Scuba Diving

Scuba diving is booming & popular, scuba diving is easy and scuba diving is fun. Scuba diving as an outdoor recreation is gaining in popularity every year, while participation in other pastimes is diminishing. Why is scuba diving so popular? Uh, the minimum age to learn to become a certified Scuba Dive is 10 years old. Folks this isn’t rocket science but they must have good head on their shoulders with a parent or someone as their Dive buddy.
Over 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water. The allure and mystery of the underwater world has inspired the human imagination since prehistory, from the mythological monsters described by seafaring people, to the science fiction of Jules Verne and the modern underwater adventures in Hollywood films. Breath-hold diving, dangerous though it can be, has been used to collect pearls, sponges and valuable commodities from the sea floor for many generations.
Advances in underwater exploration began nearly three centuries ago using diving bells and large cumbersome sealed suits using pumped air from the surface. Only very recently advances in technology and mechanics have allowed people to visit this domain safely for exploration using comfortable, self-contained air delivery systems.
Though air-assisted underwater exploration has been around since the 1700's, underwater exploration was out of reach for the average person, and recreational scuba diving was an unthinkable luxury. Great advances in the engineering of valves and compressed air tanks in the 1930's produced the first systems that we would call "scuba": the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. These early scuba tanks were clunky, inefficient systems that spouted air constantly into the diver's face. Between 1942 and 1946, Jacques-Yves Cousteau (a French naval lieutenant) and Emile Gagnan (an engineer) developed the Aqua Lung; a device which used pressure valves to deliver properly pressurized air only when the diver breathed in. Over the next two decades experimental dives with the Aqua Lung proved its reliability and in the 1960's "sport diving" was born.
PADI & NAUI are a part of the National Association of Underwater Instructors, was formed in 1960 to regulate and teach safe scuba diving to enthusiasts of this new sport. PADI, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, was formed in 1967.
In the 1970's, scuba equipment continued to evolve and the typical scuba system was enhanced by buoyancy compensation vests, better valves and submersible pressure gauges. Through the 1980's and 1990's, scuba as a recreational sport became a multi-billion dollar industry with its popularity prompting even more innovation in the design and the engineering of better, safer, lighter, more comfortable equipment.
Today, scuba diving is accessible to almost anyone with only a modest investment in equipment. Anywhere you want to dive you can usually find a dive center like Rick’s Dive ‘ N Travel Center near-at-hand to rent tanks, go on a guided dive with a dive guide or a Divemaster. You can also take a chartered boat or just strap on the tanks and swim out from the shore if you have the skills & proper equipment.
Today, scuba diving is accessible to almost anyone with only a modest investment in equipment. Anywhere you want to dive you can usually find a dive center near-at-hand to rent tanks, go on a guided dive with a Divemaster or a chartered boat or just strap on the tanks and swim out from the shore If you are so inclined. Try it you will be amazed & you may even lose some weight & feel better since you expend over 800 calories in an hour. Come join the fun & excitement at Rick’s Dive ‘N Travel Center honored as one of the TOP 10 Dive Centers in the USA….right here in Arkansas.