Tech and Training

It may be more than four years since the 2018 Thai cave rescue dominated headlines, but the recent movie and miniseries releases have generated highly emotional reactions once again. Are divers being put off cave diving, and why should any diver consider going underground? Yvonne Press takes a closer look, interviewing several divers and technical diving instructors for this report.

Very often, you will come across examples in scuba education where what is taught does not match up with what divers do in real life. Mark Powell provides insights for new divers and tips for dive instructors.

When we learn to scuba dive, we are given a little knowledge and taught some basic skills. We take a theory test and demonstrate that we can perform the skills and that’s it, we get a licence.

Technical diving instructor and inventor Gregory Borodiansky is qualified to dive 20 different rebreathers. He is also a rebreather instructor on many units and a rebreather instructor trainer. Since Borodiansky has a background in electronic engineering and computer science, he took the features he liked on each unit and designed a front-mounted rebreather. Larry Cohen reports.

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.

A term that has crept into discussions of scuba diving safety comparatively recently is “situational awareness,” a concept that originally arose in the field of aviation but has now been extended to a wide range of human activities, from medicine and motoring to personal security and law enforcement. Simon Pridmore offers insights and advice on safe diving with a scuba sixth sense.