Wildfires and Breathing-Gas Contamination

WITH WILDFIRES RAGING IN CANADA, ITALY, GREECE, THE U.S., and elsewhere, divers and dive operators have called DAN Medical Services and DAN Safety Services with concerns about whether the smoke from wildfires may contaminate breathing gas.

wild fires outside the city limits

What To Look for on a Dive Boat

When you are in an emergency while diving from a boat, you and the crew can’t waste precious moments looking for safety equipment. Whether on a day boat or liveaboard, some safety items should be readily available.

The Philippines: A Beacon of Hope for the High Seas

The high seas have long represented a frontier of wild adventure — a place where people took significant risks and untold fortunes were waiting to be snatched from the jaws of a capricious ocean.

clownfish with anemone

Connecting Voices of Safe Diving

The DANcast, DAN’s official podcast, has significantly grown its reach as a resource for recreational divers.

The DANCast podcast studio.

Bringing Shipwrecks to Life

Photogrammetry is the process of collecting a series of still images or videos of an object, such as a shipwreck, and then loading those images into software that can triangulate the photographed points to create a 3D model. Plenty of real-world applications can use this technology, including architecture, engineering, forensics, archaeology, mapping and video games. Becky Kagan Schott enjoys seeing wrecks come to life in a way that a single photo could never accomplish.

finished 3D model of the Cornelia B. Windiate

See Shell App and the Illegal Tortoiseshell Trade

BEAUTIFUL NECKLACES, BRACELETS, EARRINGS, and other items with elaborate brown and amber patterns adorn the shelves of shops and tourist markets worldwide. They might seem like the perfect souvenirs of your latest dive trip. These items, often called tortoiseshell, may be made from the colorful plates, called scutes, covering the shells of hawksbill sea turtles […]

TRAVEL SMARTER : Personal Safety While Traveling

WHETHER TRAVELING DOMESTICALLY OR ABROAD, you can take steps to ensure your personal safety. With proper planning, self-awareness, and some common sense, you can enjoy your destination with relative ease by implementing some of the following personal safety practices. 

woman traveling worried about being followed

The Life and Legacy of Tokitae

HER NAME WAS TOKITAE, which means “nice day, pretty colors” in the Coast Salish language. The Lummi Nation knows her as Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, which is a historical reference to the Penn Cove area, where she was captured along with other young southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) in August 1970 near Whidbey Island, Washington, when she was about 4 years old.

Orcas Hugo and Lolita performing

Dive Incident Reporting System

In 2012 DAN released a tool for divers to report dive accidents to help us quantify their severity and frequency. We revitalized the reporting process to make it easier and more efficient and relaunched it in 2021.

Diver receiving oxygen

Advancing Conservation Through Citizen Science

Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) has a long history of connecting the dive community to marine conservation. Through the Volunteer Fish Survey Project (VFSP), REEF has empowered divers to contribute valuable data for more than 30 years, transforming recreational dives into opportunities for scientific research and ecosystem protection. 

Alli Candelmo pilot tests the FishSense-Lite camera