Section

Diving

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

Page 8

Diving

The Open Water Certification: What It Does and Does Not Qualify You For

An Open Water card opens the door to diving worldwide, but it is a narrower licence than most new divers assume. Here is exactly what it covers.

Sep 9, 2025/4 min read

Two divers practising skills in shallow clear water

Diving

Breath-Hold Training on Land: What Evidence Actually Supports

CO2 tables build genuine breath hold tolerance over weeks. Hyperventilating beforehand does the opposite of what beginners think it does, and it has killed trained divers.

Sep 2, 2025/4 min read

A person practising controlled breathing on a mat

Diving

What Divers Alert Network Membership Actually Covers

DAN is a name every diver knows, but membership and dive accident insurance are not the same thing. Here is what each one actually buys you.

Jun 30, 2025/4 min read

Diving

Wreck Diving: Where Swim-Through Ends and Penetration Begins

A sunken ship draws every diver's curiosity, but the line between a safe swim-through and a genuine penetration dive is stricter than it looks.

Jun 25, 2025/4 min read

A scuba diver with a torch exploring the interior passage of a sunken shipwreck

Diving

Freediving Versus Scuba: What Each One Actually Asks of You

One demands breath control and stillness, the other demands equipment discipline. Here is what separates them and where beginners should start.

Jun 24, 2025/4 min read

A scuba diver and a freediver near the same coral reef, showing the contrast in equipment between the two disciplines

Diving

Rebreathers: Why Divers Love Them, and What They Demand

A rebreather trades noisy bubbles for silent, efficient diving, but it also trades forgiveness for discipline. Here is what changes underwater.

Apr 15, 2025/4 min read

A diver wearing a closed circuit rebreather unit swimming near a coral reef without exhaust bubbles

Diving

Oman Below the Surface: Daymaniyat Islands and the Hallaniyat Wrecks

Oman splits its diving into two distant reserves, one a protected reef north of Muscat, the other a remote wreck-strewn archipelago in the south.

Mar 15, 2025/4 min read

A scuba diver swimming over a coral-covered wreck in clear Arabian Sea water

Diving

How Competitive Freediving Made Itself Safer, Metre by Metre

Safety divers, counterballast lines and strict medical protocol turned a high risk sport into one of the most closely supervised in the water.

Mar 11, 2025/4 min read

A competition descent line with safety divers above

Diving

Cold Water Diving: Where the Wetsuit Stops Working, What a Drysuit Changes, and Why the Hands Go First

Below about 15 degrees a thick wetsuit keeps a diver alive but not warm, and cold is a safety problem before it is a comfort one: it thickens judgment, wastes gas and makes the hands useless. The drysuit is a different way of diving, not a thicker suit.

Feb 4, 2025/3 min read

Divers in drysuits preparing on a snowy jetty in northern Norway, in a US Army photograph from March 2020

Diving

Fitness to Dive: Why the Medical Form Is Not a Formality

PFO, asthma, diabetes and certain medications can all change whether diving is safe. Here is why the medical questionnaire before a course matters.

Jan 27, 2025/4 min read

A diver completing a medical questionnaire form at a dive centre counter before a course

Diving

Equalisation: Why Ears End Most Freedivers' Progress

Frenzel and mouthfill solve the one problem that stops more beginner freedivers than fitness or fear ever does: equalising the ears under rising pressure.

Dec 5, 2024/4 min read

A freediver equalising while descending a guide rope