Communicating underwater is
an important skill to learn. For some it is much easier to communicate,
with rebreathers, they are able to have a quite legible conversation in
their mouthpieces, some, particularly commercial divers or in a number
of dive schools, instructors and students use underwater "radios". For
the rest of us, it's a wide assortment of hand signals or writing on a
slate.
When using hand signals underwater, they are usually done in front of
the chest. There are also a number of simple signals that are performed
with your torch etc.
When you learnt to dive, you would have been taught a number of basic
hand signals such as the 4 below.
OK
Surface
Stop
Descend
You were
probably taught a bunch of other signals to represent various underwater
sea life, but, there are so many of those, I won't go into those. Some
other common signals include those below.
Where or
Who is your Buddy
Question
How Much
Deco
Of course, a
big part of communicating underwater is the need to communicate
numerical data, like remaining gas, deco time etc. You could use a slate
which is pretty easy, or you could master the 10 easy hand signals that
are used to represent numerals like below.
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Zero
Want to see
numerical hand signals in
action? Or, after brushing up, want to try
your luck in the test?
I'll be adding some new signals that can only be shown as animated very
soon.
