Dive Pacific 175 Dec2020 Jan 2021
Dive Pacific, New Zealand's Dive Magazine , captures the best of diving in New Zealand and the Pacific. with adventures, top photos and expert technical advice
Dive Pacific, New Zealand's Dive Magazine , captures the best of diving in New Zealand and the Pacific. with adventures, top photos and expert technical advice
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Photo: Shades of Colour ddvanced category photographer David Haintz<br />
Visit SeaTech.co.nz to view more stunning photography<br />
Photo by Laurent Miroult<br />
TUBEWORM<br />
BOOK REVIEW<br />
Close Calls<br />
A collection of life changing stories from the<br />
industry’s greatest:<br />
If they made mistakes you will too!<br />
RRP $39.99 Full colour photos throughout, paperback.<br />
Published by Bateman Books www.batemanpublishing.co.nz<br />
Greek cave diving instructor and<br />
adventure filmmaker Stratis Kas<br />
has released his much-anticipated<br />
book Close Calls, a collection of 68<br />
gripping, personal close call stories by<br />
high profile technical divers including<br />
Jill Heinerth, Edd Sorrenson, Leigh<br />
Bishop, Steve Davis, Richie Kohler,<br />
and Becky Kagan Schott, about diving<br />
incidents that nearly cost them their<br />
lives. Incidents include entanglement,<br />
getting lost in caves, running out of<br />
gas, equipment failures, hypoxia,<br />
hypercapnia, caustic cocktails and<br />
more.<br />
“My intent was simple,” Kas<br />
explained. “If high profile divers and<br />
dive industry leaders were willing to<br />
share their own mistakes and lapses<br />
of judgement, many of which nearly<br />
cost them everything, it would help<br />
rank-and-file divers realize<br />
that they are fallible and<br />
subject to similar errors,<br />
and hopefully make them<br />
safer divers.”<br />
Kas says, “As anesthesiologist<br />
Dr. Simon<br />
Mitchell noted at the sixth<br />
International Rebreather<br />
Meeting held in Ponza, Italy,<br />
last year, ‘Human factors<br />
are the most important,<br />
but also the most difficult,<br />
path to improving rebreather diving<br />
safety.’ The point applies equally to<br />
open circuit diving…”<br />
A cave diving instructor and<br />
filmmaker, Stratis Kas, says he was<br />
inspired to organize Close Calls while<br />
attending a diving conference where<br />
one of his friends and heroes was<br />
willing to share his mistakes and<br />
be vulnerable, which helped Kas<br />
acknowledge his own early mistakes<br />
learning to cave dive and provided<br />
the idea for the book. The photos<br />
throughout are spectacular.<br />
Close Calls is a print-on-demand book<br />
available through Kas’ website www.<br />
stratiskas.com for 40€.<br />
50% of profits from the book will be<br />
donated to DAN Europe’s Claudius<br />
Obermaier Fund, a charitable fund<br />
which helps divers and their families<br />
who find themselves in need.<br />
Photo by Mariona Y. Daviu<br />
Wild and temperate seas<br />
For those nostalgic for the UK (how is that possible?) comes<br />
two recent dive guides: Wild and temperate seas: 50 dive sites,<br />
and Diving the Thistlegorm.<br />
Wild and temperate seas is a new-style guide with 50 personal<br />
favourites at some of the UK’s most popular underwater<br />
destinations. Author Will Appleyard and his collaborators<br />
showcase both popular as well as sites seldom seen.<br />
A wise man once said ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather,<br />
Diving the Thistlegorm<br />
Diving the Thistlegorm is an in-depth look at one of the world’s<br />
best-loved shipwrecks, the World War II British Merchant<br />
Navy steamship wrecked in the Red Sea.<br />
The guide is highly visual guide with cutting edge photographic<br />
methods to show off the famous wreck and its<br />
fascinating cargo. It sits upright in 30m of clear, Red Sea<br />
waters packed with the materials of war: lorries, motorbikes,<br />
aircraft spares and airfield equipment are crammed into the<br />
forward holds and the remains of other vehicles lie amongst<br />
boxes of ammunition in the exploded aft holds.<br />
The Thistlegorm is often referred to as an underwater<br />
museum, and the wreck a place of fascination. The book is<br />
good for bucket list browsing for when Covid is over, as it<br />
just the wrong thermal protection’.<br />
Donning a drysuit is a must for most.<br />
Author Will Appleyard wrote Discover<br />
UK Diving and many articles for<br />
magazines, adventure-based platforms,<br />
adventure outfitting and travel brands –<br />
www.willappleyard.com.<br />
identifies individual items and illustrates<br />
where they can be found.<br />
The authors: Simon Brown is a photogrammetry/3D<br />
reconstruction expert<br />
who has documented many underwater<br />
subjects including for National<br />
Geographic Channel and Discovery<br />
Canada. Jon Henderson is Reader in Archaeology at the<br />
University of Edinburgh and Director of their Underwater<br />
Archaeology Research Centre. Alex Mustard, a marine biologist<br />
is an award-winning underwater photographer. Mike<br />
Postons pioneered the use of digital 3D modelling to visualise<br />
shipwrecks, and processes for reconstructing original ships<br />
from historic plans.<br />
www.dive-pacific.com 73