Bikini Atoll—without a doubt—is the undisputed top wreck diving destination on the planet. I remember when I first started diving back in 1989, I would sit around the table and listen to members of our dive club in South London, salivating at the concept of diving Bikini Atolls’ Saratoga, an aircraft carrier and one of the world's largest diveable wrecks. Only a brave few divers ever ventured to this remote place deep within the Marshall Islands. Costing a small fortune to get to, Bikini was only a destination for the elite (and stinking rich!!). It was a place every diver dreamed of getting to.
X-Ray Mag #51
Feature articles in this issue with stand-alone pdfs
Bikini Atoll—without a doubt—is the undisputed top wreck diving destination on the planet. I remember when I first started diving back in 1989, I would sit around the table and listen to members of our dive club in South London, salivating at the concept of diving Bikini Atolls’ Saratoga, an aircraft carrier and one of the world's largest diveable wrecks. Only a brave few divers ever ventured to this remote place deep within the Marshall Islands. Costing a small fortune to get to, Bikini was only a destination for the elite (and stinking rich!!). It was a place every diver dreamed of getting to.
Artifical reef in BC, Canada. Photo by Barb Roy
British Columbia (BC), Canada is known for having some of the most colourful temperate water diving in the world. This holds true for excellent critter sightings as well, found throughout the varied coastal regions.
Many of the pieces of equipment used by technical divers look different to the equipment used by recreational divers. However, for most of the time, the basic principles are the same.
Unlike Max in the children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, I hadn’t worn my wolf suit, or made mischief of one kind or another. I hadn’t been sent to my room before it transformed into an island of magical monsters only reachable after a year of sailing.
I wouldn’t want to spend that long on a boat, so I behaved(ish) and looked forward to being on Galápagos and spending my nights tucked up on dry land.
Seen from space, Isabela Island—the largest island of the Galápagos archipelago— reminds me of a giant seahorse facing the great blue yonder of the Pacific Ocean. As one approaches land, the cap of thin white clouds dissipates. Isabela’s majestic landscape is a perfect alignment of shield volcanoes, rising above 1,000 metres, which stretches from the southeast to the northwest. Among them, Wolf Volcano reaches 1,700 metres.
What is the hypoxia? It is a deficit of oxygen in the lungs, blood and tissues. Each of us feels hypoxia from time to time, even if we do not realize it.”
Freediving is easy. All you have to do, according to freediver extraordinaire, Stig Åvall Severinsen, is “learn to hold your breath as long as you can”. Simple.
But it becomes a little more complicated when you set out to turn what most of us do when we’re fooling around at the bottom of the pool into an almost mystic discipline, which has allowed Severinsen to break long-standing records and win world championships. So, how does Severinsen manage all that?
If anyone was to mention diving in Thailand to you, then you would most likely think of one of the west coast destinations. Hardly a thought would be given to the small island of Koh Tao, which lies off the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. I live and dive here, so I find this lack of attention a little unfair.
One of the dreams of any naturalist is to be the first to find and detail the life of a hidden or unknown animal first hand. Since 2003, scientific divers with the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG) have begun to unravel the mysterious life of the Greenland shark, which at over seven meters in maximum body length and exceeding a ton in weight, is the second largest carnivorous shark after the great white.