Caves, rebreathers, risk assessment, the meaning of life, acceptable risks, the future of diving and what it takes to be a true explorer—Bill Stone lays it all out on the table for X-RAY MAG publisher Peter Symes, who gets to hear about the dirt and glory of the birth of modern rebreathers through the eyes of the man who helped start it all with his pioneering efforts in closed-circuit systems.

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Eat kelp

Arnold Weisz

Ecology & Science

Did you know that kelp is an ingredient in many household foods! Foods like frozen foods, cakes, puddings, salad dressings, shampoos, and toothpastes contain alginate. Alginate is an apparently safe derivative of seaweed (kelp), and is used to maintains the desired texture in many products.

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President Coolidge

Cedric Verdier Mike Gadd and Lek Fukjeen

Wrecks & Archaeology

Henry Nelson. Does the name ring a bell? You’ll not find him in any history book or see any monuments to his honor. However, the thousands of scuba divers who visit Vanuatu every year should bless this name. This former French/English colony, which was named New Hebrides till 1980, was also the second most important US base in the pacific during WWII. The 80 islands strategically located between Fiji and Australia is still home to some remains of this strange time. Amongst them is the wreck of the SS President Coolidge.

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Regulators

Millis and Brian Keegan

Equipment

After my very first pool session, I was hooked. Every thought I had circled around diving and dive equipment. I could not wait for my next session. The instructor was a God, and what he said must be true. I was an easy target! By the end of the class, I walked out of there with an Open Water dive certificate and a great deal on a dive package.

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Riviera Maya

Andrey Bizyukin Andrey Bizyukin

Travel & Trips

The Yucatan Peninsula is located in the south of the contiguous Mexican states. The ground here is heated by the tropical sun—35°C makes for a hot and impassable jungle. The bogs—littered with iguanas, snakes and crocodiles—are drying up. A rare tropical storm suddenly and unexpectedly flies up from the Caribbean Sea. Black clouds, peals of thunder, bright lighting, squalls of wind and rain last no more than 15–20 minutes and again the damp stuffy mind-melting weight of the stifling heat returns. It is not the best place to dwell for the white man. But this land saw an era over 1,000 years ago, when it was occupied by a surprisingly small-in-stature, dark-skinned people—the Maya.

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Sue Duda

Editted by Gunild Pak Symes Sue Duda

Lifestyle & Art

Blending her love of the sea and its cherished creatures with the ancient art of Batik, a die and wax technique on silk, Sue Dudas has created an ocean of art work to delight the most hardy sea lover.

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Using Filters

Dan Beecham

Photo & Video

UR-PRO filters have been popular on compact cameras because they can be mounted to the outside of a camera housing, can be removed if not needed and can be used at the same time as an external wide angle lens. Some video camera housings have a built in filter-drawer, leaving the filter easily accessible in case it’s needed, or easily removed if the shooter chooses not to use it.

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Varonya Cave

Andrey Bizuykin Andrey Bizuykin

Tech and Training

The Mexican cenotes and springs in Florida may all be places of pilgrimage for technical divers. You can often watch brave men and cool-headed women laying out their guidelines as their frog-kicks take them further in through awesome arches and into this mystic realm lit only by the powerful beams of their HID torches. But there are also other caves in the world, less famous ones perhaps, but caves that are yet even more impressive, with shafts that keep on dropping into the abyss in seemingly endless cascades of deep pits.

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