Dive Equipment
 

You need to ‘breathe’ underwater. Therefore diving equipment basically falls into two main categories.

1. Open-circuit. Commonly called the ‘Aqualung’ system, which consists of diving tanks (also called cylinders) and diving regulators (ie to regulate the amount of air you can get from the tanks) .This system is by far the most popular, and for many people the only system that they have heard of, or seen.
2. Rebreather or ‘closed’ circuit. . This is a breathing system that provides gas (containing oxygen) that when it is exhaled, is recycled to be used again. It is often used by the armed forces, and as it is lighter and can last longer, is also used by some commercial and recreational divers.

As the ‘aqualung' system is by far the most common, the rest of this article will be referring to equipment used in this type of diving.

What divers use
Thermal/abrasion Protection against cold and sharp objects (coral etc)
-Wetsuits are by far the most common for this
-Diving gloves and boots (neoprene) are also often used.
-In very cold conditions dry suits are often used.

For Stabilisation
in the water you need to be stabilised ie not going up or down unless you want to.
- BCD the ability to adjust and control the overall buoyancy of the diver and the diver's heavy equipment allowing the diver to achieve neutral buoyancy, remaining at constant depth, or to descend or ascend in a controlled way.
- Weights. This is needed to counteract the buoyancy of your wetsuit. You need to be able to go down easily! The BCD counteracts the weight ot allow you to come back up!
- Fins (also refereed to as flippers – but the more correct diving name in fins)

Diving Instrumentation
-Depth Gauge: to measure how deep you are.
Pressure gauge measure how much ‘air’ you have left in your cylinder
-Watch – very useful to work with Depth Gauge, and pressure gauge, to help determine how long you have remaining, and how for measuring your ‘safety stops’ (ie stopping on the way up for decompression so you don’t get the ‘bends’)
- Compass, or obvious reasons!

For Vision
-A dive mask offers clear sight and protection.
Torch for night diving or low visibility

Other useful items
- knife
-camera!