FEATURES

To Divemaster and Beyond

Tell a commercial diver training agency that you want to be an instructor and it will extend a warm welcome, says SIMON PRIDMORE. Just don’t kid yourself that you’re submitting a job application – you’re buying a product. Read more...

Shelf Appeal

British-waters divers won’t go far wrong with this handsome book as their guide. Read more...

Adventures in Ringflection

HENLEY SPIERS was looking for a new challenge in underwater photography, and his quest began in a hardware store. Read more...

Nineteen to Intrigue

It’s probably fair to say that awareness of wreck-diving in the five Great Lakes is not high on this side of the Atlantic, but in North America these bodies of water command a big following of divers. Read more...

Under Pressure

What is it like to be a saturation diver? Certainly YAQUB AL-OMOUD seems in no hurry to hand over to the machines. Read more...

Daylight

DIVER’s freediving consultant Marcus Greatwood had been trying to capture the spectacular image below for some time. Read more...

Every One’s a Winner

An image capturing the exact moment a pack of grey reef sharks catch and devour a parrotfish has seen British photographer Richard Barnden named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2019. Read more...

Essentially Entertaining

I’d go so far as to say it’s the most amusing book about the sub-aqua scene I’ve read since the heyday of Andy Blackford, and I know that because I kept laughing out loud as I turned the pages. Read more...

Primer for Future Divers

This is an invitingly illustrated book for bright nine-year-olds-and-up, designed to inform and enthuse them about the underwater world. Read more...

How I found 125-year-old Oil Tanker Still Leaking

SELCUK KOLAY is always below the surface, finding new and often significant wrecks. A recent find was of an oil tanker sunk by famed British sub HMS Perseus in the Aegean in WW2. Read more...

A Tale of Two Mines

STEFAN PANIS enjoys delving into mines, and he has been diving two old workings on the continent – a German pit that once produced slate, and one in Belgium from which black marble was extracted. Read more...

Reduce, reduce, reduce!

Everyone knows that minimising the amount of weight carried is a diver’s holy grail, but there are practical limits in the quest to down-weight. Read more...

Two-Way Push

The book is a great read, though it could have done with a better title. Yes, it is about recovering gold, but when the salvage turned to the U-boats I felt a little lost before eventually being put back onto the “gold route”. Read more...

Josh Boggi – Diving to New Depths

Josh Boggi recently became the world’s first triple-amputee Rescue Diver – MELISSA HOBSON met him to find out how he achieved this incredible feat. Read more...

Big in the Indian Ocean

Underwater Eden – The Marine Life of Seychelles, by Christophe Mason Parker & Joe Daniels. Read more...

Diving their socks off

ss Thistlegorm – The Ultimate Visual Guide to the World’s Greatest Shipwreck (iBook), by Simon Brown, Jon Henderson, Alex Mustard & Mike Postons. Read more...

Senior Moments

As divers get older, if they’re sensible rather than getting bolder they learn to tailor their diving to their capabilities. But eventually there may come a time to take stock. Read more...

500% More Fish

Is this the most successful marine park ever? The stats are astonishing, and the reality of diving at Cabo Pulmo is even better. Read more...

Thai Cave Rescue: The Chalk, The Cheese

I was amazed when the first two books on the subject were sent for review in December, fewer than five months from the conclusion of the event. Read more...

Back in the Saddle

When too much time has elapsed since that last dive, a refresher is in order. Read more...

How we made Last Breath

The film 'Last Breath' based on an incredible but true story of saturation divers in the North Sea is now in UK cinemas. Read more...

New Britain, Old Planes

Rabaul in PNG is one of those remote, less-dived places but you will find it very rewarding – not least for its surprising aircraft wrecks. Read more...

Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War

Volunteers divers have been beavering away around the UK coast since 2014, recording wrecks such as the doomed War Knight and helping to bring their stories back to life. Read more...

Meet the Jet-Propelled Midwives

Scientists know next to nothing about how whale sharks reproduce. A recent expedition to Galapagos hoped to take a step closer to solving this puzzle. Read more...

Beyond the Yellow Train

This underworld dive isn’t everybody’s cup of tea – it’s in an abandoned mine in which the workers were long ‘kept in the dark’ about the risks of their labours, though the supervisors’ gas-masks and protective suits might have given them a clue! Read more...