SCUBA diving glossary

Here is a glossary of SCUBA diving terms:

Anoxia: inhaling a breathing gas that contains no oxygen or being unable to inhale and breathing gas.
Barotrauma: pressure-related injury.
Beach master: A person on the beach who records when divers enter and exit the water. Typically used during scuba classes to keep track of the students, watch the gear, provide assistance when required.
Bounce dive: Specifically, to recreationally oriented divers, bounce dives usually means going straight down and coming straight back up, without stops, in a pattern resembling a spike, usually due to poor buoyancy control.
Buddy system: Two divers that dive together as a team for safety.
C-card: Certification card (proof of training or experience).
Carbon monoxide poisoning: usually due to compressor maintenance errors.
Carbon dioxide poisoning: is due to incomplete elimination of carbon dioxide
Cattleboat: a slang term for a boat transporting inexperienced tourist divers.
Decompression sickness: a diving disorder caused by bubbles of inert gases, such as nitrogen or helium, becoming trapped in the tissues, organs and blood vessels of the body causing symptoms ranging from rashes to death.
Decompression stop: a pause during the ascent phase of the dive to allow safe release of inert gases from the tissues of the body and avoid decompression sickness.
Decompression tables: Printed tables that provide divers with a way of avoiding Decompression Sickness by giving the maximum times that can be spent at depth, and by indicating the Decompression Stops and Surface Intervals needed for a particular depth and time profile to be carried out safely.
Decompression buoy: a small buoy on a line that divers inflate underwater to indicate their location to their boat.
Dive club: a group of people with an interest in SCUBA diving.
Dive Flag: Flag used by a boat to indicate that it has 'divers down'. Comes in two versions: the international marine (international code letter flag 'A', File:Flag IntA.png) and the red and white flag (red with white diagonal, File:Flag USdive.png), introduced by Ted Nixon in 1956. Boats must maintain a minimum safety distance away from the flag. Personal water craft pose a hazard to divers, and sadly few operators do know what a dive flag is. Some believe it is a turn marker. If you observe a personal water craft operating to close to a dive flag contact the lake patrol.
Dive Shop: supplier of dive equipment or training, or organizer of dive expeditions.
Dive tables: see Decompression tables
Divemaster: A professional level diver who is in charge of the dive.
Drift dive: a dive in a current.
Drowning: death caused by the inability to inhale anything but water.
Dry suit
Fire Diving: An urban legend about a diver who is scooped up by a plane/chopper and dropped on a forest fire led someone to build a web site for the fictitious sport of Firediving.
Frogman: A slang term for scuba divers.
Gas embolism: air or other gas bubbles in the blood stream.
Hard Hat diving: A term for commercial divers. Refers to a modern fiberglass helmet or the old style brass helmet tethered divers wear.
HPNS, High Pressure Nervous Syndrome or Helium Tremors: caused by using breathing gases that contain helium at depth.
Hypoxia: inhaling a breathing gas that contains insufficient oxygen to support normal activities or consciousness.
Hypothermia
Log Book: List of the dives a diver has recorded for proof of experience.
Interstitial emphysema: gas trapped in the chest after lung barotrauma.
Navy SEAL: A US Navy trained military diver (http://www.sealchallenge.navy.mil/).
Night diving: a dive at night - many underwater animals are nocturnal or behave differently at night.
Nitrogen narcosis: is caused by using breathing gases that contain nitrogen at high pressure (at depth).
Oxygen toxicity: is caused by using breathing gases that contain oxygen at at high pressure (at depth).
Pneumothorax: collapsed lung.
Professional diving: diving for payment.
Rebreather: a device which reuses part of each breath. See linked article for more information.
Recreational diving: a type of diving that uses SCUBA equipment for the purpose of leisure and enjoyment.
Salt water aspiration syndrome: the diver inhales a mist of sea water from a fault demand valve causing a reaction in the lungs.
Saturation diving: a decompression regime used in commercial diving that allows divers to live work for weeks at a time where their tissues become saturated in high pressure gas.
Secondary drowning: can occur hours after a near drowning.
Semi-dry suit
Shore diving: Scuba diving that starts from the shore line.
Skin: a lycra suit worn by a diver in warm water or under a wet suit.
Standard diving dress
Subcutaneous emphysema: gas under the skin tissue.
Surface interval: the time between dives. divers need to track this time interval for planning the next dive.
Surface marker buoy, SMB: a small inflated buoy that divers tow when underwater on drift dives to indicate to indicate their location to their boat.
Time to fly: Divers must wait approx. 24 hours after the last dive before flying.
Trash dive: a dive dedicated to removing trash from the underwater environment.
Wall diving: diving along the face of a vertical wall - requires good buoyancy control because there is no seabed to prevent the diver descending too deep.
Wet suit
Wreck diving: diving on wrecked ships.