Underwater diving

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Underwater diving

: This article refers to underwater diving by humans. For other uses of the term diving, see dive
Dive

Dive and similar may refer to:...
and diving
Diving

Diving refers to the sport of performing acrobatics while jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard of a certain height. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games....

Underwater diving is the practice of going underwater

Underwater

Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river....
with

Scuba diving

SCUBA diving is Underwater diving, or taking part in another activity, while using a scuba set. By carrying a source of breathing gas , the scuba diver is able to stay underwater longer than with the simple breath-holding techniques used in snorkeling and free-diving, and is not hindered by air lines to a remote air source....
or without breathing apparatus.

Recreational diving

Recreational diving

Recreational diving or sport diving is a type of Underwater diving that uses Scuba set for the purpose of leisure and enjoyment. In some diving circles, the term "recreational diving" is used in contradistinction to "technical diving", a more demanding aspect of the sport which requires greater levels of training, experience and equip...
is a popular activity (also called sports diving or subaquatics).

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Encyclopedia

Underwater

Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river....
with

Scuba diving

Recreational diving

Commercial Diving

Professional Diving is a type of diving activities where the divers are paid for their work. There are several branches of professional diving, the most well known of which is probably commercial diving....
or Diving for Financial Gain) takes a range of diving activities to the underwater work site.

Levels of training and types of equipment and gases used differ between types of diving.

History

It is unknown when exactly the sponge became an article of use. In ancient writings Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
and Homerus the sponge is mentioned as an object used for bathing. In Kalymnos

Kalymnos

Kalymnos, is a Greece island and Communities and Municipalities of Greece in the southeastern Aegean Sea. It belongs to the Dodecanese and is located to the west of the peninsula of Bodrum , between the islands of Kos and Leros : the latter is linked to it through a series of islets....
sponge diving had its roots in ancient times, perhaps even being the oldest profession on the island. Diving for sponges brought social and economical development to the island where the free-diving

Free-diving

Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving. Examples include breathhold spear fishing, freedive photography, apnea competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling....
method was used. The crew went out to sea in a small boat. They used a cylindrical object with a glass bottom to search the ocean floor for sponges. As soon as one was found, a diver went overboard to get it. He was usually naked and carried a 15 kilogram skandalopetra with him to take him down to the bottom quickly. The diver then cut the sponge loose from the bottom and put a special net around it. Depth and bottom time depended on the divers lung capacity. They usually went down to about about 30 m (98 feet) for 3 to 5 minutes.

Diving without breathing apparatus

Free diving

Free diving includes a range of activities from simple breath-hold diving to competitive apnoea dives.

Swimming underwater

The ability to dive and swim underwater can be a useful emergency skill, and is an important part of watersport and navy safety training. More generally, entering water from a height is an enjoyable leisure activity, as is underwater swimming

Underwater swimming

Underwater swimming can refer to:* Unequipped swimming beneath the water surface, such as the streamline style* Scuba diving, snorkeling, or free-diving...
with or without breathing apparatus.

Snorkeling

The addition of a short breathing tube (snorkel) allows the diver to breathe while remaining immersed, but close to the surface.

Diving with Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA)

Scuba divers are sometimes known as frogmen, particularly divers engaged on armed forces covert operations.

Open circuit

Breathing systems consist of one or more diving cylinder

Diving cylinder

A diving cylinder, scuba tank or diving tank is used to store and transport high pressure breathing gas as a component of SCUBA . It provides gas to the Scuba diving through the demand valve of a diving regulator....
s containing breathing gas at high pressure connected to a diving regulator

Diving regulator

A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in a scuba set that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure from one or more diving cylinders....
.

Rebreather sets

Closed-circuit breathing systems allow recycling of exhaled gases. This reduces the volume of gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set. Rebreathers also make far fewer bubbles and less noise than open-circuit scuba; this makes them attractive to military, scientific and media divers.

Surface supplied diving

The alternative to scuba is breathing gases supplied via an umbilical

Umbilical

Umbilical may refer to:*Umbilical cable*Umbilical cord*Umbilical fold*Umbilical hernia*Umbilical notch*Umbilical vessels**Umbilical artery...
from the surface, often from a diving support vessel

Diving support vessel

A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects.Commercial Diving Support Vessels emerged during the 1960s and 1970s when the need arose for diving operations to be performed below and around oil production platforms and associated installations in open water in the North Sea and Gulf of Me...
but sometimes, indirectly via a diving bell

Diving bell

A diving bell, also known as a wet bell, is a cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom like a moon pool structure, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers....
. Surface-supplied divers almost always wear diving helmet

Diving helmet

File:Kask-nurka.jpgDiving helmets are worn mainly by professional diving engaged in surface supplied diving, though many models can be adapted for use with SCUBA equipment....
s or full face diving mask

Full face diving mask

A full-face diving mask is a type of diving mask that seals the whole of the diver's face from the water and contains a mouthpiece or demand valve that provides the diver with breathing gas....
s.

Saturation diving

Saturation diving lets professional divers live and work at depth for days or weeks at a time. This type of diving allows greater economy of work and enhanced safety. After working in the water, divers rest and live in a dry pressurized habitat on or connected to a diving support vessel

Diving support vessel

Oil platform

An offshore platform, often referred to as an oil platform or oil rig, is a large structure used to house workers and machinery needed to drill wells in the ocean bed, extract Petroleum and/or natural gas, process the produced fluids, and ship them to shore....
or other floating work station, at the same pressure as the work depth. They may be transferred in a diving bell

Diving bell

A diving bell, also known as a wet bell, is a cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom like a moon pool structure, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers....
. Decompression at the end of the dive may take many days.

Diving training

Basic Dive Training entails the learning of underwater skills and other skills requisite to the successful and safe conduct of activities in an underwater environment such as the buddy system, dive planning, and use of dive tables among others. Also, underwater diving training should come from a qualified diving instructor, to be safe.

Below are some basic underwater skills that a beginner should learn:

Equalization – this refers to the adjustment the Eustachian tube in the ear needs to do when submerged in the higher pressured environment underwater.
Underwater breathing – this refers to the skill of breathing through the apparatus. All divers must get used to this way of breathing.
Mask clearing – This is done to make sure that there will not be anything that will obstruct the diver's view as well as to remove any water that might come into the mask.
Air sharing – refers to the act of multiple divers sharing one air supply.
Buoyancy – the right buoyancy allows the diver to move about underwater comfortably. Amount of equipment, buoyancy compensators, and amount of air in the lungs all come to play in maintaining buoyancy. More air in the lungs makes for more buoyancy, while less air makes for less buoyancy.
Diving signals – diving signals may vary, but its purpose is to be able to communicate with other divers. It should be clear among a group of divers what the diving signals to be used are before the dive.

Diving training can be got from many diving training bodies: see :Category:Diver training agency.

Dangers of diving

Decompression sickness
Decompression sickness

'Decompression sickness' , 'the diver?s disease', 'the bends', 'caisson disease' is the name given to a variety of symptoms suffered by a person exposed to a decrease in the pressure around the body....
Nitrogen narcosis
Nitrogen narcosis

Narcosis while diving, commonly called nitrogen narcosis, inert gas narcosis or rapture of the deep, is a reversible alteration in consciousness in Scuba diving at depth....
Drowning
Drowning

Drowning is death from suffocation caused by a liquid entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral Hypoxia and cardiac arrest....
Barotrauma
Barotrauma

Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between an air space inside or beside the body and the surrounding gas or liquid....
Oxygen toxicity
Oxygen toxicity

Oxygen toxicity is a condition resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen at elevated partial pressures. It is also known as oxygen toxicity syndrome, oxygen intoxication, hyperoxia, or the Paul Bert effect and Lorrain Smith effect, after the researchers who pioneered its discovery and desc...
Shallow water blackout
Shallow water blackout

A shallow water blackout is a Unconsciousness caused by cerebral hypoxia towards the end of a Apnea dive in water typically shallower than five metres , when the swimmer does not necessarily experience an urgent need to breathe and has no other obvious medical condition that might have caused it....
Deep water blackout
Deep water blackout

A deep water blackout is a loss of consciousness caused by cerebral hypoxia on ascending from a deep freedive or breath-hold dive, typically of ten metres or more when the swimmer does not necessarily experience an urgent need to breathe and has no other obvious medical condition that might have caused it....
On jumping into water: divers sometimes jump into water feet first from some height above the water (e.g. from a large boat or from a pier
Pier

A pier is a raised walkway over water, supported by widely spread piles or column. The lighter structure of a pier allows tides and currents to flow almost unhindered, whereas the more solid foundations of a quay or the closely-spaced piles of a wharf can act as breakwaters, and are consequently more liable to silting....
). Jumping into the water headfirst is unsafe for those wearing any sort of scuba or snorkelling equipment. In particular, an open-circuit scuba
Scuba set

A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving....
on the back is big and hard and heavy and during a headfirst dive into water may cause back or neck injury or break the neck.

Other forms of underwater diving

Diving in submersibles

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
s, submersible

Submersible

A submersible is a type of underwater vessel with limited mobility which is typically transported to its area of operation by a surface vessel or large submarine....
s and 'hard' diving suit

Diving suit

A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. Modern diving suits can be divided into two kinds:...
s enable undersea diving to be carried out within a dry environment at normal atmospheric pressure, albeit more remotely. Underwater robot

Robot

A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an Electromechanics which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has Intention or Agency of its own....
s and remotely operated vehicle

Remotely operated vehicle

Remotely operated underwater vehicles is the common accepted name for tethered underwater robots in the offshore industry. ROVs are unoccupied, highly maneuverable and operated by a person aboard a vessel....
s and also carry out some functions of divers at greater depths and in more dangerous environments.

Diving by other animals

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s are not the only air-breathing creatures to dive. Marine mammal

Marine mammal

Marine mammals are a diverse group of roughly 120 species of mammal that are primarily ocean-dwelling or depend on the ocean for food. They include the cetaceans , the sirenians , the pinnipeds , and several otters ....
s such as seals

Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae ....
, dolphin

Dolphin

File:Bottlenose_Dolphin_KSC04pd0178.jpgDolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genus....
s and whale

Whale

Whales are marine mammals of order Cetacea which are neither dolphinsmembers, in other words, of the families Oceanic dolphin or River dolphinnor porpoises....
s, dive to feed and catch prey under the sea as do penguin

Penguin

Penguins are a group of Aquatic animal, flightless bird birds living almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershading dark and white plumage, and their wings have become Flipper ....
s and many seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adaptation to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behavior and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding ecological niche have resulted in similar adaptations....
s, as well as various reptile

Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s: turtle

Turtle

Turtles are reptiles of the Order Testudines , most of whose body is shielded by a special bone or cartilage animal shell developed from their ribs....
s, saltwater crocodile

Saltwater Crocodile

Saltwater or estuarine crocodile is the largest of all living crocodilians and reptiles. It is found in suitable habitat throughout Southeast Asia, Northern Australia, and the surrounding waters....
s, seasnakes and Marine Iguana

Marine iguana

The Marine Iguana is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea....
s. Many mammals, birds and reptiles also dive in freshwater rivers and lakes.

A list of the diving abilities of air-breathing diving animals is available in . All diving records given in the Penguiness database come from peer-reviewed, scientific literature and can be considered as the most accurate records.