The Adventures of Gilliam and Garth

— a remembrance of a great friend Bret Gilliam and Fred Garth were business partners from 1994 until 2004 when their publishing company was acquired by Petersen Publishing (Skin Diver, etc.). The two ran popular diving expeditions and were the first to take Draeger semi-closed rebreathers to places like Cocos Island, Palau and the Silver … Read more

Bret Gilliam

When I first met Bret, I disliked him intensely. My friend Rob Palmer, a self-effacing Englishman, had invited me over to the Bahamas for the launch of the Draeger semi-closed circuit rebreather and I found myself in the company of a group of loud-mouthed American technical diving pioneers, each competing with the other to hold … Read more

On Diving Deep, Breathing Air
  it’s what we did because that’s all we had

Twenty years ago I met an old French diver at the DEMA show who was displaying oil paintings of various wrecks he’d dived in Bonaire. I didn’t recognize any of them and he told me where they were to be found. They were all very deep. I asked him if he used a helium mix … Read more

The Tragic and Un-Necessary Death of Brian Bugge

before you become a rebreather diver, you’d better read this Conventional open-circuit scuba is sold as “not being rocket science.” PADI and its like have made it available to almost everyone. Scuba is fun. It’s for all the family. Once you’ve grasped Boyle’s Law and the repercussions of breathing compressed gas underwater, it’s only a … Read more

Considerations Of Oxygen In Diving Gas Mixtures

Oxygen is the most basic life support system our bodies employ, and yet also has the capacity to cause great harm.  Keller (1946) has called oxygen “The Princess of Gases.  She is beautiful but has to be handled with special care”.  We cannot live without it, but in prolonged breathing exposures or in deep depths … Read more