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What is Skin Diving?


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For centuries, people have tried to explore the aquatic environment. In past times, their main reason was to gather food or to salvage some items from rivers, lakes and oceans. Also, young girls and boys were trained to free dive to gather shellfish and seaweed, and even sponges from the sea floor.

In modern times, although people still continue to dive for valuable objects and food, diving's popularity grew especially in warm vacation destinations. Tourists and diving enthusiasts skin dive to explore the underwater world. Without any special training and equipment, they were able to observe the beauty of aquatic life.

Basically, skin diving is defined as a water activity wherein swimmers depend on their lung capacity, a diving mask, snorkel, and fins to move about underwater for several minutes.

Skin Diving

It's an extension of snorkeling, where a person views the underwater environment from the water surface.

Skin diving is termed as such because of the little equipment it requires. Its basic requirements are only a waterproof mask, fins for the feet, and a snorkel. A snorkel is just a tube about 38 cm long with a mouthpiece on one end, used for breathing underwater.

The diving mask should allow the skin divers to see clearly even when underwater. A mask, which completely encapsulates the nose and eyes to form an air space between the water and diver’s eyes, is preferred.

Fins, also called flippers, are like the webbed feet of a duck. These enhance the divers' movements below the water, and help propel them in a smooth and efficient motion. All fins have a foot pocket to secure your feet in, and large sheets of flexible plastic.

Snorkels are also helpful in observing shallow marine life. As long as one end extends out of the surface, the diver will be able to breathe normally. However, snorkels shouldn't be more than 15 inches long since air can't be drawn to greater depths.

If you want to go deeper into the water, you have to hold your breath. Since you can’t possibly live without breathing for hours, you can only stay beneath the ocean for brief periods, usually about two minutes. Experienced skin divers, however, are known to stay underwater for several minutes.

The main difference of between skin diving and scuba diving is the device used by scuba divers. Scuba stands for "self-contained underwater-breathing apparatus", which is basically just a metal tank filled with air. This tank should be connected to a valve regulator for pressure adjustment so the diver can breathe comfortably even at greater water pressures.

Also, since scuba diving involves exploring the water at greater depths, there are other major considerations. A scuba diver needs a suit to keep him warm enough while underwater.

Scuba divers also make use of buoyancy compensators to help them control their position while underwater. A diver just controls the amount of air in these buoyancy compensators to adjust their overall buoyancy.

Of course, there are several pressure related injuries that a scuba diver is exposed to. Ascending or descending too quickly causing significant rapid changes in the pressure difference between a diver’s body and his surroundings may be fatal. That’s why, scuba divers need to go through specialized training to be able to stay safe and remain alive even when more than a hundred feet below water.

That's basically the difference between scuba diving and skin diving. When you scuba dive, you are largely dependent on your diving gear for survival. Skin diving on the other hand is a simpler form of exploring the underwater environment, that’s probably what makes it very popular. As mentioned, you only need to rely on your own swimming prowess. You won’t need to pay for any expensive special breathing equipment.

So if you plan to stay at greater depths for a longer period of time, you can take some scuba diving lessons. Scuba diving is mostly beneficial for those who wish to study and collect date on marine environments.

Skin diving is mostly used for food gathering underwater. In some parts of the Caribbean, it's illegal to catch lobsters using any scuba equipment, thus, those who are good in skin make hundreds of dives each day to collect lobsters.