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Hookah diving is popular with recreational and commercial fishers, but there are concerns from the medical and diving fraternities that the lack of regulation of equipment and divers is dangerous and puts lives at risk.

Hookah diving is diving with a supply of air generated by a machine on the surface.

Divers are unencumbered by scuba equipment which they say provides more freedom of movement under the water.

Professor David Smart has more than 3,000 hours of diving experience, and 35 years working in hyperbaric medicine and until recently he was the co-director of the Royal Hobart Hospital’s Hyperbaric Unit.

He said that the wild harvest of seafood in Tasmanian waters made hookah diving “clearly attractive,” but that many of the divers presenting to the unit were as a result of unregulated hookah diving.

“It really needs proper oversight for recreational divers.

“At present anyone can buy a hookah device either new, second, third or fourth hand, or they can build their own equipment.”

Unregulated equipment

Professor Smart has heard of air pipes being severed by outboard engines, carbon monoxide poisoning, as well as hookah divers presenting at the Royal Hobart Hospital’s hyperbaric chamber for decompression illness.

“The higher the pressure they dive to, the higher volume of air they need to have,

“They need to match their regulators to the actual hookah apparatus.” he said

Added to that, he has heard reports of equipment made from lawnmower engines with fittings that are not designed to be used with diving equipment.

Made in the backyard

Russell De Groot runs Australian Dive Hookahs and supplies hookah equipment around the country.

He agreed there needed to be more oversight of both the equipment and the divers.

He acknowledges that all types of diving devices were potentially dangerous, but outlined some of the issues stemming from what could sometimes be machines cobbled together in the backyard.

“There’s no certification, and nothing that makes you actually get the hookah engine serviced on a regular basis,” Mr De Groot said.

“There are a lot of people who actually use brass air fittings, when they’re not actually designed to go on the water.”

Untrained and under the water

While scuba divers are required to have certification and have their gear serviced regularly, hookah divers are not.

“As a start, there definitely should be a dive course for hookah divers,” Mr De Groot said.

“People actually need to be taught how to actually dive in the depths they dive.

More Tasmanians are recreational divers

Professor Smart said that there was a big commercial diving population in Tasmania but the diving (hyperbaric) chamber at the Royal Hobart Hospital was the busiest in Australia.

While the number of licences for different types of recreational fishing are known, participation rates are difficult to ascertain in Tasmania as some divers may hold multiple types of licences.

“If you look at our treatment rates, we were running at 30 to 35 divers per annum from population of 500,000,” he said.

“Victoria might average 40 or 50, out of a population of 5 million.”

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