— 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
By John Christopher Fine PLEASE, please, please be more careful with plastic bags and Styrofoam cups. Do not let helium balloons loose. The photograph I took underwater on my last dive tells more than any article I write about plastic debris. PLEASE. You can do it. This comes from a person who uses plastic all … Read more
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
Remember when you first decided to learn to scuba dive? I do! I wanted to stay underwater a little longer than I could simply by holding my breath. I learned to scuba in 1979 and those first dives were seldom deeper than 33 feet (10m) deep. My tank had a valve release that you pulled … Read more
modern diving marvels are not for everyone Closed-circuit rebreathers have become very popular with technical divers since they offer the possibility to do extreme dives without the imposition of carrying an enormous amount of gas. I was at the forefront of promoting this new way of diving as far back as 1993. In those days … Read more
