My mother always insisted that we children waited an hour before swimming after eating in case we got the cramp. As a diver, I often ate a hearty meal immediately before diving without, I believed, ill effect. Cramp, though uncomfortable, doesn’t cause a diver to drown. During my long career as a diving journalist, I … Read more
At DEMA one year, I met an elderly Frenchman based in Bonaire who exhibited paintings of all manner of wrecks that lay there. When questioned about them, it seemed that most lay well beyond one-hundred feet deep. When I asked him if he used trimix for these dives he retorted as only a Frenchman can, … Read more
The era of dive tables as the only method of calculating dive plans is one that is largely forgotten by many in the “modern” world of electronic diving computers and the plethora of algorithms and deco models that now are available. I have long been an advocate for embracing innovation and new technologies, including being … Read more
Scuba diving should be in no way competitive. If you are part of a group of divers, you want everyone to have a good time. We don’t want winners or losers. That said, the human spirit is without doubt naturally competitive and we will find ways to compete, however irrelevant. You’ll often see divers post-dive … Read more
As secret agent James Bond once sagely observed to Q, who supplied his special equipment and was complaining that he was bringing it back damaged, “It’s hell out there in the field.” Divers aren’t dealing with jet-packs, ejection seats in Aston-Martin sports cars, or the best way to use the strangling wire released from the … Read more
