Technical Diving

If you have ever wondered how dark the earth was before humans discovered fire, then spend some time in the forest. The night arrives shortly after 6 p.m. and the sun rises around 5 a.m. In this period of time, you may feel enveloped by the darkness in this part of South Africa. Andrea Murdock Alpini shares his adventure diving the Komati Springs.

Once considered an extreme activity reserved only for a fringe set of explorers and adventurers, technical diving has grown in popularity since the ‘90s and has become mainstream. However, technical diving is not for everyone. Aside from an advanced skill set, it also requires a certain mindset. How do you know if you have got it? Simon Pridmore offers insights into what makes a good technical diver.

Up until the ‘60s, the major advances in diving technology were driven by big-budget military programmes. Extending the depth limits to which divers might safely go—and still be capable of performing meaningful work when they got there—had a practical purpose. David Strike has the story, as told by George Wookey.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of tons of ghost nets lie at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, often caught on shipwrecks, many of which are historical in significance. The Baltic Sea Heritage Rescue Project brings together volunteers from all over the world with the drive to locate, document and remove such ghost nets from wrecks in the Baltic Sea, thus saving marine life, protecting the wrecks and keeping their stories alive.

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.