Curacao Scuba Diving the Tugboat Reef: a Weight Reducer? Plus more Deep Pics!

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

Diving the tugboat is a fun hour’s dive with lots of friendly fish to enjoy. Not deep, but great lighting!

When you are 74 and can still lug you weights, tanks and gear into the water for walk in dives, swim for an hour under water at 75 – 80 degrees F and not get cramps, or use up your air, then you begin to understand how scuba diving is not just a sport, but a calorie burner!

Heres a picture yesterday near the Tug Boat site in Curacao, our Guide Patrick (Divecenter Wederfoort) with my wife Jill in background. Don’t know about the “cat’ in the background. 20170715_133104

Today I looked up Calorie calculations for Scuba Diving. There are a couple of calculators for the average energy used per hour of diving. “FitDay” , “DiveBuddy” , and “ScubaDiverLife” . All qualify their answers because of the many variables: water temp., currents, walk-in versus boat diving, age, suit thickness, etc. Here’s their take on it!

Basically an hour of jogging will use up about 400 kCalories of energy. An average diver in temperate waters (65F) will use up to 600 kCalories per hour of diving. In tropical waters (75-80F) the diver uses about 350 kCalorise per hour. On a three dive day, a diver would use over 900kCal. extra in that day, which is 40% more than the average male human sitting around and doing moderate tasks.

WOW! Weight Loss Here We Come! More pictures below!

Ooops! The Caveats! Most divers increase their caloric intake because of the energy use,and some divers actually gain weight because they indulge in massive sugar or carbohydrate binges.

OK, so it’s like a lot of get trim quick stuff moderation in all will probably do most of us better than thinking we have a one style fits all.

Now to the best pics for Yesterday!

Down to wreck with a yellow tail snapper