[misc.handicap] Telling Up From Down In SCUBA

GE0013@SIUCVMB.BITNET (Roy Miller) (02/09/90)

Index Number: 6624

Someone wanted to know "How do you tell which way is up" while SCUBA
diving.  If you are sighted and diving near the bottom, you can tell which
way is "down" because you see coral, rocks, empty beer cans, and so forth
on the bottom.  When you are diving and the bottom is not visible, there
is only one sure method of telling "up" from "down."  The air that you
expell from your lungs only goes one way -- and that is "up" toward the
surface of the water (because of pressure differences).  If you are a
sighted person you can see which way your air bubbles are going and you
know that they are going "up."  If you were a blind person, you could
simply move your hand around your regulator exhaust port and feel which
way the bubbles were going -- and that would be "up."