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Diving activities
One way of categorising diving activities is :
- Recreational and scientific basic SCUBA diving : underwater tourism in shallow water (less than 50 metres) without much decompression
- Recreational and scientific technical SCUBA diving : underwater tourism in deep water (more than 40 metres) with decompression
- Cave diving : underwater exploration of cave system sometimes in deep water (more than 40 metres) with decompression
- Commerical and naval SCUBA diving : underwater engineering in shallow water (less than 50 metres)
- Commerical and naval surface supplied diving : underwater engineering in deep water (more than 40 metres)
- Saturation commercial diving : underwater engineering at great depth (100 metres or more) for long periods (2 weeks or more)
- Military SCUBA diving : stealth diving in shallow water
Types of recreational dive
- Wreck diving
- Viewing shipwreck or aircraft underwater
- Requires special training to enter & exit a shipwreck Penetration diving
- Drift diving
- Allowing the water current to move the diver down current, this is one of the most relaxing methods to dive.
- Typically done in rivers or the ocean
- Example - in Cozumel the boat takes the divers toward the south end on the island, the current runs from south to north, the divers exit the boat and drift north, the boat follows the trail of bubbles from the divers, when the divers surface the boat is waiting for them.
- Night diving
- Diving after sunset & before dawn reveals new animals that come out at night and corals that open at night to feed. Many divers enjoy this more than diving during the daylight.
- Requires a primary and back-up light source. Typically water proof flashlights designed for scuba diving. Additionally scuba diver wear marker lights to help locate and identify them. Cylume Sticks were popular but environmental concerns as phasing them out in favor of battery powered glow sticks.
- While night diving divers tend to move slower and more deliberately than during the day light. This leads to a more relaxing dive.
- Ice diving
- Requires special training to dive under the ice on a body of water
- Instruction by a certified instructor - typically one day
- Requires additional scuba equipment
- A regulator modified for cold water use that will not freeze.
- A harness
- A safety rope attached to the harness
- Typically a dry suit is worn to keep the diver warm
- A hood to keep the divers head warm.
- Optional full face mask to prevent cold water from contacting the divers face.
- Requires additional personal
- Line Tenders to manage the ropes
- Safety diver
- Divemaster
- Requires additional equipment
- A weatherproof area for the divers to suit up
- Requires additional equipment to access the water below the ice
- A chain saw to cut the ice
- Snow shovel to clear the snow and ice from the area
- Cave diving
- Requires special training to enter and safely exit a cave - prevent your own death - do not enter a cave unless you and your buddy are trained cave divers.
Diving with a purpose
- Search & Recovery diving
- Searching for an object using a pattern.
- The size of the object and the visibility of the water help determine what pattern will be use.
- After finding the object, returning it to the surface. Small objects can be carried up to the surface by the diver, larger objects may require the use of a lift bag.
- Salvaging item from historical ship wrecks will land you in legal problems or jail
- Mel Fisher is one of the best know treasure hunters
- Underwater photography
- Underwater videography
- Using a film / video camera underwater
- Nautical archaeology
- Marine life surveys
Underwater tourism
- Relax and watch the marine life
- fish watching
- coral reef watching
- feeding the fish (this has become controversial in recent years)
- look for sunken treasure
- hunt for food (spearfishing) (spear gun) (is illegal in some countries. in some countries you must get a permit first)
- Marine life identification
- Identifying & recording marine life seen in a given area
- done as part of a survey or study
- done for personal pleasure like bird watching
Dive techniques
- Boat diving
- Diving from a boat
- Boats can range in size from a one man kayak to an ocean liner.
- Many of the best diving sites are off shore and the boat provides access to these sites.
- Six pack is a slang term for a small boat that can carry up to six divers.
- Typically very fast boat with twin outboard engines
- "Cattle boat" a slang term for a large boat that take a large group of divers
- Altitude diving.
- Diving in a body of water located above 1000 feet above sea level. Requires additional training and modified dive tables. Diver must limit the ascent rate to 30 feet pr minute or less.
- Lake Tahoe would be an example of a location where altitude diving is done.
- Communicating
- Sign language: In most situations communications is facilitated with the use of simple hand signals. The most basic ones: Thumbs up = lets go up, thumbs down = lets go down, circle with thumb and index finger = I'm OK. Are you OK?, "cutting" throat with a flat hand = I'm out of air, wobbling a flat hand = something is wrong.
- Using a torch/flashlight: The focused beam of a torch can be used for basic signalling as well. Drawing a circle on the ground in front of buddy = the OK signal, waving the torch = attention please!
- Voice: When using special equipment, voice can be used for communication. Equipment usually consists of a full face mask with a submergible microphone and speaker and either a hard wired telephone-like setup or a through-water supersonic radio-like system.
- NITROX diving
- Diving with a mixture of air with the nitrogen/oxygen ratio different than ambient air during a dive.
- Using nitrox is typically not the purpose of the dive but nitrox is used during the dive
- Deep diving
- diving below 100 feet / 30 meters.
- 130 feet is the max depth for recreational scuba
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