Interesting Facts Any Scuba Diver Should Know

Facts about Scuba Diving History

The term SCUBA was a name for the "oxygen re-breather" that frogmen wore during World War II. It was invented by Dr. Christian Lambertsen for use by the U.S. Navy for underwater welfare. The military advantage of an oxygen re-breather is that, because it is a re-circulating system, there are no tell-tale bubbles at the surface, and duration of the dive is greatly increased.

SCUBA is an acronym for "self contained breathing apparatus". Today scuba usually refers to the in-line open-circuit equipment in which compressed air is inhaled and then exhaled into the water.

Scuba Diving Facts – Clothing

Most of the time, scuba divers wear wet suits to keep their bodies warm and also for protection. The other benefit of wearing a wet suit is that the scuba diver becomes more buoyant. Often times a scuba diver will wear fins on their feet to help propel and direct themselves through the water.

Scuba Diving Facts – Commercial Application

Due to the very dangerous work involved in professional scuba diving, some sort of certification is required to get a job as a professional scuba diver. Any commercial company that uses scuba divers is usually required to maintain some sort of diver-to-surface communication system.

A majority of the commercial demand for scuba diving comes from the offshore oil platforms of major oil companies. The work usually revolves around the maintenance of oil platforms and the building of underwater structures used in production.

Scuba Diving Facts – Scientific Diving

Scientific diving is the use of scuba equipment by scientists to conduct their work under water. The fact is that scientific scuba divers are scientist's first and scuba divers second.

Underwater geology, archeology, and marine biology are examples of sciences pursued underwater. Some of the scientific scuba diving is conducted by universities in support of undergraduate or postgraduate research programs.

The Environmental Protection Agency also uses scientific scuba divers to recover samples of water and marine organisms to be examined for signs of pollution.

Scuba Diving Facts – Naval Diving

Naval diving is the military term for commercial diving, and is drastically different than military diving. Most of the work done by navy scuba divers is to conduct maintenance and repair operations on ships and military operations. Once in a while, naval divers will be called on to recover downed aircraft, stranded submarines, missiles, satellites, and other military hardware.

Scuba Diving Facts – Recreational Diving

This type of diver uses scuba equipment for recreation and enjoyment. Through the years, as recreational scuba diving has become more and more popular, manufacturers have become aware of the untapped market and have released equipment that is reliable and easy to use.

Such things as buoyancy compensators and dive computers have made the sport safer and more convenient.