User:Jamespaulgee

Cave diving[edit]
Further information: Cave diving § History

The exploration of underwater parts of caves was started using surface supplied equipment before scuba became available. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, co-inventor of the first commercially successful open circuit scuba equipment, is claimed to have been the world's first open circuit scuba cave diver. The first self-contained cave divers were Graham Balcombe and Jack Shepherd, two founding members of Britain's Cave Diving Group (CDG) which is the oldest remaining diving organization in the world. They made the dive in 1936, using an oxygen cylinder and a respirator assembled with bicycle parts.

Two regions have had particular influence on cave diving techniques and equipment due to their very different cave diving environments. These are the United Kingdom, and USA, mainly Florida.

UK history[edit]
Progress was typically by "bottom walking", as this was considered less dangerous than swimming in the absence of buoyancy control. The use of oxygen put a depth limit on the dives. This was the normal procedure until approximately 1960 when new techniques using wetsuits and open-circuit scuba sets were introduced. The development of side mounting cylinders, helmet-mounted lights and free-swimming with fins increased accessibility, and the increasing capacity and pressure rating of air cylinders extended dive durations. The conception of suit inflation in dry suits added the buoyancy control to make "bottom walking" obsolete. By 1990, use of mixed nitrox gas further increased acceptable bottom times. A decade later underwater devices like long range scooters are developed, allowing divers to explore caves further than ever before.