ScubaBrucie

For cave diving you require a primary umbilical torch, usually HID with a rechargeable battery, and two backup torches which must have non rechargeable batteries. Recently these have moved over to being mainly LED because of the far longer burn times and far higher reliability. I have used a wide variety of different backup torches, [...]

 Basically I have three sets of regulators.  In Spain I keep a set of Hogarthian rigged Cressi DIN regulators with 2 first stages. These are simple unbalanced piston regulators that are bulletproof and as Cressi seem to be the main brand in Spain they are easily and cheaply serviced. I did 55 dives on these [...]

       In the absence of a complete list of rebreather fatalities I have started to compile one.  It is important that this information is available in one place.  If you can add any facts to those below please contact me with them using this forum thread: http://www.scubabrucie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35  What I am looking for are Name, [...]

You need pockets if you are not doing it wrong. There is nowhere else to store stuff if you are using a BP/W. There is a system as to what goes in each pocket which you will find on DIR websites. The pockets should have bellows held down with velcro with eyelets at the top. [...]

Oxygen is a poison yet rebreathers give you more. Lots more. The effect manifests itself in pulmonary toxicity and in CNS toxicity, where your body goes into an uncontrollable fit. Understanding tolerance to Oxygen is important but is not yet understood by science. It can vary enormously between different people. It can vary enormously in [...]

As we all know from our PADI Open Water training you lose a lot of heat from your head. On a warm water dive you don’t initially notice this but if you do long dives or repetitive dives you can really begin to feel the chill. A traditional dive hood is an awkward and restrictive [...]

Mares Avanti Quattros are still probably the best all-round fin, which is why most dive professionals in the world use them. Here’s why: Durabilty — I have seen instructor/diveguide fins that have done thousands of dives and are still in good nick. Weight — They’re nice and light, which is good for travelling. Power — [...]

The octopus system used by PADI actually came from Florida cave diving where Sheck Exley had a second DV outlet machined into his first stage. Florida cave diving has moved on and the standard now is the Hogarthian rig developed by Bill Main. This, like the octopus before it, has found its way into a [...]

The basic problem is that there is a lot of small stuff I want to look at underwater but there is no way to magnify properly. Due to the laws of physics a conventional magnifying glass loses two thirds of it’s power underwater. Quite simply it is the difference in refractive index between the lens [...]

Then why does Egypt ban dive gloves? Oh and shark fishing? Because a huge amount of their income comes from visiting divers and they don’t want the asset that divers come to see ruined. Obviously some are  perfect divers and never touch the living reef. However in my experience gloved divers do touch the reef, sometimes [...]