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Scuba Gear
Scuba diving is one of the most surreal experiences a person can have. The vast stretches of underwater wilderness are the last frontiers left on earth. Anyone with an urge to explore can indulge that urge for a day, take in breathtaking scenery, and sleep safely in a bed the same night. Unlike the land based explorers of old, exploring the sea via scuba diving is an exploit that is done in increments of hours, rather than months or years. Of course, it also shares a lot in common with the more traditional land based exploration. Perhaps most importantly, it shares a need for proper equipment. Unlike land based exploration, if you do not have proper scuba gear, you will die in minutes, rather than hours or days.
Proper scuba gear is easily obtained, although some of it is a bit expensive. The essentials are a wetsuit, an air supply system, a face mask, and fins. More technology has gone into each of these pieces of scuba gear than the average consumer may realize. The aspect that is probably most impressive is the air supply system. You see, a human lung is actually a very fragile and pressure sensitive organ. It can only function if the atmospheric pressure is identical to the pressure of the air it breathes.
Now in the normal course of a human life, this condition is always met. We breathe the air that’s in the atmosphere, so the air is at atmospheric pressure. However, in the ocean, the atmospheric pressure increases the deeper down you go. At just five feet below the surface, a human being cannot inhale air through a tub at normal pressure. In the modern air supply system we have developed a remarkable solution to the problem. The system starts with a tank of pressurized air. The scuba tank is actually not filled with air, but rather a precisely mixed set of gasses that vary based on the type (and depth) of diving being done.
The tank is pressurized at over 100 psi, which is enough to do very serious damage to the inside of the human respiratory system. So the air must be scaled back to the ambient air pressure, which is where the innovative portion of the system comes into play. It’s a dual lock system, with one valve holding between the tank and the pressure sensitive area, and another valve that adjusts to the surrounding water pressure. The final piece of the air supply is the mouthpiece, which attaches to the far side of the adjusting valve.
In some sets of scuba gear, the mouthpiece is included in the face mask. This increases safety, because the diver cannot lose a built in mouthpiece. In closed circuit diving, this is almost always the case. Closed circuit diving takes advantage of the fact that the human lung only uses around thirty percent of the oxygen in any breath of air. The system takes the exhaled air and “scrubs” the carbon dioxide from it, allowing the unused oxygen to be recycled.
This application of scuba gear allows a diver to remain down for much longer on a limited air supply. It also doesn’t release large bubbles of air into the surrounding water, which has several useful applications. If you are practicing marine photography, the bubbles will spook the wildlife, making your job much more difficult. The bubble can also disturb delicate underwater formations, such as those found in cave systems or shipwrecks. And then there is the military application… it is much easier to sneak up for an amphibious assault if your soldiers are not giving off bubbles to give them away.
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