The received signal intensity fluctuation and communication performance of an underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) system under the air bubble effects are experimentally investigated. For different bubble density and size, lognormal, gamma, Weibull, and generalized extreme value distributions are tested to fit the fluctuation of the signal intensity at the receiving end. The best fitting distribution is found to vary with bubble parameters. The communication system performance with on–off keying and pulse position modulation is further studied.