Section

Diving

Scuba, freediving and the people who go under: safety, training, incidents and the water itself.

Page 10

Diving

Oxygen Toxicity: The CNS Risk Behind Technical Gas Choices

Oxygen keeps divers alive, until pressure turns it toxic. Here is why central nervous system oxygen toxicity shapes every gas decision in technical diving.

Sep 10, 2024/5 min read

A technical diver equipped with multiple sidemounted gas cylinders preparing to descend

Diving

Diving the Maldives: Atolls, Channels and the Seasons That Matter

The Maldives is not one dive destination but hundreds of atolls with different currents. Here is how the calendar actually decides what you see.

Aug 9, 2024/4 min read

A manta ray gliding over a coral reef in clear turquoise Maldivian water

Diving

Shallow Water Blackout: The Mechanism That Kills Competent Freedivers

Shallow water blackout does not warn its victim first. Here is the physiology behind it, why it strikes trained divers, and why solo breath hold diving is never safe.

Jun 10, 2024/4 min read

A freediver ascending toward the sunlit surface of open water, seen from below

Diving

Reef Manners: Why Fins, Gloves, Sunscreen and a Single Touch Matter More to a Coral Than the Boat Above It

Coral is an animal with a skin a few cells thick. The diver who kneels for a photograph, the snorkeller who stands to adjust a mask, and the oxybenzone in a lotion each do damage that the reef cannot repair in a season.

Jun 4, 2024/3 min read

A diver hovering above sponges and soft corals at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary off Georgia, in a 2017 NOAA photograph

Diving

Nitrogen Narcosis: What Depth Does to a Diver's Judgment

Nitrogen narcosis dulls judgment before a diver notices anything is wrong. Here is why depth impairs decision making, and why self-diagnosis often fails.

May 22, 2024/5 min read

A scuba diver descending through open blue water with visibility fading into the deep

Diving

The Blue Hole at Dahab: Why Experience Level Decides Everything

Egypt's most famous sinkhole is also its most argued-over dive site. What the Blue Hole actually is, and why so much depends on who is diving it.

May 20, 2024/4 min read

Aerial view of the circular Blue Hole sinkhole in the reef off Dahab, Egypt, with clear turquoise water

Diving

Decompression Sickness: What Happens in the Body, and Treatment

Divers call it the bends. Doctors call it decompression sickness. Here is what nitrogen bubbles actually do to tissue, and how hyperbaric treatment reverses it.

Feb 14, 2024/5 min read

Scuba tanks and gear racked on the deck of a dive boat under open sky

Diving

What Freediving Actually Is: Every Discipline Explained

CWT, CNF, FIM, STA, DYN: a plain guide to how competitive freediving is actually judged, discipline by discipline, and why the letters matter more than the depth alone.

Feb 14, 2024/5 min read

A freediver in a monofin descending along a vertical guide line in deep blue open water

Diving

Diving Egypt's Red Sea: Hurghada, Sharm and Dahab Compared

Three Egyptian dive bases, three different Red Seas. Here is what Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab each actually deliver underwater.

Feb 14, 2024/4 min read

Scuba divers exploring a vibrant coral reef in the Red Sea with sunlight filtering through clear water

Diving

Mask Clearing Is the Skill to Overlearn: Why Water in the Eyes Ends More Dives Than Anything Technical

A flooded mask is a nuisance to a diver who has cleared a hundred and a crisis to one who cleared three on the course. The difference is not technique. It is how many times the reflex has been overridden.

Oct 10, 2023/3 min read

Divers practising scuba emergency procedures in a training pool, in a US Navy photograph from June 2014

Diving

Equalising on the Way Down: Valsalva, Frenzel, and Why the First Five Metres Decide the Dive

Most ear injuries in scuba happen shallow, on descent, to divers who waited for pain before they equalised. The technique matters less than the timing, and the timing starts on the surface.

Jun 6, 2023/3 min read

A scuba diver underwater in blue water, hand raised toward the camera, in a 2024 photograph