I get all sorts of input from readers and I welcome it. Sometimes it's to tell me about some great new dive site, to tout a particular dive operator, or simply to grind an ax or two after some youthful divemaster tried to perform an unappreciated rescue on them because... More »

We recently hosted a dive trip where most of the guests departed the boat extremely unhappy.  This is very unusual, and very regrettable to us. It did make me think, however, about why this happened and if any of our customers' dissatisfaction could have been prevented. No doubt the boat's... More »

By Todd Steiner, Executive Director of Turtle Island Restoration Network Twice each year, for the past seven years, I have made the 20-hour trip by boat to Cocos Island, 350 miles from the Costa Rican mainland.  This journey is well-worth the effort - Jacques Cousteau described Cocos Island as the most beautiful... More »

The reason I am writing this is that, right now – November 2012 – I am sitting on a great dive boat – MV Golden Dawn – after diving some of the World’s Best Dive Sites – eg. Carl’s Ultimate and Newton’s Bommie, at Eastern Fields, and I am disappointed.... More »

As I've oft noted in my various dispatches from the ends of the earth, timing can be crucial to a good dive experience and especially so when it comes to the company you keep. But when a friend said they had someone they wanted me to meet I figured it... More »

We all have anecdotes to tell of things that happened during dive trips. The aft deck of dive boats ring loud with divers competing to outdo each other with unusual experiences retold. Approached by a publisher to write a scuba diving edition of their Amazing Stories series, I was vain... More »

It's almost unthinkable that a group of British divers in their mid-thirties would not of heard of the actor James Stewart but that is what I encountered on a liveaboard recently. To think that such a famous stalwart of the Hollywood Dream Factory could have been forgotten only half a... More »

Cruise ship travel, seen by many divers, including yours truly, as despoilers of both the environment and culture at their ports of call, is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry. Bigger and fancier floating megaresorts are regularly launched and new piers constructed for the vacationing overfed, newly-wed and... More »

A few weeks ago someone sent us a link to an online article on the UK's Guardian website. Here is the tagline above the slideshow of images:  A new book, Reef Fishes of the East Indies, is the culmination of a combined 60 years' work to document the biodiversity of the... More »

My previous underwater camera, trusty companion for 22 years of diving deeper for longer, weighed over 15kg out of the water. In its prime it was coupled to a pair of huge Ikelite 150 strobes with rechargeable battery packs. Its mass stabilised my photographs. Its solid metal housing chipped shark... More »

Our dear friend, the webmaster for Undercurrent has been complaining about his empty blog queue.  Burt and I have been busy with personal stuff rather than the scuba world because we just moved across the US to a new home. But, I haven't written a blog in months, so I... More »

"The reliability of a decompression table or procedure is not determined by any mathematical process, but by what works in practice. What works...is what works!" --  John Crea III "Any passive decompression device can only inform the diver of his or her decompression status. How that... More »