Understanding the science of what is going on makes the ocean just a little bit more scary
If you are brave enough to even try free-diving it might be worth knowing what is going to happen to your body as you go deeper into the ocean.
I am not ashamed to say it – the ocean can be a terrifying place. It is unbelievably vast, scarily dark at certain levels and who knows what animals are lurking in its depths…
And that is all before you even concern yourself with all the mythical creatures of old like Cthulu.
But for now, let’s just focus on the science of diving deep.
Free diving is essentially diving underwater without the use of breathing apparatus. So, it likely beneficial to wrap your head around the physics of buoyancy, pressure, and depth.
In simple terms, the deeper you are in the water, the greater the level of pressure.
But what impact does this have on your body when you are in the water?
Well, one video that has begun circulating on social media platforms like Reddit hoped to explain just that.
And the results are expectedly having people vowing to never go deep diving, free-diving or otherwise.
The clip, posted on the woahthatsinteresting board, has so far been upvoted over 5,500 times.
The person in the footage is already under water and is seen holding onto a life-line rope with the question in a bubble reading ‘At what depth do I start sinking underwater?’
Yep that’s right, while you might float relatively easy on the surface, there comes a point where human bodies begin to sink.
The man in the video then proceeded to show himself alongside the rope at different depths. At 16 feet underneath the surface, he is still floating and rising. At 32 feet, he is still floating but rising at a slower rate.
At 40 feet he was perfectly neutral, bopping up and down. At 50 feet he started to sink and at 65 feet he began to sink rapidly.
The Gofreediving website explains the science of what is happening pretty succinctly.
The page reads: “At sea level, the pressure of the air that surrounds us equal to 1 bar, which is sometimes referred to as 1 atmosphere. Dive to just 10 meters deep and that pressure is doubled.”
So what this means is at 10 meters, the air in your lungs is compressed and the volume of air in your lungs halves, ultimately making you less and less buoyant.
Understanding this, people on Reddit decided the deep ocean wasn’t for them.
One user commented: “The older I get, the less enthusiastic I am about this whole free diving thing.”
Another joked: “Thats some gnarly s***. Im happy being a land mammal.”
While a third commented: “I had no idea this was a thing and I just became slightly more afraid of the ocean.”
And another added: “Imagine the rope fading away while you sink into the dark ocean floor,” With someone else simply adding: ‘No, I don’t think I will.”
Scary stuff to be sure, think I’ll stick to the shallow parts of the ocean for now.
