Basic Scuba Diving Gear and What to Expect

From being an activity that supports scientific research, scuba diving has increasingly become a staple activity in nature tripping and holiday destinations. It is an exhilarating activity that allows people to visit an entirely different world, to experience a different kind of thrill and to see awesome new vistas and life forms. Scuba diving affords people with a chance to see some of Mother Nature's most magnificent sights.

Diving can be an awesome adventure, although it requires quite a bit of physical training and skills acquisition before it can be fully enjoyed. This is not surprising since diving takes the body into extreme conditions in the deep, where it must continually battle and adjust to be able to properly perform its functions in deep water.

People who want to plunge into the deep can take lessons under licensed diving instructors in special instruction centers. This will prepare the guests to properly handle the differences between breathing and moving on firm ground and underwater. Both the instructors and the lessons are also available in holiday destinations that offer scuba diving activities to its guests. Those interested in such lessons can just approach instructors and sign up for classes.

Aside from proper instruction, those interested must have the proper scuba diving equipments that will allow them to move underwater. These can be rented at holiday destinations by recreational divers who seldom dive. Serious divers who regularly dive, though, might be better off buying their own scuba gear in order to get the equipment that best suit their specific requirements. These are the following:

The self contained underwater breathing apparatus, or scuba, unit is the most basic of all scuba diving gear. It allows the diver to breathe underwater even under intense pressure. It also lets divers float, hover, descend and rise with minimal effort. The unit includes a regulator, a tank, a buoyancy control device and accompanying instruments and harness. Carefully consider the specifications of unit, especially the tank, so that its size and make will let the diver stay as long and as deep underwater as he needs to be.

A snorkel is a must, too. This allows divers to breathe while still near the water's surface, conserving the regulator tank air which will be of much better use in deep dives. A snorkel helps keep water out of the body, as well as assists in pumping air in and out of the body.

It is also necessary to have a scuba mask, to let divers see clearly underwater. This must fit over the eyes well and have a wide vision span and comfortable pads, to ensure that no seawater can seep through to ruin a perfectly good view of sea life and sea scenery.

Another basic scuba diving gear is the exposure suit, or the dry/wet suit, which also includes the diving booties. It helps regulate the diver's body temperature by retaining the heat that the body normally produces. It also protects the body from getting cut or scraped, and serves as an additional barrier between various poisonous organisms that may be thriving in deep underwater environments.

Swim fins are also helpful tools in diving. With their large surface area, they help the diver swim and paddle freely underwater without expending too much energy.

Aside from these, other scuba gear are weights system, dive computers, dive watch, monitors and gauges, dive lights, dive knife, dive float or flag, and an underwater camera to help save the memories for posterity.