Diving
We people have always been atracted of the possibility to go down under the 
surface and stay in the quiet and mysterious underwaterworld. The way to 
todays advanced diving technic is long.
Today, diving is accessible for everyone. And alot of that is thanks to the 
fransman
Jaques-Yves Cousteau, he´s called the father of sportdiving, because of all 
his fantastic underwater films he made. Now sportdiving is practised by 
thousands of people in Sweden.
The swedish sportdivingalliance was founded in 1958 and has since then grown 
into a great organisation in Swedish sports.
Now the organisation has more than 16 000 members.


Freediving and scubadiving
Freediving is diving without tubes, and you can start with it when you are 7 
years old. There are several different diplomas you can take when you 
freedive.
When you freedive you use a mask and snorkel. Through the snorkel you 
breathe while you´re swimming in the surface. If you use diving flippers you 
don´t have to kick so much with your feet .
To practise scubadiving you must be atleast 15 years. Then you do a test and 
if you do good you get a divinglicence. But if you have astma that bothers 
alot or heartproblems you are not aloud to take it.
When you dive in warm water you use a wetsuit. It´s made of neopren, and it 
keeps you warm.
Some water can come in but it doesn´t matter.
When it´s cold or if you dive very deep there is a drysuit you use. It 
doesn´t let any water in and it covers all your body exept your eyes and 
mouth.


History
During the 16th and 17th century a special divingclock was used when the you 
had to go down and get things from the bottom.
And it was a simple construktion, a big woodbarrel which was open in the 
bottom. The diver stood on a plank and the barrel was lowered.
The water only reached to the diver´s waist, and when the clock had reached 
the bottom the diver could swim out from it for a short time to pick pieces 
on the bottom and put them in a basket that was tied to a line in a boat on 
the surface.
This kind of clocks were used when the cannons of the Wasa ship were taken 
up.
Not until the mid 19th century the first diving suit was created.
It was an uncomfortable suit the divers had to put on.
It was a cooperhelmet and leadshoes, the air came from a tube from the 
surface.
The light diving equipment was developed during the second worldwar.
And it ment that the diver carried his air in tubes, while he swims under 
the water.
This type of divers got the nickname frogmen.
When attacdivers in the millitary approaches the enemy it´s not suitable 
that the bubbles from the tubes goes up to the surface. So they have 
developed a recyclingkeeper that recycles the carbon dioxide, the only 
problem with this kind of equipment is that they only can work down to 10 
meters. The light suit allows divers to work down to 60 meters the 
absolutely limit for this kind of diving is 100 meters. If the diver goes 
deeper than that he will feel very dizy and tired and then get unconscious.


Caisson disease
Caisson disease occurs if you go deeper than 10 meters and then go up to 
fast.
The preasure changes to quickly and small bubbles of nitrogen gas apperares 
in the blod. The bubbles stops the blod from cirkuling and the diver faints 
and can even die. If he´s taken to a hospital in time the odds of recovering 
are good.
They place a caisson disease person in a preasuremachine and put up the 
preasure until the bubbles dissapere. And at the same time the preasure puts 
down again.

Important
Divers can be very important for example in the police, where they look for 
thrown things or people which in some way has fallen in the water.
Since oil occurs alot in the sea bottom divers must be asked to go down and 
look for the best place to put the drill.


Best places
There are many good and interesting places to dive at. One place that many 
people talk about is the great barrier reef. It´s a reef outside the 
Australian northeastcoast in the Coral Sea. It´s the largest coral reef in 
the world. It stretches 2000 square kilometers from north to south.
In the feef you can see anemones, lobsters, crayfish and many others 
species, In the most spectacular colours.
Although a small lake somewhere can be very interesting too. Many years ago 
when there were alot of ships sailing on them, it could happen that when the 
ships were in the harbour they throwed things overboard and today them 
things can be very valuable.


Expensive
Diving is a quiet expensive sport. The prises varying quiet much depending 
on how high quality you want. The glasses costs from 150-500 krons. The 
prises on diving flippers is varying between 200-800. A wetsuit costs from 
1300-3000. A drysuit is more expensive, from
4500-7500 krons.