thumb|Beginner diver in [[St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands]]

Recreational diving or sport diving is diving for the purpose of leisure and enjoyment, usually when using scuba equipment. The term "recreational diving" may also be used in contradistinction to "technical diving", a more demanding aspect of recreational diving which requires more training and experience to develop the competence to reliably manage more complex equipment in the more hazardous conditions associated with the disciplines.

Recreational diving is generally limited to the use of air or a single nitrox mixture with an oxygen fraction not exceeding 40% for the planned dive, but this does not preclude constant oxygen partial pressure nitrox provided by electronically controlled closed circuit rebreathers like the Poseidon Mk6 or variable nitrox mixtures such as provided by the earlier semi-closed circuit Dräger Ray rebreather. Emergency gas supplies are either by sharing with a dive buddy or from a bailout cylinder for open circuit diving, and by bailout to open circuit for rebreather diving.

Most recreational diving officially applies the buddy system, but in reality there are a significant proportion of dives which are either effectively solo dives or where larger groups of nominally paired divers follow a dive leader and may be escorted by another dive leader. then in 1953 Trevor Hampton created the first British diving school, the British Underwater Centre and in 1954 when Los Angeles County

Diving activities aid in marine ecosystem conservation, supporting the development of infrastructure and services like videography, scientific researches and other local businesses, simultaneously promoting tourism.

The combined contribution of recreational scuba diving and snorkeling to the US gross domestic product was estimated at $11 billion in a 2019 report by the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association.

References

  • Scuba Earth – An interactive scuba diving map of dive sites from all around the world.
  • diveglobal.com – Global dive site and services reviews