Editorial desk

Outspoken Digest Diving Desk

Covers freediving, recreational and technical diving, dive medicine and the incidents the sport learns from.

Stories by Outspoken Digest Diving Desk

Diving

Indonesia and the US Put a Community Watch on the USS Houston Wreck in the Sunda Strait

A 227,000 dollar Ambassadors Fund grant will train three village monitoring groups in Banten to guard the 1942 heavy cruiser, a war grave that has lost its bell, hull plates and rivets to looters.

Nov 3, 2026/3 min read

The US Navy heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) under way off San Diego, California, in October 1935, a file photograph of the ship before the war and not of the wreck in the Sunda Strait

Diving

SS United States Sinking Set for 12 November Off Destin, With a Sendoff the Day Before

Okaloosa County has fixed a weather-dependent date for the 990-foot liner's deployment 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, with a public ceremony on 11 November and a live feed.

Nov 3, 2026/3 min read

The rust-streaked SS United States guided by two tugboats on the Delaware River with the Philadelphia skyline behind, photographed on 19 February 2025, a file photograph of the liner leaving Philadelphia and not of the planned sinking off Destin

Diving

DEMA Show 2026 Opens in New Orleans With a 50th Anniversary, a New Apeks Fin and SSI Overhead Courses

The dive industry's annual trade show runs 3 to 6 November at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, with more than 500 exhibitors, Huish Outdoors back on the floor and launches already queued.

Nov 3, 2026/3 min read

The grey and red facade of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans beside the Riverwalk under an overcast sky, photographed on 7 July 2008, a file photograph of the DEMA Show 2026 venue and not of this week's show

Diving

Freedivers on Breath-Hold Have Pulled 1.3 Million Pounds of Ghost Nets Off Hawaii's Remote Reefs

The Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project works without scuba, in dives of 30 feet or less, and has just closed a five-year campaign with 147,000 pounds removed this season.

Nov 3, 2026/3 min read

A diver in a black wetsuit and yellow fins works at the surface above a large tangle of green derelict fishing net snagged on the reef at Midway Atoll, Hawaii, photographed on 31 March 2013 by James Morioka for NOAA, a file photograph of net removal in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and not of the 2026 expeditions

Diving

Divers Find the SS Cornwallis, a Canadian Freighter Torpedoed Off Maine in 1944, Nearly 400 Feet Down

Nine volunteer technical divers spent seven years searching, then dived to the wreck of the Canadian ship sunk by U-1230 with 43 lives lost, days after the same U-boat landed two spies.

Oct 30, 2026/2 min read

An old print of a stone lighthouse and keepers' houses on a bare rocky islet, catalogued by the Library of Congress as the Mount Desert light-station with a date of 1872, a historical file image of the Maine coast's offshore lights and not of the wreck or of the ship

Diving

IUCN's First Red List of Coral Reef Ecosystems Rates 96 Percent of Shallow Reefs Critically Endangered

122 of 127 reef ecoregions are in the top threat category once projected heat stress is counted, but the assessors stress that most reefs still have living coral and the window to act remains open.

Oct 29, 2026/2 min read

A colourful outcrop of plate and branching corals on Flynn Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, photographed on 24 July 2010, a file photograph illustrative of coral reefs and not of the IUCN assessment

Diving

Carabinieri Divers Rediscover Roman Wine Amphorae Off Camogli, 67 Years After They Were First Reported

A training dive off Punta Chiappa found nine amphorae below 40 metres, a site reported by a diving pioneer in 1959 and then lost. Archaeologists call the link a hypothesis that still needs proving.

Oct 28, 2026/2 min read

A wooded headland running into a calm blue Ligurian sea at Punta Chiappa near Camogli, Italy, photographed on 29 May 2026, a file photograph of the coast above the site and not of the amphorae or the dive

Diving

Divers Cement Storm-Torn Corals Back Onto Hawaii's Reefs While a 45-Day Clock Runs

After hurricanes Lala and Lowell, Hawaii's emergency reef network is reattaching broken coral with cement and steel frames, and a Kauai response targeted more than 2,000 colonies before they died.

Oct 25, 2026/2 min read

A surfer paddling out in a remote cove on Kauai where the shallow coral reef shows as bands of colour in the blue water, photographed on 7 January 2008 by the US Geological Survey, a file photograph of the island's reefs and not of the post-hurricane repair work

Diving

Polish Diver Reaches 338 Metres in North Macedonia's Vrelo Cave, a Claimed Depth Record

A week-long expedition at Matka Canyon ended with Bartlomiej Pitala turning at 338 m, a mark the club calls the deepest cave dive ever. No independent body has confirmed it.

Oct 23, 2026/3 min read

Green water of Matka lake between steep rocky canyon walls near Skopje in North Macedonia, photographed on 19 July 2023, a file photograph of the canyon that holds Vrelo Cave and not of the dive or the cave itself

Diving

Breathless and Coughing Pink Froth After a Dive: Immersion Pulmonary Edema Explained

Fluid can flood the lungs of a fit, healthy diver in cold or calm water alike. What immersion pulmonary edema is, who gets it and why mild symptoms should never be shrugged off.

Oct 17, 2026/3 min read

A scuba diver in a dark wetsuit rising through clear blue water with a column of bubbles above, photographed off Cozumel, Mexico, on 31 January 2016, a file photograph illustrative of diving and not of any case of the condition

Diving

Your Gas Consumption Is Not One Number: Why Depth, Cold and Nerves Change It

A diver's surface air consumption rate looks like a fixed fact. It is a moving average that depth multiplies and stress inflates, which is why reserves exist at all.

Oct 16, 2026/3 min read

A close-up of a depth gauge reading in metres above a submersible pressure gauge reading in bar on a scuba console, photographed on 10 July 2017, a file photograph of the instruments used to track gas

Diving

SS United States Reef Sinking Targeted for November: What Divers Should Know

Okaloosa County says the 990-foot liner will go down off the Florida Panhandle in the second week of November. The upper decks sit in recreational range, the hull does not.

Oct 16, 2026/2 min read

The weathered bridge wing and upper deck of the SS United States, rust-streaked white paint under open sky, photographed on 19 February 2025 on the morning she was towed out of Philadelphia, a file photograph of the ship and not of her preparation or sinking in Florida

Diving

Divers Excavating Off Kekova Find a Wreck Believed to Be the World's Oldest, Turkey Says

Turkish archaeologists say a wooden cargo ship lying about 30 metres down near Kekova Island sank 4,400 to 4,700 years ago. Its hull is gone, but the jars it carried remain.

Oct 15, 2026/2 min read

Turquoise water along the rocky shore of Kekova with the stone ruins of Simena above it, photographed on 24 June 2023, a file photograph of the coast near the site and not of the wreck or its excavation

Diving

Bleached Corals Recovered After Touching a Healthy Clone, Stanford Lab Study Finds

Fragments of one coral species regained their algae within days or weeks of contact with a genetically identical healthy partner, though the trick is unlikely to work on whole reefs.

Oct 15, 2026/2 min read

A bleached pale brain coral on a reef in the Florida Keys, photographed in 2023, a NOAA file photograph illustrative of coral bleaching and not of the Stanford laboratory experiment

Diving

Black Swallower Filmed With a Hugely Swollen Belly 1,259 Metres Down Off Trinidad and Tobago

Footage from a remotely operated vehicle shows a deep-sea fish carrying a meal far larger than itself, one highlight of the first Caribbean-led deep-sea expedition in the country's history.

Oct 13, 2026/2 min read

A preserved black swallower, Chiasmodon niger, with its stomach distended, photographed in September 2018, a file photograph of the species and not of the animal filmed off Trinidad and Tobago

Diving

Molchanov Dives 137 Metres and Torocsik 108 Metres at Freediving's Limassol World Championships

Two depth marks fell at the AIDA world championships in Cyprus, one in constant weight for men and one in free immersion for women. Both still await ratification.

Oct 10, 2026/2 min read

A freediver in a dark wetsuit descending head first along a rope in clear blue water off Moalboal in the Philippines, published in April 2012, a file photograph illustrative of depth freediving and not of the Limassol championships or either record holder

Diving

Playing Recordings of a Healthy Reef Drew More Coral and Fish Larvae to Artificial Structures Off Hawaii

Two Scripps studies in Kaneohe Bay found coral larvae settled most near an underwater speaker, and fish larvae arrived four to 14 times more often than at an identical silent site.

Oct 9, 2026/3 min read

An aerial view of Coconut Island and the reefs of Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii, where the experiments took place, photographed on 18 May 2017

Diving

Autopsies Say Five Italian Divers in Maldives Cave Died of Anoxia, Italian Report Says

An expert report for Italian prosecutors lists anoxia as the cause of death for the five divers lost in a Vaavu Atoll cave in May. Why they ran short of gas is still unanswered.

Oct 6, 2026/3 min read

A small palm-covered island with a white sand beach seen across turquoise water at Vaavu Atoll in the Maldives, photographed on 5 November 2012, a file photograph of the atoll and not of the cave or the recovery

Diving

Blacktip Sharks Can Hear a Sound From Nearly 250 Feet Away and Swim Straight Toward or Away From It

A Florida Atlantic University study of free-swimming blacktip sharks off Palm Beach County found the animals could detect low-frequency underwater sounds from 74 metres away and change course in response, the clearest field evidence yet of shark hearing range.

Oct 1, 2026/2 min read

A blacktip shark, Carcharhinus limbatus, the species studied off Palm Beach County, photographed in the Bahamas in March 2007 and not one of the sharks tested by Florida Atlantic University

Diving

A Sea Turtle Species Never Recorded Nesting in the United States Laid Eggs on a Southern California Beach

An olive ridley sea turtle, a tropical species whose nearest known nesting ground is in Baja California, dug a nest near Seal Beach in September, the first confirmed sea turtle nest ever recorded on the US West Coast.

Oct 1, 2026/2 min read

An olive ridley sea turtle, the species that nested near Seal Beach, photographed in March 2023 and not one of the animals involved in the California nesting event