1. Witherspoon 1
Cody Witherspoon
Ms.Tillery
British Literature
14October2011
Scuba Diving
Dating back to the 1st Century humans have been fascinated with exploring the ocean
and finding ways to be able to stay under water longer. Until the past few centuries human
beings were limited to the surface of the Earth’s oceans by rowing ships and other watercraft
across the top of water. Some cultures began using long hollow reeds as snorkels to supply the
free diver with oxygen under the surface, but they were limited to shallow water. This and the
invention of the diving bell, among others increased the time allowed underwater but also
created a deep desire for further exploration of the oceans.
Over the centuries diving equipment grew more and more advanced allowing people to
dive longer and to greater depths. In 1535 Guglielmo de Loreno created the diving bell, which
was a helmet that air could be trapped inside, during its time it was very popular with scientists
and navies. Later Loreno found the flaw with the diving bell after he died from carbon dioxide
poisoning, the bell could only hold a certain amount of clean oxygen and after a period of time a
diver using the bell would begin to breathe their exhaled air.

2. Other diving inventors learned from this mistake and the innovation continued to hoses
fed to contained suits from a ship, tanks with compressed air, and eventually to the invention of
the self contained under-water breathing apparatus also known by the acronym S.C.U.B.A. In
1943 Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan, created the first scuba suit and named it the
Aqua Lung, their invention made popularity among the average people increase exponentially.
When it first came out a scuba rig could be used by anyone that could afford one, not requiring
any formal training or education. This is when the world would see the beginning of recreational
diving among non scientists and civilians.
Long before scuba diving became a thriving recreational sport there had been cases of
decompression sickness, commonly known as the bends, which is a condition that causes serious
injury and sometimes death. Without proper knowledge of the effects on the human body at
depth, and training for emergency situations as well as the ascent process people were getting
hurt frequently in the beginning of recreational diving. Decompression sickness occurs when a
diver’s nitrogen level exceeds their oxygen level in the person’s blood, because the deeper
someone goes and the longer they stay there the more nitrogen their bodies absorb. The nitrogen
enters the blood stream as a liquid but what makes it dangerous is when there is enough nitrogen
in the body it becomes a gaseous bubble, which can cause air embolisms. The most common
sites for these air embolisms are the shoulder, elbow, knee, and ankle which gives the victim a
bent shape and extreme pain, hence the common name the bends.
It is extremely important that when diving one does not hold their breath at depth, an
airway must always be open whether inhaling or exhaling. If a person takes a breath at a certain

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depth, holds that breath and then ascends to a shallower depth the pressure on their body
decreases. The air in the lungs would then need somewhere to decompress to because the lungs
only have a set amount of air capacity so the air escapes. It will move from the lungs through
veins in the form of an air bubble to different parts of the body via the blood stream.
These bubbles are called air embolisms and are very serious as well as highly dangerous.
If these bubbles spread to vital organs like the brain or the spine this can cause paralysis and
often death. The only way to help these embolisms pass through and out of the body eliminating
the danger is to get the victim to a hyperbaric pressure chamber immediately. In this chamber it
puts the same amount of pressure on the victim’s body as if the person were under water, when it
does this it allows the air embolism to pass back through the blood stream and rid the body of the
condition.
After becoming highly popular with the public, people started to form diving
organizations that educated and instructed anyone that paid for a course. Places like PADI and
SSI are among the leading diving schools in America and across the world, these organizations
teach and certify thousands every year in recreational scuba diving. It is important that scuba
schools such as these have been established to teach people about the dangers of diving and how
to use tools such as dive tables and computers as well as the rest of standard dive equipment.
The average dive equipment setup would consist of a mask, fins, snorkel, wetsuit,
buoyancy compensator, air regulator, an 80 cubic foot air tank, dive computer or depth gauge,
and emergency alternate air regulator. Since the invention of the Aqua Lung in 1943 standard
dive equipment and technology have evolved enormously. For example dive computers have
almost caused the naval dive tables to become irrelevant. These tables help divers plan their

4. dives to avoid going to deep for too long and helps prevent the over consumption of nitrogen gas
during a dive. Also the tables show a diver how many dives in one day they can execute as well
as how long the person would need to wait to dive before or after flying in an airplane. The dive
computer does all this and more, functions such as depth, time, amount of air left, temperature,
nitrogen levels, decent/ascent rate and other very useful and advanced features.
The standard compressed air tank for a recreational diver measures 80 cubic feet and
filled to 3000 pounds per square inch of air. The two types of materials used to make these tanks
are steel and aluminum. It is important that tanks are professionally inspected each year of use,
and properly maintained at all times. The human lung cannot breathe that much compressed air
directly, that is why with each regulator there are two stages or parts of it. The first stage collects
air straight from the air tank and decompresses it to a lower level, but after air passes through the
first stage it is still not ready for human consumption. The air leaves the first stage and goes to
the second stage which would be in the diver’s mouth and makes it safe for the person to breathe
this air, all of this occurs each time the diver takes a breath.
When diving the diver must use a system of weights to keep them negatively buoyant so
the person can dive down and not float at the surface. Weights can be kept in a weight belt or
usually the buoyancy compensator has pockets for these weights to be stored. The use of weights
also helps in an emergency situation where the diver needs to get to the surface as fast as
possible, this speedy ascent is dangerous but sometimes necessary. To ascend to the surface the
diver will simply ditch their weights and inflate their buoyancy compensator to become
immediately positively buoyant.
In the world of scuba diving there are various career paths one could choose to pursue.

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Oceanographers and marine biologists use diving as a way to study marine life in their natural
environment and map the ocean floor. The navies of nations all across the world have dive
programs that perform special operations, structure salvage missions, search and rescue missions,
and a number of other tasks.
Commercial diving is a high demand industry that oil companies depend on to repair oil
rigs off the coast, whether changing a bolt at 150 feet or using an atmosphere suit to go down
600 feet and repair drills and pumps using hyperbaric welding they do it all. Diver’s like these
are also used in the repair of bridges over rivers inland, as well as recovering ships or vehicles
sunk to the bottom of the water. A degree from a commercial diving school can be obtained
relatively fast as compared to four year schools, and the graduates almost immediately begin
work in their field of choice.
One of the most popular career choices in the diving industry is diving instruction, where
one could specialize in technical diving, deep diving, cave diving and countless others. An
instructor would be trained through a dive organization and start their own shop and lead dive
trips, or become affiliated with working dive shop or school.
Diving in the ocean and seeing things no other person has seen, interacting with the
marine life, seeing 18th Century Spanish shipwrecks, it is definitely a whole new world.
Breathing underwater is a sensation everyone should experience at least once in their lives, as
well as visiting a beautiful reef and watching how everything works together to co-exist. 71% of
the Earth is covered with water, why not explore it?
Works Cited
Benchley, Peter. "Cuba Reefs." National Geographic May 2005: n. pag.

6. www.nationalgeographic.com. Web. 23 Sept. 2011.
Elliot, David H. "Adaptations,Swimming and Diving." Encyclopaedia Britannica
Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Brtiannica, 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 16
Sept. 2011
Gonazalez, Michael C. www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov. Ed. George G Watkins. Melinda
Berrier, May-June 2011. Web. 16 Sept. 2011
Lawson, Glenda H. "Deep Sea Exploration." www.mos.org. N.p., Spring 2002. Web.
26 Sept. 2011
Lippmann, John. "The Ups and Downs of Buoyancy Control."
www.diversalertnetwork.org. N.p., 27 June 2003. Web. 24 Sept. 2011.
Osmond, Paul. "Cold Comfort Part I." www,deeperblue.com. N.p., Mar.-Apr. 2011.
Web. 24 Sept. 2011
Rossier, Robert N. www.dtmag.com. Ed. George R Watkins. N.p., Feb.-Mar. 2011.
Web. 9 Sept. 2011.
Siegenthaler, Kim L. "Scuba Diving/Snorkeling." Encyclopedia of Recreation and
Leisure in America. Ed. Gary S Cross. Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 2004. 242-244. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 14 Sept. 2011.
Thalmann, E.D. "Decompression Illness." www.diversalertnetwork.org. N.p.,
Mar.-Apr. 2004. Web. 19 Sept. 2011
Walden, Linda Lee, comp. www.portagequarry.com. N.p., June 2003. Web. 22 Sept.

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2011