Best Diving Knife

Whenever you go to the mountains to see their beauty, landscapes and lakes, your natural urge is to try to enjoy the sights as much as possible by exploring the nature, picturing it and enjoying sports. Many people think of different kinds of sporting activities, such as hiking, climbing, bird watching  or hunting. All of us are excited by nature.

As an experienced diver, I would love to take my dive gear and scuba to the fresh water lakes that are full of wonderful aquatic life. Here I get access to a whole new range of opportunities, of new worlds of underwater beauty. Yet there should be certain precaution of altitude diving as it is quite a different atmosphere for a human being, the way we breath and the air pressure is different.

Usually we refer to certain decompression tables for our diving. Yet they may become highly inaccurate in terms of altitude diving. The tables deal with controlling release of nitrogen absorbed at the time of dive, yet at the condition that you dive at the sea level, at normal atmospheric pressure.

As soon as you climb at about one thousand feet above the sea level, the pressure goes down, so the conditions are significantly different for your human organism, so you need to account for them. Altitude diving is basically any diving that is done at the height of one thousand feet above the sea level or higher. If you do not follow specialized procedures, you fall at risk of decompression sickness.

Actually the data for altitude diving is relatively scarce, so the attitude should be more conservative. You should follow the procedures with utter attention.

Sometimes two different situations of altitude diving and flying after diving are confused. As far as flying after diving is concerned, we speak of either single dives (requiring  minimum preflight surface interval of twelve hours), repetitive or multiday dive (minimum eighteen hours of surface interval), or those requiring decompression stops (more than eighteen hours). So at flying after diving your exposure to lower pressure actually follows diving, but at altitude diving this exposure precedes diving. So you should never apply the same procedures at these situations.

Also be careful when diving at one altitude and then diving at yet higher altitude. There should be different procedures for both kinds of diving. We will dive into altitude diving more elaboratively soon. Stay tuned with us, and do not forget you diving knife or titanium diving knife with you.

There are different points that you should pay attention to while choosing the right diving knife that will serve your needs. I would like to list a few tips that will help you with your choice.
The first parameter that matters is the size. Many people believe that the larger the better, yet this is one of the most common misconcept that could lead to many inconveniences. You will feel very awkward if you put too long a knife on your BC. It can cut you or damage your equipment. Remember that you are not an underwater warrior, and do not have to fight your imaginable opponents. Large knives are those that have a blade more than five inches long.
Medium-sized knife (with blade of four to five inches) is practical in most cases. It is easy to put this knife on your BC, arm or leg, and is good for a firm grip, large enough for a grip. Be sure to check the length of a handle, it should be comfortable for your hand and large enough.
Mini knives have a blade of two to three inches, and even can be clamped onto a hose. Check the length of a handle, it should be no less that three inches in length, otherwise your hands or gloves can be damaged by blade.
With shape of the edge there are basically two options, straight or serrated edges. You select a diving knife with a straight edge for cutting plastic, nylon rope or monofilament fishing line. Yet serrated edge is more efficient when you cut natural fiber rope or kelp. Look at serrations that should be located along the whole length of the blade. It enables a good sawing motion for great results.
Many knives have both straight and serrated edges making it a universally adoptable tool, efficient in different situations.
There are different types of tips as well. You can see either a blunt tip or a sharp tip. For spearfishing tasks you select a knife with a sharp tip. For a whole bunch of other tasks such as digging or prying, chiseling or hacking you would rather use a blunt tip. There are different problems with a sharp tip. For example, it can be easily broken or can cut you or puncture your BC. At the same time a blunt tip is both safe and efficient as a tool.
You should consider all of the above to select the right diving knife serving all of your purposes and tasks.

Diving Knife

Diving knife can be made of different materials, and can vary in size or shape. Yet you have to remember that your knife is not a weapon but only a tool. Let us list a few tools that will help you to make a good decision on what type of knife will be the best option for your needs.

As far as size is concerned, large knives are defined as having a blade longer than five inches. There is a common misconception that the large the knife the better. Yet it can either cut you or your buoyancy control equipment. And be an awkward burden in a situation that you want to get rid of any unnecessary weight.

Medium sized knives have blades of four-five inches and are the most practical ones. They can be easily mounted on the BC, leg or arm. You can grip this knife securely and manage it as a handy tool underwater. If you buy a mini knife with two or three inches of blade, make sure that its handle is longer than three inches. Otherwise it can harm your hands or gloves if you wear them underwater.

The shape of a diving knife varies, too. It can have straight edges that is useful  for cutting plastic. This includes monofilament fishing line, as well as nylon rope. Diving knives with serrated edges are useful in cutting kelp and natural fiber rope. In this kind of knives serrations should run along almost whole length of the blade, so that it can produce a decent sawing motion. Many knives have both edges, staight and serrated, so you can use them in almost any situation.

Sometimes they have sharp tips that can be used for spearfishing, and blunt tips for prying, hacking, chiseling or digging. Sharp tips can potentially harm your BC, so you can use a blunt tip instead. For cutting small lines you will need a knife with a line cutting notch.

Many diving knives are made with 300- or 400-series stainless steel alloys. Due to high carbon content many stainless steel knives show signs of rust. Thus they require some maintenance: rinse your knife well with fresh water and dry outside of sheath. Then you coat it with a light layer of silicone or oil.

As far as 300-series or 400-series allow, the lower the number, the more corrosion resistant this diving knife becomes. Yet it is less capable of keeping a sharp edge. You spend less time on its maintenance but need to sharpen it after two or three dives.

Titanium knives are rustproof  and corrosion resistant. They do not contain any carbon. Thus you do not need any sharpening or maintenance for a long period of time.

There are a lot of manufacturers of diving knives, such as Aeris, Aquatec, Akona, Armor, Deep Outdoors, Cressi, Cutterfish, Deep See, Dive Rite, Innovative, Mares, Max., Oceanic, OMS, Promate, Zeagle and more…