History of Diving!

The History of diving goes back to the time when man learned to swim!
People have been diving underwater throughout the ages, probably for as long as people have been swimming… Starting out breath holding from time to time man would evolve to what we know today as scuba!
There are records, in some cases stories more than myth, of the methods used and what was done while diving!

Pearl Divers.

One historical note is where Alexander the Great used a wooden barrel as a diving bell to clear a harbour in 332 B.C.
 The main reasons for people to have started diving at first would have been for food, pearl diving, sponges and shells. The desire to swim underwater for various reasons must have existed for as long as Mankind has swum. Pearl diving is still practiced today in some locations in much the same way as they did in the beginnings of the history of scuba in all its various forms.

In very early times the methods used, such as hollow reeds and inflated bags of air were largely limiting, both in terms of depth as well as the time this allowed the swimmer to stay underwater.
 Divers, pearl diving, used a stone hooked by a rope onto the divers foot which he would then unhook when he needed to return to the surface. It is said dives of up to 40 meters would be normal!!! Surely life expectancy would have been fairly short! This method carried on being used in various parts of the world until relatively recently.

There is a scuba diving history record from the Ming Dynasty in China that divers were able to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time by way of a long curving pipe that led up above the surface of the water. This long breathing tube was strengthened by rings of silver and fastened to a  mask attached to the face.

A lot of the development of diving, like many other advances in technology have been as a result of the demands of war and the need for salvage operations by Naval units.
In Europe in the 1500’s leather diving suits were used, combined with air from manual pumps to depths of 25 meters. This progressed over the next two hundred years until the well known steel and brass diving helmet with rubber suits were being used, for extensive dives to undertake commercial salvage underwater to extreme depths.

Research carried out by Paul Bert and John Scott Haldane helped explain the effects of water pressure on the human body and in turn defining the limits involved in compressed air diving. There were technological advances in terms of pumps and other equipment which allowed people to stay under water longer as well.
The first Scuba apparatus to be developed in scuba diving history was invented by Benoit Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouse, which included a diving helmet, a compressed air tank and an early rudimentary demand regulator. This is a very early version of what was later developed into modern day Scuba equipment used for modern Scuba dive sports.

The first studies of decompression sickness were reported in the 1870’s by Dr Andrew H Smith who did not report any knowledge of the effect of Nitrogen Bubbles forming in the blood. Paul Bert made this connection in 1878 and made the first proposals in scuba diving history, that treatment should be by recompression of the diver. John Scott Haldane through his research in 1908 compiled the first dive tables used to avoid the ‘bends’ as decompression sickness became known.
 In 1917, The United States Navy began using the Mark V Diving Helmet for all of its underwater salvage work, using a largely unchanged design well into the 1980’s. In the 1930’s, Fins and masks were developed out of rubber and glass (for the masks!)





When talking of the History of Scuba the name Jacques Cousteau is synonomous.
Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan made the next significant step taking the development of Scuba to the point where it became accessible to the masses. In 1943 they developed the demand regulator similar in principle to that developed by Rouquayrol-Denayrous.






 From this point on Scuba steadily developed in the years to follow, becoming hugely popular as a result of a television programme starring Lloyd Bridges – The Sea Hunter, this inspired thousands to take up the sport. It is amazing that a television show could have such an important role in the history of scuba.



The increase in accidents as the sport became more and more popular prompted the forming of PADI in 1966 to train and certify divers. Imagine how dangerous the sport was without the regulated training to ensuring people knew where the dangers lay?
 By the  late1970’s the equipment used, such as Buoyancy Control Devices, pressure gauges and single hose regulators became the norm as did dive computers in the 1980’s (what a relief!) By 2016 certified over 25,000,000 divers Globaly, there are many other organizastions out there as well CMAS / RAID / SSI and the list goes on.









 Even scuba diving is still evolving to the point divers are using Re-Breathers, so the can stay longer as the units do not emit bubbles like normal scuba when you exhale, these elite units recycle your air and add small amount of oxygen to the loop to give you the best mix for that part of the dive!

 Today where have we reached we have seen pearl divers and spearfishing used over the century to supply food and money 100 years on we have wet bells for diving then pressurized suits, to hard hat diving and now scuba regulators and options of suits and BCD's.
Today's dive school can offer a vast vaiaty of set up and diving from single tank to twin set or side mount diving and move your way along to re-breather where time is not the major factor! but thats for another time!