| Just about anybody who is comfortable and relaxed in the water — and who has the desire — can learn to scuba dive. This includes children as young as ten and seniors well into their seventies.
Do you have to be an athlete or a competitive swimmer?
Hardly. The only requirement here is that you be able to swim 200 yards (no time limit, any stroke or combination of strokes). You also need to be able to tread water or float in water too deep to stand for ten minutes. Rarely do we find anyone who has difficulty with this.
What about kids?
Children ages 10 to 14 can qualify for Junior certification, which requires they dive with an adult until age 15.
Don’t certain medical conditions disqualify you from diving?
Only a very few. So long as you are in good cardiovascular and respiratory health and not on any drugs that might cause complications under water, getting a physician’s approval to dive is generally easy. And, if you can honestly answer “No” to all of the questions on the medical history form , you won’t even have to get your doctor’s okay. You would be surprised at the range of people who dive. There are even special programs to help paraplegics experience the underwater world. More than anything else, it just takes desire.
|
