Decompression Sickness

One the earliest and most well-reported cases of DCS, or Decompression Sickness, was encountered during the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. Workers spent long hours in caissons, compressed-air filled chambers underwater near the supports of the bridge. When they surfaced, they experienced joint pain, abdominal cramps and sometimes death. The condition came to be known as 'caissons disease'.

Communication Gear for Divers

Thanks to advances in electronics and military applications there are now several devices available for divers to communicate under the surface. These can range from very modest to enormously expensive, but every diver can judge for him or herself whether the cost is worth it.

Before buying any equipment, every diver should memorize and practice hand signals with his or her diving partners. Equipment can malfunction, underwater obstructions can reduce their effectiveness and the old-fashioned methods remain cheap and reliable. But if you can afford it, adding the benefits offered by today's technology can increase the safety of your dive by optimizing your communication.

Scuba Buoyancy Compensators

A buoyancy compensator (BC) or buoyancy compensating device (BCD) is a jacket that helps divers maintain neutral buoyancy during a dive.

When an object underwater rises, it's positively buoyant. If it sinks, it's negatively buoyant. When it remains stationary, divers say it has achieved 'neutral buoyancy' - the goal for all divers.

The purpose of diving is to enjoy investigating the undersea world so different from dry land. That's difficult if you're constantly sinking or rising. Neutral buoyancy allows a diver to control the dive and move around freely. Hence, divers are taught early on in scuba diving courses several methods for maintaining neutral buoyancy.

Breathing Equipment

Divers today are fortunate to have the latest technology available in breathing equipment. It wasn't always so.

A hundred years ago, breathing underwater was accomplished by long tubes, sacks of air carried with a diver and many other ingenious methods. But there were problems associated with those methods that modern demand valve regulators and pressurized tanks have solved.

Breathing

You would think breathing is the most natural thing in the world. You've been doing it all your life without much thought. Inhale, exhale. What could be simpler?

But breathing underwater, even with a tank of air, requires a little more knowledge than 'inhale, exhale'.

It's been known for over a hundred fifty years that simply providing the diver with air to breath isn't enough to guarantee a safe, healthy diving experience. To explain why requires a short detour into some ultra-elementary physics.

Planning Your Dive

There's plenty of room for spontaneous exploring when you're under the surface. You'll find new, colorful species of fish, coral and dozens other interesting things to attract your attention. The excitement of exploring the unexpected is a large part of the fun. But the only way to do that safely and intelligently is to plan your dive well in advance.

The Face Mask

Regulators and tanks are critical to scuba diving, that's obvious. But if you want to get any enjoyment out of the adventure, a good face mask is essential. What makes one good?

Item number one on the list is fit. A diving mask has to fit well the face of the individual diver. Otherwise, all sorts of problems occur. Ill-fitting masks irritate the skin, make seeing difficult, have the potential for leakage, fog and other negatives.

Safety Tips for Safe Dives

Scuba diving is a great adventure. But it is also inherently risky. Novice divers learn early on during a certification class how to dive safely. That's the only way to enjoy the dive, this time and in the future. Here are some tips on how to stay safe.

The Tank – Part II

Scuba diving tanks come in a variety of capacities, styles and contents.

The standard mixture is nothing more than ordinary compressed air, containing 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen just as exists in the atmosphere near sea level. Deep dives and other specialty applications may use a higher concentration of oxygen, add helium or have other exotic mixtures.

The Tank – Part I

It's well known that scuba diving tanks are the canisters that supply air to the diver underwater. But beyond performing that seemingly simple, singular function there is much variety. For a plain metal cylinder, scuba tanks have a surprising number of differences.