Scuba diving
is a mode of underwater diving in which the scuba diver uses a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba) which is completely independent of surface supply, to breathe underwater.
Unlike other modes of diving, which rely either on breath-hold or on breathing supplied under pressure from the surface, scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, allowing them greater freedom of movement than with an air line or diver’s umbilical and longer underwater endurance than breath-hold. Open circuit scuba systems discharge the breathing gas into the environment as it is exhaled, and consist of one or more diving cylinders containing breathing gas at high pressure which is supplied to the diver through a diving regulator.
