Scuba stands for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus." This sport takes you beyond the beach and allows you to explore our planet's beautiful underwater ecosystems. Once you have completed scuba training and certification, you can discover the teeming life just below the ocean's surface, including coral reefs, sea turtles, octopi, eels, sting rays, sharks and many different fish species.
Certification
If you want to start scuba diving, you need to get certified. Several organizations train instructors to lead scuba certification classes. These organizations include National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), YMCA and Scuba Schools International (SSI). Scuba certification classes include a classroom or online training portion, confined water training sessions and final open water dives. Certification students will learn about the basic principles of scuba diving, including how pressure and nitrogen affect the body during dives. In confined water training sessions, students learn and practice basic diving and safety skills, which they must then demonstrate during the final open water sessions. Once you earn basic open water certification, you can continue with more advanced courses, such as cavern diving, cave diving and rescue diving.
Gear
Scuba diving requires extensive gear. If you dive infrequently, you can rent most of your gear. However, all divers should own their own scuba mask to ensure that it is well-fitting and comfortable. You'll also want to invest in some other basic gear, including a snorkel and fins.
For the rest of the gear, decide whether you will dive frequently enough to justify the investment. You'll need a weight belt and buoyancy compensator vest to control your buoyancy underwater, a wetsuit, booties and gloves to keep you warm and protect your skin from stings and scrapes, and a dive computer to track your dive's depth, time and decompression requirements. And, of course, you'll need a full tank and regulator to allow you to breathe.
Safety
While scuba diving has some risks, you can control these risks and prevent accidents and injury by following certain safety rules. Most diving problems, including decompression sickness or "the bends," occur when divers make improper ascents. Pressure changes cause nitrogen to enter the body's tissues over time during a dive. To control the release of this nitrogen, you must make a slow, controlled ascent, breathing and exhaling normally. Never hold your breath during your ascent. Follow dive tables and your dive computer to determine the length of decompression stops if necessary. Scuba divers should also remain calm at all times, as panic can often induce improper ascents. Always have a dive buddy and keep that buddy close throughout your dive. If any accident occurs with your regulator, for example, you will be able to find your buddy and breathe through her safety second mouthpiece while making a controlled ascent.
History
Ancient manuscripts and early literature contain many references to diving, including stories of breath-hold dives and myths about a Greek sailor named Scyllis who breathed through a reed while diving underwater. According to marinebio.org, people began diving with surface-supplied air diving bells in the 16th century. Many of the chemical principles that still dictate diving safety and decompression stops were developed in the 17th century, including Boyle's Law. In 1876, Henry A. Fleuss developed the world's first self-contained diving unit that functioned with compressed oxygen. In 1942, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented modern scuba diving, creating a self-contained regulator that supplied compressed air, rather than compressed oxygen, to the diver only when he took a breath. Previous regulators had supplied a continuous flow of air. Organized dive training and certification developed in the early 1960s with the formation of NAUI and PADI.
Dive Sites
Enthusiasm for scuba diving can lead you around the world. You can find dramatic dive sites throughout the Caribbean, off the coast of the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Aruba and Barbados. The coasts of Mexico and the United States also offer rich diving opportunities. Many other top dive sites can be found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, off the coast of Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Micronesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives.
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