Section

Diving

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

Page 11

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

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, 2024/4 min read

A steel hyperbaric recompression chamber in a treatment room

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, 2024/4 min read

Rocky mountains meeting the sea with a dive boat below

Diving

The Mammalian Dive Reflex: A Human Body on One Breath

Submersion triggers an ancient reflex that slows the heart, redirects blood, and quietly reshapes what a trained freediver's body can survive underwater.

Sep 18, 2024/4 min read

A freediver suspended motionless in deep blue water

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