Differentiating Skin Diving from Scuba Diving

If you think that skin diving and scuba diving are the same, think again. Perhaps the only similarity between the two is that both activities entail performing tasks while submerged underwater.

What is skin diving?

Skin diving is another term for free diving. This means that diving underwater for skin diving entails entering the water, doing a task and exiting again, healthy and without the aid of breathing equipment such as the more common self contained underwater breathing apparatus or scuba for scuba diving.

Skin divers are known to wear flippers to help propel them in and out faster. Speed is very important for skin divers because these individuals dive into great depths. Some skin divers have been known to descend freely to a depth of 40m. They also use dive masks or goggles to help them achieve visibility underwater.

What is skin diving for?

The origin of skin diving can be traced to old cultural traditions of coast dwelling communities that thrived in commerce based on the output of skin diving. For instance, certain tribes found in Southeast Asia of old were found to have skin divers practicing their skills for pearl harvesting.

Actually, we can trace skin diving to as far back as the 8th century BC where Greek divers dove to as deep as 30m to collect mollusks and the like. Skin diving predates scuba diving and skin diving was actually used as the first type of covert stealth mission during the war before scuba.

Skin diving is also practiced as a competitive extreme sport.

Skin diving risks

Being a skin diver is more dangerous than being a scuba diver because skin diving does not make use of regular scuba equipment and it doesn't practice the safety procedures that all certified scuba divers should.