Safety Culture - diving in the zone
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“Thank [beep] for that! How lucky were we? We better not do that again.
Don’t tell anyone though, we don’t want to look like amateurs...”
Opinions & comments
Outside comments, debates, chronics
Outside comments, debates, chronics
Ten Commandments of Tech Diving Ops, Part II
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Andrey Bizyukin
Cave diver. Photo by Andrey Bizyukin.
In part one of this series, which appeared in issue #103, I suggested a few commandments to consider in order to ensure, as far as possible, that your technical dives are safe and successful. These were: First commandment: Prepare paperwork; Second commandment: Nominate a supervisor; Third commandment: Deploy safety divers. In this sequel, I deliver a few more tablets of stone.
Ten Commandments of Tech Diving Ops, Part I
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Andrey Bizyukin
An excellent strategy to guard against complacency and protect you and your dive team from becoming too casual about your diving is to establish set operational procedures for all your technical dives.
Today, technical diving is well into its fourth decade. We now have better tools, technology and systems than we did in the past and we know far more about which methods, decompression strategies and gear configurations work well and which do not.
Look After Your People
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Simon Pridmore
In the book Into Thin Air, journalist Jon Krakauer tells the story of five people who died near the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. Two were expedition leaders, one was a professional guide and two were their clients.
Going Pro, Part II: The Road from Instructor to Dive Professional
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Andrey Bizyukin
Photo by Andrey Bizyukin
“Wait, wait,” you may say when you read the title of this column, “What are you talking about? Aren’t those two things the same? Isn’t a dive instructor by definition a scuba professional? And what do you mean by ‘Road’?”
The Year of the Shark 2019 Ends
What we see is that sharks are being targeted by international factory fleets around the world who trail millions upon millions of baited hooks through their realm, trawl the sea floors for rays, skates and other bottom dwellers to 4,000 metres, and slaughter them by the millions. Sharks are the only profitable prey remaining, now that ninety percent of the original (fish) fisheries are fished out.
Out of Air with Plenty to Breathe
Take responsibility for opening your own cylinder valve before a dive. If someone else wants to do it for you or touches it to check it is open, politely refuse.
It was a beautiful day in Indonesia’s Banda Sea. Richard rolled back into the warm waters and swam over to join his wife, Florence. After exchanging signals, they descended together, heading for a patch of bright yellow sea fans on the reef wall at 30m, where their guide had promised to show them pygmy seahorses. The guide was already there below, searching for the elusive little creatures.
Front Row Seats for the Third Wave
In his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, historian Yuval Noah Harari traces the path left by Homo sapiens as our species spread over the world, causing the extinction of other human species and sub-species, and half of the planet’s big beasts. He describes the extinctions as happening in three waves.
New Ideas on Narcosis
What causes nitrogen narcosis?
Researchers have raised some eye-opening thoughts on nitrogen narcosis, showing that it is something that most divers THINK they understand but few actually do.
Exposure Suit Myths: Magic Seaweed, Nano Colors & Other Titanium Wetsuit Fabrications
Do manufacturers hype junk science to sell exposure protection? The short answer is yes!
Choosing a BCD: Solutions for the Slight
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Simon Pridmore
A boy in a harness-and-wing system, which is adjustable, so it fits him perfectly. The system allows the head to be held higher on the surface of the water than a conventional jacket-style BCD does. It is easier to control and does not squeeze the diver’s ribcage and inhibit breathing when the air cell is fully inflated. Photo by Simon Pridmore.
In 2014, off the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand, a diver on a discover scuba experience died when she became separated from her group and ran out of air. She was discovered on the surface, floating face down. The inquest found that the dive operation involved was to blame because they had failed to supervise her properly.