Diving
Tubbataha Is the Dive Trip You Plan a Year Ahead
The Philippines' remote World Heritage reef rewards careful planning with walls, sharks, turtles and a conservation model built around a short liveaboard season.
Jul 25, 2026
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60 stories for“dive planning”
Diving
Why Cave Diving Runs on Its Own Set of Rules
Cave diving safety rests on a small set of hard rules built from decades of accident analysis. Here is what those rules are and why the sport enforces them so strictly.
Jun 2, 2026
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
Diving
DAN's Safety Guidance, Condensed: What the Research Body Actually Recommends
Divers Alert Network is not a training agency and issues no certifications. It collects the injury data, then publishes guidance based on it. Here is that guidance, in the order it matters.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
The Path Into Technical Diving: What Changes at Depth
Technical diving begins the moment a diver can no longer go straight to the surface. Here is how training builds toward that shift, one course at a time.
Dec 5, 2025
Diving
Hyperbaric Chambers: How Recompression Treatment Works
When a diver surfaces with decompression sickness, a hyperbaric chamber is the only real fix. Here is how recompression works, and where chambers actually are.
Nov 18, 2024
Diving
Nitrox Buys You Bottom Time and Costs You Depth, and It Will Not Make You Less Tired
Enriched air extends no-decompression limits at recreational depths by reducing the nitrogen you take on. It also imposes a hard ceiling on how deep you can take it, and the claim about post-dive fatigue has never held up.
Sep 5, 2026
Diving
In a Current You Are Not Swimming Anywhere, and the Skill Is Knowing That Early
Drift diving turns a dive from a route into a ride. The techniques that make it safe are mostly about the surface and the boat, and the mistake that kills people is trying to fin against water that is stronger than they are.
Sep 5, 2026
Diving
Solo Diving Is Either Reckless or Honest, Depending on What You Think a Buddy Actually Does
Two agencies now certify divers to dive alone, with redundant gas and a long list of prerequisites. The case for it rests on an uncomfortable observation about how often the buddy system already fails in practice.
Sep 5, 2026
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
Diving
The Summer's Diving Deaths Have More in Common Than the Coverage Suggests
A cave in the Maldives, a lake in Germany, an inlet in Florida, a tuna farm off Malta. Four very different events, and a short list of factors that shows up in nearly all of them.
Aug 13, 2026
Diving
Before Booking a Liveaboard, Ask These Safety Questions
DAN warns that remote liveaboard incidents rose sharply in 2024-2025. Divers can reduce risk by checking oxygen, drills, charging rules, exits and evacuation plans before sailing.
Aug 2, 2026
Diving
Dive Computers and Algorithms: What They Cannot Know About You
A dive computer tracks pressure and time with precision, but the model behind it cannot see the diver wearing it. Here is what that gap actually means.
Mar 19, 2026
Diving
Air Versus Mixed Gas Below 50 Metres, Explained
Below 50 metres, ordinary air becomes a liability for divers. Here is the physics behind nitrogen narcosis, rising gas density, and why trimix exists as the technical diving standard.
Jun 8, 2026
Diving
Aqaba Is Building a September Meeting Point for the Middle East's Blue Economy
Aqaba Blue: Ocean Future in Action runs September 9-12 with diving, conservation, marine technology and tourism. Its value will depend on turning networking into regional practice.
Aug 2, 2026
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
Diving
Spearfishing and Freediving: The Overlap and the Added Risk
Spearfishing shares its breath hold physiology with freediving, but a hunting mindset changes the risk calculation entirely, and blackout remains the top cause of death.
Apr 8, 2026
Diving
IANTD: The Agency That Made Nitrox Respectable
In the late 1980s, teaching recreational divers to breathe enriched air was close to heresy. IANTD taught it anyway, then built the trimix and rebreather syllabi much of technical diving still runs on.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
WHO’s New Drowning Plan Moves Safety Beyond Swim Lessons
The PROTECT package treats drowning as a systems failure involving childcare, transport, infrastructure, rescue and climate preparation, not a single bad choice.
Jul 23, 2026
Diving
Technical Divers Are Rebuilding Corals Where Sunlight Barely Reaches
NOAA teams outplanted corals at 66 meters during a 2026 Gulf mission. The work shows how advanced diving and laboratory science can restore difficult deep habitats.
Aug 2, 2026
Diving
Gozo Makes a Strong Case for Europe's Most Practical Dive Week
Compact geography, shore access, wrecks and a new six-person hyperbaric unit make Gozo an unusually practical Mediterranean base for a mixed-experience dive trip.
Jul 25, 2026
Diving
CO2 and O2 Tables: The Dry Training That Actually Moves Your Breath-Hold
Two tables, two different adaptations, and a hard rule about where you do them. One trains tolerance to discomfort, the other trains efficiency at low oxygen, and confusing them wastes weeks.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
Lumens Are the Number on the Box and the Least Useful Thing About a Dive Light
Manufacturers compete on brightness because it is a single large number. Underwater, beam angle, burn time at full output and the switch you can operate in gloves decide whether a torch is any good.
Sep 5, 2026
Diving
A Diver Died at a Malta Tuna Farm. Investigators Suspect a 60kg Fish
Redeemer Grima, 41, was working 30 metres down at a fish farm off St Paul's Islands when he drowned. His equipment was later found lodged in the mouth of a dead bluefin tuna.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
Italy Honours the Finnish Divers Who Finished the Maldives Recovery
Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist received Italian state honours for a recovery mission defined by preparation, restraint and humanity.
Jul 25, 2026
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
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
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
Diving
Diving the UAE: Fujairah, Dibba and the Musandam Peninsula
The Gulf coast rarely gets mentioned in dive travel guides, but Fujairah and the Musandam peninsula quietly deliver some of the region's best reefs.
Nov 3, 2024
Diving
Your First Night Dive: What Changes When the Light Goes
The same reef becomes a different site after dark, and so does the diving. Navigation, buddy contact and the way your brain handles a narrow beam all need rethinking before you get in.
Aug 8, 2026
Diving
Manta Rays and Whale Sharks: The Encounters and the Etiquette
The Indian Ocean hosts some of diving's biggest animal encounters. The rules for approaching them properly matter more than most divers realise.
Sep 12, 2025
Diving
Scientists Are Taking a 30-Day Health Check of the Pacific Coast
NOAA's seventh West Coast ocean-acidification survey is tracking chemistry and marine life during unusual Pacific conditions. The findings matter to reefs, fisheries and divers.
Aug 1, 2026
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
Diving
Mohamed Mahudhee and the Duty Carried by Maldives Rescue Divers
One Maldivian military diver died in the Vaavu Atoll mission. His service deserves gratitude, while the unanswered questions surrounding his death still demand scrutiny.
Jul 25, 2026
Diving
Entanglement Is a Skill Problem, Not a Knife Problem
Most divers carry something sharp and have never once deployed it underwater. The gap between owning a cutting tool and being able to use one in the dark, with one hand, is where people die.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
PADI, Explained Properly: What the Standards Require and What They Do Not
The world's largest training agency is also the most argued about. Setting the snobbery aside, here is what a PADI course actually mandates, where the flexibility sits, and what the card does not cover.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
Three Months After the Maldives Cave Deaths: What Has Actually Changed
Five Italian divers and a Maldivian rescuer died in May. A manslaughter file is open in Rome, a liveaboard lost its permit, and the Maldives is writing technical diving law. A follow-up assessment.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
Three Divers Drifted Off Puerto Galera and Lived. Most of Surviving That Happens Before You Get In
Two men and a woman surfaced from a dive at Canyon Reef, found no boat, and were carried kilometres out. Whether lost divers are found has surprisingly little to do with the search itself.
Aug 18, 2026
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
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
Diving
Freediving in the UAE: Where to Train When the Sea Is 34C
The east coast has the depth, the Gulf side has the pools, and summer changes the answer entirely. A practical guide to training here across the year rather than flying to Dahab every time.
Aug 13, 2026
Diving
Flying After Diving: Where 12 and 18 Hours Actually Came From
The numbers every diver recites are not arbitrary and they are not a safety margin invented by lawyers. They come from a specific set of chamber trials, and knowing their limits tells you when to wait longer.
Aug 15, 2026
Diving
Two Technical Divers Die at Lake Constance After 80m Ascent
A woman and her partner, both long-serving members of the European technical community, did not survive an emergency ascent near Ueberlingen on 2 August. The cause is still unknown.
Aug 5, 2026
Diving
Freediving in Dahab: Why the Whole Sport Ends Up Here
Deep water a short swim from shore, no boat, no current and warm all year. Dahab's geography explains its status, and the same geography is why the Blue Hole has the reputation it has.
Aug 9, 2026
Diving
Who Pays When a Dive Goes Wrong Far From Home
Diving emergencies far from shore involve costly medical evacuations and coordination. Here is how that response is actually funded and organised, and who calls the shots.
Jun 25, 2026
Diving
Can You Get the Bends From Freediving? Yes, and Here Is How
The old assumption was that one breath cannot load enough nitrogen to matter. Repetitive deep dives with short surface intervals disprove it, and the divers it happens to are usually working, not competing.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
Fish Farm Diving Keeps Killing Divers. The Reasons Are Boringly Consistent
Malta, Chile, Norway, Scotland. Different species and different regulators, the same short list of causes: entanglement, working alone, depth creep, and a job nobody classified as commercial diving.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
How Diving Accidents Are Actually Analysed: The Four Links in the Chain
Almost every fatality report ends with drowning, which tells you nothing. Investigators use a four-part chain instead: trigger, disabling agent, disabling injury, cause of death. Here is how to read one.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
GUE: The Agency That Will Fail You, and Thinks That Is the Point
Global Underwater Explorers standardises equipment, teaches in teams, tests fitness, and hands out provisional passes rather than certificates. It is the most divisive system in diving, and the most internally consistent.
Aug 12, 2026
Diving
PADI, SSI, NAUI, IANTD or GUE: Which Certification Actually Matters
The agencies argue endlessly and the accident data barely distinguishes between them. Here is what genuinely differs, what does not, and the questions to ask a dive centre before you pay.
Aug 13, 2026
Diving
Maldives Moves to Regulate Technical Diving After Cave Deaths
After six divers died in a Vaavu Atoll cave, the Maldives is drafting new rules to permit and regulate technical diving in the country for the first time in its history.
May 28, 2026
Diving
Raja Ampat in 2026: Extraordinary Reefs, Real Currents and New Pressure
Raja Ampat remains one of diving's richest destinations, but current, season, permits and mounting pressure from tourism and mining belong in the booking decision.
Jul 25, 2026
Diving
One Company Now Owns Aqualung, Apeks, Mares, rEvo and a Training Agency
HEAD rescued Aqualung out of receivership with a 50 million euro package. The result is a single group holding four of diving's best known equipment names and SSI, the agency that certifies divers to use them.
Aug 18, 2026
Diving
The Safety Stop: What Those Three Minutes Are Actually Doing
Three minutes at five metres is drilled into every diver and explained to almost none of them. It is not decompression, it is not required, and skipping it is not the emergency people assume.
Aug 9, 2026
Diving
Adam Jacoub, Technical Diving Instructor, Dies After Egypt Dive
Technical diving instructor Adam Jacoub died on 18 July 2026 following a dive in Hurghada, Egypt. The circumstances remain under investigation.
Jul 20, 2026
Diving
Inside the DAN Europe Mission That Brought the Maldives Divers Home
Finnish cave specialists, Maldivian coast guard divers and DAN Europe medics carried out a coordinated recovery after the Vaavu Atoll cave tragedy.
May 22, 2026
Diving
Is Scuba Diving Safe? A Beginner's Honest Answer
Scuba has real hazards, but recreational diving within training and conditions is a managed-risk activity, not the extreme gamble suggested by rare accident headlines.
Jul 25, 2026
Diving
Lebanon Dives Its Own History, Including a Vichy Submarine
A French submarine at 36 metres, a 1939 freighter at 40, and a Victorian battleship far beyond recreational limits. Lebanon's coast is a wreck list before it is a reef.
Aug 6, 2026
Diving
Saudi Arabia's Red Sea Opens Up: What Dive Tourism Actually Offers
New resorts, new dive licences and a scaled-back masterplan. Here is the real state of Saudi Arabia's Red Sea diving push, not the pitch deck version.
Feb 10, 2026
Diving
Coral Bleaching and the Reefs Divers Love: The Current State
The fourth global coral bleaching event hit 84 percent of the world's reefs. Here is what that means underwater, and what responsible diving looks like now.
Jun 18, 2026
