A Tribe Called K2 Buhl-oog!

Interesting question!

I sell stuff, mostly stuff called scuba gear, or scuba equipment.  For the past year we have been selling Omer, AB Biller, Riffe and Picasso Freediving Equipment as we are a concierge type of operation, and if you want it, we will bird dog it for you.  So on with the story, a customer asked me the other day,“what is the difference between snorkeling, freediving, and scuba diving?” This is a very good question and not answered very well by the certifying agencies.  Some even warning against freediving. . .stoopid!

Snorkeling is easy squeezy!  Everyone can do it, no training is needed, all you need is a mask and snorkel; you may or may not have fins on. Normally snorkelers  are a happy bunch and stay on the surface,cruising around looking at the fish and corals underneath them.  Most snorkelers don’t travel more than 10 or 20 fsw beneath them. A lot of folks then come back and  want to dive under the water, and see the fish up close.

Those that break the surface and use fins would be considered free divers. Many are now taking this to some real extremes, with the record being over 80 meters! (that is 240 fsw) For most free divers, 6 to 20 meters is the normal range. If you are going to try to become a serious free diver, it is time for professional training for a host of good reasons.

Competitive free diving, of course, has its own rules and governing bodies. There are different categories. In “Constant Weight” the diver follows a line to a certain depth and then swims back up, all on his or her own power.In “Variable Weight” the diver uses a weighted sled to go down, then swims back up.In “No Limit,” the diver uses a sled to go down, then inflates an airbag at the bottom and holds on to that to get back to the surface. The depths reached are almost unimaginable. How can they do that?

Apparently, in free diving the rules are all different. With no compressed air to counter-balance the enormous water pressure, the lungs and other air cavities inside the body compress enormously. Conventional equalization of the ears and sinus only goes that far; beyond a certain depth the divers do “water equalization, ” i.e. they let salt water into the sinus system in a practice that is described as entirely unpleasant. And another phenomenon takes place when a “blood shift” keeps the lungs from collapsing. It’s a residual from ancient times perhaps, from our genetic past, but it works (not that I’d ever want to experience it).

Some folks say freediving is much more dangerous than scuba diving just by watching slick videos.  It is an extreme sport, tho when you break it down to its foundation. . .Freediving  and scuba diving have safety rules that are inviolate. . . screw with them and you die!

Scuba Diving would be using mask, fins and a tank of air, usually they will have a scuba jacket attached to the tank called a “BCD” also attached to the scuba take would be a set of regulators, in diver lingo referred to as “regs” or “octo’s” which will have normally 2 hoses with regulators, and a low pressure hose or 2, as well as a information package containing 1, 2 or 3 different pressure and depth gauges, compass and computers. Scuba divers will also have some other equipment like weights and knives (for freeing themselves from underwater entanglements) lights, underwater cameras and underwater video cameras are common accouterments to see on scuba divers.

Types of scuba sets
Modern scuba sets are of two types:

open-circuit (In Europe, it is often called an “aqualung”. Here the diver breathes in from the equipment and all the exhaled gas goes to waste in the surrounding water. This type of equipment is relatively simple, making it cheaper and more reliable. The two-hose design originally used was the one designed by Cousteau and Gagnan. The single-hose design generally used today was invented in Australia .
closed-circuit/semi-closed circuit (also referred to as a rebreather). Here the diver breathes in from the set, and breathes back into the set, where the exhaled gas is processed to make it fit to breathe again. These existed before the open-circuit sets and are still used, but less so than open-circuit sets.Both types of scuba provide a means of supplying air or other breathing gas, nearly always from a high pressure diving cylinder, and a harness to strap it to the diver’s body. Most open-circuit scuba and some rebreathers have a demand regulator to control the supply of breathing gas. Some “semi-closed” rebreathers only have a constant-flow regulator, or occasionally a set of constant-flow regulators of various outputs.

Some divers use the word “scuba” to mean open-circuit sets only.

Related posts:

1. Caution Dont Buy a Scuba Diving Mask Until You Read This
2. Technical Diving Workshop Available to All Divers Free of Charge

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Tags: diving scuba, freediving, rebreathers, snorkeling

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Interesting, Learning, Recreational Diving, Technical Diving, scuba equipment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.