending on the kind of dive that you are preparing for. For example, if you are preparing for ice diving, you may take longer than a person preparing for warm water diving in a place like the tropics. 

By taking a refresher course, you will be updating your skills. You will be reminding your body of what it is like to wear all that gear, or to be submerged in water with it.

Practice in the swimming pool

If you have a swimming pool at home, that is a good place for you to practice how to scuba dive. It has both the narrow and the deep ends. Thus, if it has been too long since you dived last, you may start with the narrow side and then as it all starts to come back to you, you move on to the deep end.

Although the swimming pool does not have salty water, it will still help. In fact, just put on the entire gear and then go ahead and do some practice. It is better than none.

Remind yourself how your scuba gear works

This is another way that you can refresh your skills before diving. One of the most important things when diving is to know how your gear works. It is a bit technical and so if it has been some time since you last had that scuba diving tank on your back, you may forget how to connect the gauges and stuff.

Do not take anything for granted. Check the scuba mask, the dive computer, the scuba gloves and even the scuba booties because they help to protect your feet when you are underwater.

Fit your diving gear before the D-day

Do not assume that the scuba diving wetsuit that you wore last year is still going to fit you. You should fit it again before the day of the dive so that you know whether it is going to be fine. You should also practice some emergency responses, for your sake and that of other divers. Diving gear, including the scuba diving weights can be heavy. Thus, you want to be sure that you will be able to walk with it, as you will definitely have to climb over the boat to dive.

Practice how to get out of dangerous situations

Refreshing your skills in scuba diving does not only mean how to dive, attain neutral buoyancy and so on. It also means knowing how to react to hazardous situations under water. Thus, you should practice how to stay calm in the face of equipment failure. It may sound as if it is not important, but it really is. Overcoming the urge to hold your breathe and shoot to the surface is easier said than done.