Low-Visibility Diving

WEATHER, SILTY SEDIMENT, time of day, or water movement are just a few natural factors among the range of possible causes that can influence the visibility at your dive site. Low-visibility diving can be quite enjoyable, but it depends on the circumstances and your comfort level. Why do people dive in low-visibility environments? Some divers, […]

Rebreather Myths

CLOSED-CIRCUIT REBREATHERS (CCRs) have significantly grown in popularity over the past few years. They are becoming more of a norm in the technical diving community, and recreational and …

advance diving

Freediving: Seeking and Finding Our Limits

WHEN YOU GROW UP IN THE FLORIDA KEYS, the Atlantic Ocean is your backyard and the Gulf of Mexico is the front — or as the locals say, the ocean and the bay. Fins are your enclosed footwear, and your mask and snorkel dangle from your elbow after school or on weekends. You never know […]

Expanding My Dive Portfolio

MY FACE IS STARTING TO FEEL NUMB, but at least my body and toes are still warm. The way the sunlight dances through the towering kelp is enchanting, and I’m mesmerized by each brown sea nettle I see — their long, corkscrewed tentacles seem to dance in the water like ribbons in a gentle breeze. […]

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My Path to Cave Diving

Every documentary filmmaker eventually dreams of making an IMAX® film. After all, it’s the biggest, most impressive film format in the world. Who wouldn’t want to see their film on a 70-foot screen? For years I dreamed of making my first IMAX film.

Crystal Caves of Abaco

Underwater Crime Scene Investigators

THROUGHOUT HISTORY, CRIMINALS HAVE LOOKED TO BODIES of water as safe places to dispose of and forever hide evidence of their crimes.

divers recover a vehicle

River Diving

MANY DIVERS AND NONDIVERS ALIKE envision the ideal scuba dive as a coral reef in warm, clear water surrounded by a myriad of beautiful fish. River diving, on the other hand, is drastically different and not for the faint of heart. 

divers with diver flag buoys

Commercial Diving Safety

FOUR SCUBA DIVERS BECAME TRAPPED and died while working in an offshore pipeline in 2022. This incident was a harsh reminder that commercial diving is a “hazardous occupation that presents many dangers that far exceed the risks in sport diving,” as highlighted in The Simple Guide to Commercial Diving. The typical risks in recreational diving, such as decompression sickness and pressure-related injuries to the ears and lungs, are still present, but commercial divers regularly face additional hazards — such as zero visibility, contaminated water, and pressure differentials — all while simultaneously operating industrial tools. 

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Learning to Thrive in Extreme Environments

My phone’s alarm filled the air, but I was already awake. It was the day I had eagerly anticipated since first learning about the Florida International University (FIU) Introduction to Saturation Diving: Aquarius Operations and Benefits to Science course — the emergency simulation.

Gray snappers and schoolmaster snappers school beneath the moon pool on Aquarius Reef Base.

Advanced Underwater Navigation

Most divers’ love of the sport stems from a drive to explore a foreign environment. With exploration must come the ability to navigate. Nowhere else on Earth can one become more lost than in a liquid, while simultaneously requiring constant individual concentration on safety techniques, breathing gas, buoyancy, horizontal trim, depth, and time.

Successful navigation depends on one’s ability to master the basic fundamental skills of diving.
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