3 ms·
When I scuba-dive, there is a noticeable sound of, I guess, a valve opening and air at some pressure flowing through said valve. The Darth Vader breath sound.
by aetherson 12y ago
When I scuba-dive, there is a noticeable sound of, I guess, a valve opening and air at some pressure flowing through said valve. The Darth Vader breath sound. It's pretty loud in the confines of my head, though I can't say how loud it would be to marine animals around me.
- leeoniya 12y agoyeah you're right, but i suspect that sound is a couple orders of magnitude quieter since it isnt a rapid expansion of air directly into the water. i bet regulators exist that cut even that sound down significantly.
- scottm01 12y agoOpen circuit scuba gear is noisy because you are regularly exhaling gas. The regulator makes a little bit of noise, but the exhalation is generally what spooks animals. Lacking the need to exhale/vent gas (very often), Closed circuit rebreathers are extremely quiet. Some serious underwater photographers moved from the much cheaper (and arguably much safer) open circuit setups to rebreathers entirely to avoid spooking subjects. A rebreather probably can't quite compete with a freediver for silence and agility, though would certainly have a lot more time underwater to make up for it. At least some organized whale shark dives are freedive-only, probably partly to protect the animals and partly due to the time and noise required to put scuba divers into the water.