Have all your skills become so automatic that you can slip into auto-pilot when you dive? Have you become over-confident with your sense of security in the underwater world? Are you really sure you could extricate yourself from a difficult situation in the event of an emergency? Do you trust yourself to bring it all together in a moment of crisis?

These were some of the questions i started asking myself a few years back when i noticed a certain complacency had crept into my underwater adventures. I had a routine! Now I realise that scuba diving is a discipline like any other sport and skills can become automatic and rusty if under-used. It was too easy just to roll on into the tropical water and soporifically watch the bubbles rise. I had expectations that every dive should be 'easy' and 'relaxing' and that I should never be feeling anything other than deeply relaxed and calm. Then one day it dawned on me that those expectations could put me in real danger if dive conditions were to be radically different. From that moment I began preparing myself for the reality of scuba diving - the dive where conditions are not perfect.

We expect pilots to fly on auto-pilot for 99% of the time and still be able to handle frightening and potentially dangerous situations which may occur in a flash of an instant. How do they do this? Regular and rigorous training. Why do we as divers expect to continue diving on auto-pilot without regular reinforcement of what to do when things go wrong?

Any diver who believes they can handle the underwater environment adequately without regular training has become complacent and needs a reality check!

About the Author

Reiss Mackie is a SCUBA diving instructor living and working on the beautiful Great Barrier Reef in Australia. He is an expert on stress in scuba divers and co-author of The Scuba Diving Panic Management Guide with Dr Sarah Carney MBBS.

Visit his website and forum for more information on the psychological challenges of diving http://www.scubadivingpanicmanagement.com/blog