You might know Doug Allan because of his spectacular cinematography. In his 30-year filming career, he’s been involved with over 60 films and series, and has worked for BBC, Discovery, National Geographic and many others, filming on series such as The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Human Planet and Frozen Planet.

In many cases, there is actually no plan to deal with a DCI incident. The rationale given runs along the lines of, “It hardly ever happens, so it is not worth thinking about until it does.”

Like a series of random punctuation marks, the many islands of the Solomons archipelago lay along the southern section of the Pacific Ring of Fire, in between the countries of Papua New Guinea to the north, and Vanuatu to the south.

We’re swimming fast. Too fast for my liking. I’m taking heaving gulps, and I know my tank won’t last very long if we don’t slow down soon. Just as I’m about to stop and risk losing my group, we hear a rapid series of bangs coming from our dive boat in the distance. Our guide, a lithe Indonesian with pistons for legs and bottomless iron lungs, points into the blue and somehow quickens his pace.