Scuba diving is, by nature, a dangerous sport. But, you can have a safe, fun and accident free dive by following a few safety rules.

• 1) Take lessons and get qualified by a certification agency before participating in SCUBA diving.

Diving and handling nitrox raises a number of potentially fatal dangers due to the high partial pressure of oxygen (ppO2). Nitrox is not a deep-diving gas mixture due to the increased proportion of oxygen in Nitrox: oxygen becomes toxic when breathed at high pressure.

Nitrox with more than 40% oxygen is uncommon within recreational diving. There are two main reasons for this: the first is that all pieces of diving equipment that come into contact with mixes containing higher proportions of oxygen, particularly at high pressure, need special cleaning and servicing to reduce the risk of fire.

Nitrox has many names: Enhanced Air Nitrox, Oxygen Enriched Air, Nitrox, EANx or Safe Air. The name "nitrox" has been written in upper and lower case in English; in this content the lower case convention will be used except specific mix are referred to (such as Nitrox40).

Nitrox is mainly used in scuba diving to reduce the proportion of nitrogen in the breathing gas mixture. Reducing the proportion of nitrogen by increasing the proportion of oxygen reduces the risk of decompression sickness, allowing extended dive times without increasing the need for decompression stops. Nitrox is not a safer gas than compressed air in all respects: although its use reduces the risk of decompression sickness, it increases the risk of oxygen toxicity and fire, which are further discussed below.

Nitrox refers to any gas mixture composed (trace gases excluded) of nitrogen and oxygen, this includes normal air which is approximately 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with around 1% other gases. The most common use of nitrox mixtures containing higher than normal levels of oxygen is in SCUBA diving where the reduced percentage of nitrogen is advantageous in reducing nitrogen take up in the body's tissues and so expend the possible dive time and/or reducing the risk of decompression deseases (well known as the bends).

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) is the world's largest recreational diving membership and diver training organization founded in 1966 by John Cronin and Ralph Erikson. PADI members, including dive centers, resorts, educational facilities, instructors, and divemasters, teach the majority of the world's recreational divers.[citation needed] PADI operates offices in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States.