A3-16) Fat people and Scuba Diving
Description
This article is from the Big Folks Sports and Activities FAQ, by sharon@ecs.ox.ac.uk (Sharon Curtis) with numerous contributions by others.
A3-16) Fat people and Scuba Diving
Scuba diving is good fun! It's also relatively easy to have
a great time whilst being safe. However, like any other sport that
uses life-support gear, make sure you take training to get certified,
before you go, and make sure you are under the instruction of a properly
trained instructor. It's an active sport, using up lots of energy, so having
a reasonable level of fitness is useful, particularly aerobic fitness, as
the more air you use, the shorter your dive is.
Ample Opportunity (listed in the organizations FAQ) recently held a
scuba class for fat women, with fantastic success. They checked out
the various scuba shops for fat-accepting attitudes and found a very
accomodating shop. The shop answered all their questions that dealt
with fat and scuba and never left folks feeling embarrassed or bad.
Many of the instructors were large folks. The instructors suggested
that folks rely on the conservative end of the diving tables, but said
they in their experience, fat students didn't have any more problems
than other folks.
Everyone that dives will probably wear weights, large folks may however
wear a few more more to counteract the extra buoyancy from size.
On very small boats with flimsy ladders, large folks may have some
difficulty getting into the boat. If you encounter this problem, hand
your gear up to the folks in the boat, and then rock up and down in
the water to get some height, so the crew can help pull you up. This
should not be a problem on larger boats.
As far as equipment goes, you should be able to cut extensions on the
belts so that they fasten around a larger person. Finding scuba suits
in large sizes is difficult, and you do need a suit that fits: a suit that
is too small will restrict your movement and make it more difficult to
breathe. Also, don't have a suit that is too large, otherwise the warm can
flow through more quickly and you'll get cold. You can dive in warm water
without a suit. Apparently one place makes lycra suits (suitable for warm
water) up to size 3X. You can have wet or dry suits custom made,
though they are not cheap (about $200).
Continue to:
My Books
