page_title: Wreck diving
section_title: Deep wreck diving
hierarchical_section_title: Wreck diving / Procedures and safety / Deep wreck diving
caption_attribution_description: English: Trevor Jackson returning from a 178 metres (584&#160;ft) dive to the SS Kyogle in Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
  Some wreck diving involves penetration of the wreckage, making a direct ascent to the surface impossible for a part of the dive.
context_section_description: Wrecks in shallower waters tend to deteriorate faster than wrecks in deeper water due to higher biological activity.  Accordingly, many of the older and larger shipwrecks that tend to offer full penetration dives tend to be deeper dives.  This can present additional complications; if a wreck dive is intended to be a decompression dive, then the diver will normally carry decompression gases in side-mounted cylinders.  However, it is difficult to penetrate many wrecks with both back-mounted and side-mounted cylinders, requiring divers to either use a different configuration, or leave their decompression gases outside the wreck prior to penetration.  This creates the possibility of a diver being unable to relocate their decompression gases if they exit the wreck at a different point from which they enter it.
caption: Diver returning from a 600 feet (180 m) wreck dive
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