Scuba Quiz

Squish your body into an impossibly uncomfortable wet suit, strap on some fins, and grab an air tank – it's time to test your knowledge about scuba!

First things first: Where does the word scuba come from?

It's an acronym

It's from a Greek word for "fish"

Jacques Cousteau received it in a vision from King Neptune

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It's an acronym: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. As opposed to, say, an apparatus that has a hose going to the surface for air.

True/False: Jacques-Yves Cousteau invented the first scuba gear.

True

False

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False. The first scuba gear was patented in 1878, and Cousteau was born in 1910. (Heck, Leonardo da Vinci drew a diving suit in one of his notebooks – but it had a hose going to the surface.) Cousteau's aqua-lung, developed in the 1940s, was a great improvement over previous scuba designs.

What does this flag mean?

Divers are underwater; stay away

Divers need help; come rescue them

It's a nice day, isn't it? Who wants a drink?

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It's called the "Divers Down" flag - it warns other boaters that there are divers underwater, so they should stay away.

True/false: Scuba divers breathe pure oxygen.

True

False

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False. Those tanks contain either compressed air (which is mostly nitrogen) or oxygen-enriched air (which is still mostly nitrogen).

What are dive tables for?

Holding your equipment while you set up

Figuring out how many people can go on a dive

Avoiding the bends

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A dive table is a chart showing you how long you can stay down at a certain depth without getting the bends – the deeper the dive, the less time you can safely stay down. (If you exceed the limits, you have to make stops on the way up to let your body decompress.)

What causes the bends?

Dissolved nitrogen in your blood turns into bubbles

Dissolved oxygen in your blood turns into bubbles

Excess carbon dioxide buildup

The contortions required to put on a too-small wet suit

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"The bends" or decompression sickness happens when you ascend too quickly and nitrogen in your blood turns into bubbles – like what happens when you open a can of soda and the carbon dioxide bubbles out.

How does a wet suit keep you warm?

Your body warms the thin layer of water between you and the suit

Magic

It keeps you dry

The built-in heating coils

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A wet suit keeps you wet but, hopefully, warm by trapping a thin layer of water inside the suit; your body keeps this warm. It's only good down to 68 degrees F or so. If you're diving under the ice off Antarctica, you're going to want a dry suit (which keeps you dry, if you remember to zip it up).