Aquatic Adaptability

Recreational diving is a fun and relaxing sport meant to be enjoyed. But what happens when things don’t go as planned: Your mask comes off, your regulator gets knocked out, or someone in your group runs out of air?

All courses at the NDSTC are rigorous

Gulf of Maine

The drive to Eastport from my home in southern Maine would typically take about four and a half hours, but I was towing my boat so I prepared for more than six hours on the road.

gray seal

Questions To Ask a New Dive Buddy 

You check in at the dive shop, sign your waivers, get your gear on the boat, and set up your BCD on your first tank for the day. The divemaster introduces you to your dive buddy for this trip — a total stranger from another part of the world who is here for the same things you are: great diving and returning home safely. 

Divers communicate with each other

A Tale of Two Passes

This is Fakarava — a remote atoll in French Polynesia that feels more like a gateway to another world than a dive destination. Nestled in the remote Tuamotu Archipelago, this UNESCO biosphere reserve is where discriminating divers come to leave the ordinary behind.

The Tumakohua Pass of South Fakarava

Decompression Bubbles, Cardiac Health, and Dive Safety

In 2021 Peter Buzzacott, PhD, of  Curtin University in Perth, Australia, received DAN’s Alfred Bove Research Grant for Cardiac Health in Scuba Diving. What began with a simple proposal has since developed into a training network for the next generation of scientists and led to a research network between Curtin University and Fiona Stanley Hospital in Western Australia. 

The Curtin University and Fiona Stanley Hospital hyperbaric dive research team includes Dr. Neil Banham, Beth Jones, Aren Leishman, Kagan Ducker, Frauke Tillmans, and Luke Haseler.

Thailand’s Surin Islands

The Kingdom of Thailand, a sprawling Southeast Asian country slightly larger than California, shares land borders with four countries and neighbors a fifth by sea.

A pair of cleaner wrasses remove parasites from a longfin batfish