Scuba Set - Underwater Alternatives To Scuba

Underwater Alternatives To Scuba

There are alternative methods that a person can use to survive and function while underwater, including:

• free-diving - swimming underwater on a single breath of air.
• snorkeling - a form of free-diving where the diver's mouth and nose can remain underwater when breathing, because the diver is able to breathe at the surface through a short tube known as a snorkel.
• surface-supplied diving - originally used in professional diving for long or deep dives where an umbilical line connects the diver with the surface providing breathing gas, and sometimes warm water to heat the diving suit, and usually nowadays voice communications. Some tourist resorts now offer a surface-supplied diving arrangement, trademarked as Snuba, as an introduction to diving for the inexperienced. Using the same type of equipment as scuba diving, the diver breathes from compressed air cylinders, which float on a free floating raft at the surface, allowing the diver only 20–30 feet (6–9 m) of depth to travel.
• Atmospheric diving suit - an armored suit which protects the diver from the surrounding water pressure.
• Liquid breathing - so far, in the real world, liquid breathing for humans is only laboratory experiments, and (one lung at a time) medical treatment. It has possibilities of being used for very deep diving. It is memorably portrayed in the film The Abyss.
• Artificial gills (human) - these are mostly science fiction. In the real world they have to process a massive amount of water to extract enough oxygen to supply an active diver, and processing this much water takes a great deal of energy (possible for cold-blooded fish, but harder for humans with higher metabolic rates). But see Like-A-Fish for an attempt to develop real artificial gills for divers.