Here are 6 easy ways to get to know the underwater world.

When you start exploring underwater and everything is new to you, where do you even start to get to know the vast number of underwater animals and plants? Don’t worry, it’s not complicated. In this article, I will show you six easy and practical ways to start familiarizing yourself with the marine environment.

You will find that marine life differs greatly from warm water to cold water areas, as well as region to region. The best way to start is to learn about your local environment, and then expand to new regions as well as new countries. Once you know the basics, you will see that you can easily build on that.

Here are six ways you can start to get to know the underwater world.

1. Get Marine Field Guide Books

This will be your guide into this new and interesting world. After every dive, try to identify the species you saw. This way you will most probably learn their common names and a little bit more about them.

The first marine book I bought when I started diving was called “A Field Guide to the Marine Animals of the Cape Peninsula” by Georgina Jones. This book gives a great overview of the marine species in our area. I ended up reading through the entire book from front to back in a day. This was fueled by my curious nature and enthusiasm for my new hobby as well as my keen interest in the natural world.

I have since accumulated a collection of marine identification books for my local area. Also, every time we travel, I buy a marine guide for the area we are visiting, which makes it easy to expand my knowledge.

2. Become part of iNaturalist

iNaturalist is a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. The great thing is they have a nifty app so you can take pictures and share your observations straight from your smartphone.

The iNaturalist app

Once you upload your picture, the site uses photo recognition software to help you identify what you saw. The software is surprisingly accurate, and if you are still not sure, don’t worry, your observations will be confirmed by your iNaturalist community too.

In this way, you contribute to science. Your findings are shared with scientific data repositories to help scientists find and make use of it.

3. Take Underwater Pictures

Tubular hydroids (Tubularia warreni) underwater with its pink and white polyps

Taking underwater pictures has made me notice so many things that I may have missed had I not been looking for something to photograph. This is especially true for the smaller marine species.

It can be quite frustrating when you try to find something in the identification books after a dive, but you can’t remember the details of what it looked like. Having a photo to reference will make your identification process so much easier.

A screengrab of the White Shark we encountered

We were on a deep dive in Tofo, Mozambique a few years ago, and just before the group started our ascent a big shark made an appearance. The visibility that day was not great. The shark kept circling us at a distance, moving in and out of the visibility line up until our safety stop at five meters and then disappeared. We were completely caught off guard by this and when we surfaced our dive master was convinced that it was a very large grey nurse shark. Thanks to having a camera on that dive, we were able to identify the shark as a Great White, with the GoPro footage Marius took. Moreover, we were able to identify this specific shark to be a female that had been identified in Gansbaai 9 years before.

If you’re keen on getting more serious about underwater photography, you can check out this course: PADI Digital Underwater Photography. Not a PADI-qualified diver? Then this course is for you: Underwater Photography Course.

4. Connect with People Who Share Your Interest

White-edged nudibranch (Flabellina capensis)

One of the things that gives me the most enjoyment is geeking out with other nature enthusiasts about underwater creatures. Connecting and community is very important because this can fuel your interests or dampen them.

Get involved with Facebook groups, attend talks, and find like-minded people to be your dive buddies. We can learn a lot from others and their experiences. This is a sure way to increase your knowledge about the underwater world.

5. Become a Certified Diver

A scuba diver exploring the underwater world

Maybe this one is obvious, but I would like to encourage you to get your Scuba diving Certification. One of the best ways to explore the underwater world is to put yourself there, at eye level with all the amazing creatures. Watching them and seeing how they behave in their natural environment is priceless.

Diving is for anyone! If the doctor clears you as fit to dive, you can do it. Don’t let anything stop you.

This is the best way to not only get to know the marine life but to observe and experience it too.

Not ready to commit to the certification course? Then a Discover Scuba Diving experience is just the thing for you. A quick and easy introduction to what it takes to explore the underwater world.

6. Other Ways to Explore

Go snorkeling, sniff around in rock pools, and explore your coastline.

Blue-striped hermit crab (Pagurus liochele)

Snorkeling & Freediving

Maybe you are not able to scuba dive for whatever reason, but there are still numerous ways to explore and enjoy marine life. You can have lots of fun drifting around in shallow water with your mask, snorkel, and fins. There are many things to explore this way and you still get that wonderful feeling of being immersed in and part of nature. 

PADI has an introductory snorkel experience called Skin diving. Skin diving is snorkeling while making breath-hold dives to observe aquatic life, up close and personal. It’s a great way to explore the underwater world when you’re not able to scuba dive or if scuba diving just isn’t your thing. 

If you would like to level up to freediving I would suggest doing the PADI Freediver certification course. Freediving is about inward power, discipline, and control. If you’ve always wanted to enter the underwater world quietly, on your own terms, staying as long as your breath allows, then freediving is for you. 

Explore rock pools

If getting into the water is not for you, then why not just get your feet wet? Explore rock pools and take walks on the beach, look for little creatures hiding in crevices, and find interesting things that have washed up on shore. You can take pictures with your phone to easily identify what you found.

Dwarf sea hare (Aplysia parvula) on a piece of seaweed

Visit the aquarium

We all know the absolute serenity that washes over us when we stand in front of those massive tanks watching the stingrays lightly float by or the beautiful schools of fish going round and round.

Just remember to support ONLY aquariums that are in it for the love of conservation and not exploiting Cetaceans and other marine mammals for money.

Eagle ray (Myliobatis aquila) in the Two Oceans Aquarium

Go for it!

These 6 points are sure to get you from novice to informative in no time. Educating yourself will lead to educating others. This is where conservation starts. So remember, you are a very valuable link in the conservation chain. Everyone’s small part helps. A little by little, a little will become a lot!

We Protect what we Love. Join the movement!

by Madelein Wolfaardt
All images ©️ by @sealife_madeleinwolf

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