What is the Essential SCUBA Diving Equipment?

The diving cylinder and regulator are the diving equipment SCUBA is named after (SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus).

SCUBA gear enables you to remain underwater for longer than one breath of air without having to return to the surface! The diving cylinder contains pressurised breathing gas (usually air) while the regulator gear delivers the breathing gas to the diver at a constant rate regardless of the air pressure remaining in the diving cylinder. The depth and pressure gauge scuba diving apparatus help the diver to monitor depth and the amount of air remaining in the diving cylinder.

Suffice to say, without these apparatus for diving, equipment to make your dive more comfortable and enjoyable would be pointless.

The Buoyancy Control Device

The buoyancy control device (BCD) gives the diver the ability to control his/her buoyancy (including the buoyancy of the heavy diving equipment).

Divers aim to achieve “neutral buoyancy” (neither sinking downwards nor floating upwards) and the BCD diving gear can be inflated or deflated in order to achieve this.

The BCD can also be extremely important to help divers float on the surface (positive buoyancy).

What are the Benefits of Wet Suits?

Oftentimes the place where you plan to dive determines the type of SCUBA diving equipment required. As stated previously a wet suit should be used in warm waters. This may seem strange as you may think that diving gear such as this would not be required in tropical waters, but as water has high thermal conductivity body heat is lost very quickly even when water temperature is relatively high. A wetsuit traps water warmed by the body so is essential diving equipment for comfort. Dry suits on the other hand keep water away from the body by sealing it out. Special clothing can be worn underneath a dry suit and air added to make movement easier. It should be noted that this SCUBA diving equipment makes the diver more bouyant.

What Dive Gear do You Put on Your Head and Face?

Diving gear for the head includes the dive mask to help you see and to protect the eyes.

Other head wear for diving might include a helmet and torch (for cave or night diving).

Advanced SCUBA diving equipment for this part of the body would be a full face mask which enables the diver to breathe without regulator equipment and also enables underwater speech: you may have seen this diving equipment used in underwater television documentaries.

Further Diving Gear

Other accompaniments to the required SCUBA diving equipment might be: a snorkel for surface breathing; SCUBA diving gloves for further thermal insulation; a diving compass for underwater navigation; electronic diving equipment such as a dive computer or diving watch to help to avoid decompression sickness; a knife (specialised SCUBA diving variety); and light sources such as a torches and lightsticks (vital SCUBA equipment for night diving).