Opinions & comments

Diving is a sport which has an inherent risk of death or serious injury due to the aquatic environment in which the activity takes place. These risks are not just limited to drowning or decompression sickness, but many other issues like entanglement, injuries from the flora and fauna, or trauma.

I read a blog recently that suggested our egos could be responsible for many of the casualties that technical diving regrettably suffers. Sadly, my comments on this blog never made it past the moderator. As a scientist and psychologist, I am somewhat protective of terminology used to describe human thought, emotion and behaviour, and the author of this blog fell into a common trap in how one described ego.

I was recently given this picture, signed by David Prowse—the original actor who played Darth Vader—by one of my students. It's awesome. Why? Well, I am a bit of a Star Wars fan and a lot of a geek anyway, but also, there is a little sub-culture in technical diving, especially cave and rebreather diving, in which divers like to refer to themselves as members of the dark side!

In this issue, Simon Pridmore takes a look at the buddy system and concludes that on many occasions your buddy is not your friend, and you would be much better off assuming that this will be the case and preparing yourself, always, to assume full responsibility for your diving.

In this latest column, Simon Pridmore looks at three instances where divers survived close calls, picks out the techniques that they employed to survive and recommends strategies that you can adopt to make you a safer diver.

Achieving the Olympic dream is often described as the culmination of four years or more of hard work, sacrifice, commitment and dedication. To be an Olympian, there will be three components that must be present in each competitor before the dream can be achieved: talent, physical potential and psychological potential.

In the 1950s, in the early days of recreational scuba diver training, many of the instructors were retired military who would use words like “beasting” to describe the harsh regime they meted out to their students to ensure they met their exacting standards for diver certification.

Over the years, many people have come into the scuba diving industry driven by a dream. This dream is to find a small, sunny corner of the world where the reefs are healthy and where they might set up a little dive resort.

Many divers dream of owning their own dive center, of doing what they love and making money out of it. But what does it really entail? Do you have what it takes to open and, more importantly, operate a recreational dive center? And what does it really mean? Whether you are planning a part-time weekend business or opening a luxury dive resort and hotel, it is worth reading further.