Although water is a hostile environment to us, we can descend into the depths and share some experiences with the many varieties of life below thanks to the ingenuity of mankind. In cold water we cannot retain body heat without a specially designed suit; without an air supply we cannot breathe; without a mask we cannot see; without fins our movement through the water is limited. Equipment is also required to control buoyancy and measure depth, to monitor air supply and to time the dive, all variables that can be critical to survival at depth.

Scuba diving has only existed in recent history, and as a sport for even less. The Aqualung was developed by two Frenchmen during the Scond World War, and the early development of scuba by Jacque Cousteau and Emile Gagnan forms the basis of what we use today. However, advances in equipment design and computerisation lead to ever safer, more reliable equipment, and research into diving physiology have lead to refinements in dive tables and hyperbaric medicine.

Click on the links to the left to find out in more detail about some of the equipment used in scuba diving today.