On the surface, scuba diving seems purely visual. The very phrase conjures images of razor-sharp reefs, undulating tentacles, predatory jaws, or the brilliant colors of exotic ocean creatures. What benefits could this daunting, highly technical activity possibly offer a blind person?
When George Abbott, vice president of education and training for the Hadley School for the Blind, got the opportunity to learn scuba diving, he asked himself the same question.
In this interview, conducted via email, Abbott, who earned certification through the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) discusses what inspired him to pursue scuba diving and the accommodations he developed with his dive master Claude Jewell (then-owner of the Illinois Institute of Diving, Glen Ellyn, IL) to make it accessible to the blind.
Scuba Diving is Accessible Recreation for Blind People
Q. What were your expectations about scuba diving?
G.A. I assumed that diving is primarily a visual activity and doubted I’d find much pleasure in it. While sighted people describe colorful fish, stunning reefs, and amazing marine life, I wondered what I had to gain by giving up senses I rely on and treasure: hearing and spatial orientation.
Q. What convinced you to try it?
G.A. I was intrigued to go where most people never venture and to do something I had not yet heard blind people could do. I was also interested in the technical skills, human biology, and chemistry one must learn before diving in open water or becoming certified.
Q. What does the learning entail?
G.A. There are required hours of classroom study and hands-on orientation to the equipment, which you use first in a swimming pool. I immediately embraced the new underwater environment, mastered the gear, and became comfortable pretty quickly, which felt good.
Blind Scuba Divers Communicate by Touch
Q. How did you communicate underwater?
G.A. I developed hand signals and touch techniques with my dive master. For example, to check how much air was in my tank, I’d tap my air gauge and my dive master would press a closed fist (for 500 pounds) followed by individual fingers (100 pounds each) into my palm to represent the air remaining. To move in a new direction, we’d touch the other’s hand and gesture in the direction we wanted to go using our thumb.
Q. How did you orient yourself underwater?
G.A. Great emphasis is placed on diving with a buddy, who is always close by. Once I was submerged, however, I could not hear where my buddy was — just that Darth Vader sucking sound of the regulator as I breathed. So I’d place a hand on my buddy’s tank as we moved to maintain contact and control my rate of descent and ascent, as I can’t read depth gauges.
Q. What do you enjoy most about diving?
G.A. Diving proved far more fascinating and thrilling than I anticipated and gave me a sense of achievement and awe, whether from feeling pressure changes during 100 foot dives off Florida, handling sea creatures through thin gloves off Cozumel, or swimming through sunken boats or crawling over abandoned mining equipment in a flooded quarry — where I walked like a fly up the walls and ceiling of a cavern 50 feet below the surface.
Q. What else makes diving enjoyable?
G.A. When you dive, you are usually on vacation, often in a tropical paradise where it is warm, sunny, and exhilarating. And divers are a fun bunch to hang out with.
Abbott’s scuba diving success reflects a new inclusion consciousness that provides blind people access to more sports and recreation opportunities by focusing on an activity’s benefits, not an individual’s limitations.
Andrew Leibs - Andrew Leibs is Suite101’s Feature Writer for Accessible Recreation. He is a longtime chronicler of the disability movement with ...
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