For a cave diver, it is always an exciting moment to be the first to dive a location that has not been visited by other divers before. The Laplet slate mine in the Belgian Ardennes was such a location for our small group of explorers.
Buddy Dive Resort is proud to host the 10th edition of this popular event and is looking forward to catching up with friends, learning new things, and exploring new depths.
This year there will be presentations and clinics from Lamar Hires -Dive Rite, Randy Thornton - SubGravity, Frauke Tillmans -DAN, Guy Shockey - GUE, Michael Menduno - Indepth, Gabriel Pineda - Shear water and Didier Draguiv - O’Dive Systems.
Buddy Dive’s Tec Coordinator Mr. G about the 10th Anniversary of Bonaire TeK
When one thinks about cave diving, the feelings are mixed and it is very difficult to express what it feels like in a single word, but perhaps a possible description is “to live the discovery.” Discovery is an experience and an intrinsic need in human beings since before the discovery of fire.
If you love scuba diving, deep dark waters, decompression procedures and mixed gas theory, you must have heard the name many times: Bret Gilliam, a revolutionary trailblazer in the dive world. Over the past few decades, he has changed the way scuba diving is practiced.
Some 80km south of Copenhagen, about one hour’s drive, in what appears to be just some ordinary and inconspicuous farm buildings surrounded by fields out in the countryside, we find JJ-CCR—manufacturer of world-renowned closed circuit rebreathers.
A number of new products are normally launched at the start of April, and this year did not disappoint.
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.
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.
For three decades the researchers at DAN have monitored, tracked and analyzed diving incidents and fatalities worldwide. One of the best sources of this incident data is you, the diver. When you self-report an injury or incident that you experienced or witnessed via the DAN Incident Reporting System, you offer a valuable look at real world diving incidents and injuries.
IPE is the abnormal leakage of fluid from the bloodstream into the alveoli, the microscopic air sacs in the lungs. Symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing up bloody sputum, and respiratory distress. Leakage into the alveoli results in fluid buildup in the lungs, and interrupts gas exchange, similar to drowning. It is important to note that fluid resulting from IPE comes from within the body, rather than from inhalation of surrounding water.
