Rebreathers look cool, glitzy, technical and heralded as the future of diving, right? We read a lot about their impressive performances concerning duration of dives, gas economy, extended no deco limits and what not.

There is more and more talk of rebreathers, stated as being the future of diving. However, not many people have tried them. So what is all the fuss about?

Most of the articles one can find about rebreathers deal with potential problems and limits of these wonderful pieces of kit. They give extensive information about oxygen sensors, scrubber duration, e

Discussions about diving are very often boring—always the same stories about numerous sharks dangerously close, strong current ripping a mask off or friendly dolphins playing during a deco stop. We

How to deal with an unconscious rebreather diver? The title of this article was originally: “What to do if a convulsion happens”.

One morning, sooner or later, you will wake up with a strange sensation—as if some minor and weird changes happened in your body overnight. You are not turning into another Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but in the recent weeks you have come to find your dives to be very noisy with all the bubbles escaping from your regulator starting to get on your nerves. All your dive gear has also started to feel very heavy, with all these tanks and regulators to carry everywhere.

There is no such thing as safe technical rebreather diving without proper preparation. But preparation means much more than just checking equipment, going through dive planning and “What-ifs”. It is also a matter of long-term preparation.

There used to be a time when there was no safety margin in any activity that the human being wanted to participate in. In a merciless prehistoric world, on a daily basis, the cave men were hunting with stones and sticks, a large variety of predators the size of a truck, expecting to feed a hungry family. Then, Winchester gave men the ability to kill wild animals while staying at a comfortable distance, without risking their lives. Safety margin was born.

Henry Nelson. Does the name ring a bell? You’ll not find him in any history book or see any monuments to his honor. However, the thousands of scuba divers who visit Vanuatu every year should bless this name. This former French/English colony, which was named New Hebrides till 1980, was also the second most important US base in the pacific during WWII. The 80 islands strategically located between Fiji and Australia is still home to some remains of this strange time. Amongst them is the wreck of the SS President Coolidge.

The entrance of the Sra Keow cave, north of Krabi, Thailand, is dark and quiet. All the local kids who use the pond as a playground are now back home for dinner. The only three people still there, closely watching the motionless pond, trying to see any bubble or glow that could reach the surface now start to worry. The divers were supposed to complete their dive within four and a half hours... Still nothing after six long hours.