Diver Diving Quotes

I ain't a lover, but I want to love all your crazy imperfections, I ain't a diver, but I want to dive into your deep warm emotions, I ain't a reader, but I want to read messages send by your eyes, I ain't a skylark, but I want to sing for your mesmerizing smile, I ain't a gardener, but I want to plant seeds of ecstasy in your heart, I ain't a writer, but I want to write about how special you're.

In the United States, of the ten million certified scuba divers, it is likely that only a few hundred dive deep for shipwrecks. To those few, it is not a matter of if they will taste death, only of whether they'll swallow.

Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.

(On Ralph Waldo Emerson)I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummet that will. I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now -but of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving and coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began.

Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

Something, most certainly, happens to a diver’s emotions underwater. It is not merely a side effect of the pleasing, vaguely erotic sensation of water pressure on the body. Nor is it alone the peculiar sense of weightlessness, which permits a diver to hang motionless in open water, observing sea life large as whales around him; not the ability of a diver, descending in that condition, to slowly tumble and rotate in all three spatial planes. It is not the exhilaration from disorientation that comes when one’s point of view starts to lose its “lefts” and “down” and gains instead something else, a unique perception that grows out of the ease of movement in three dimensions. It is not from the diminishment of gravity to a force little more emphatic than a suggestion. It is not solely exposure to an unfamiliar intensity of life. It is not a state of rapture with the bottomless blue world beneath one’s feet…it is some complicated mix of these emotions, together with the constant proximity of real terror.

Both in cave diving and in life, the darkness of uncertainty was beckoning. I was scared, but I knew that if I could be brave enough to step over the brink into the blackness, my eyes would adjust and new possibilities would be revealed.

He was on the edge of a cliff. And he wasn’t jumping, he was diving, a huge swan dive, like those famous cliff-top divers in some exotic place he’d seen on television once. Only they landed safely, bodies cutting into seawater like knife blades. And his dive was a killing one.

Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest.

in scuba diving, going down and staying down are not the difficult bits, (a brick can do that.) Coming up again is the part that requires skill.

Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations.

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun --slow dived from noon, --goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; i, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that i wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron --that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too --that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home.

Hunt’s heart sank. His information was solid. He had to buy some more time until…until what, he wasn’t even sure—until the police showed up? Until he thought of a plan? “We dropped it during a fight with your divers. It fell back into the pit. I’m sure you could find it if you dive it a few times.

As for those who choose to remain outside the presence, it really doesn't matter whether you warn them or not. They are determined to stay apart (2:6). They are behind a curtain by our command and their choosing. The wall in front of them is made of their bodies. You cannot know who is behind the curtain. You can only stand out of sight and call to your friends. Those who respond do so according to eternal findings. But it is good for you to call and continue calling. You are like a diver who goes to the bottom and brings up sometimes a pure gem, sometimes an ordinary stone. Your diving does not change one into the other.

That mental strength under pressure is absolutely critical for the long, deep dives that Rick and John tackle. When you are hundreds of yards into a sump, you are so isolated from the basic needs of survival that you may as well be on the surface of the moon. It’s no wonder, then, that sump divers seem to possess the same qualities as astronauts: the ability to prepare thoroughly, solve problems quickly, and keep cool in an emergency.

It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon,—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain- battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night, good night!

A great diving scene. Worth the read just for that: “Randy! You have the best eyes for bubbles. Find my missing diver.” Paul leaned over the boat and yelled at the people waiting in the water. “Hey! Where’s . . .” He examined the faces. It didn’t take long to figure out who was missing. His heart spiraled to his feet. “Oh, no, no, no!” He didn’t hesitate to jump to action. He yelled out orders as he put his gear on in record time. “Get back on the boat. Now!” “I see bubbles! Over there, ‘bout fifteen meters,” Randy called before anyone had a chance to do anything. Paul stood on the back of the boat, all geared up and holding an extra tank with a regulator already attached. He looked to see where Randy pointed and took a giant stride into the water. He didn’t bother to surface before starting the fastest descent he’d ever made.

The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun— slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night—good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad— Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! CHAPTER

Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

The man was naked. He was all bones and ribs and snarling mouth. The front of him was caked in blood, a smear of charcoal black in the dim red glow of Palmer’s dive light. There was just a flash of this grisly image before the man crashed into Palmer, knocking him to the ground, desperate hands clenching around his throat. Palmer saw pops of bright light as his head hit the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He heard his own gurgles mix with the raspy hisses from the man on top of him. A madman. A thin, half-starved, and full-crazed madman. Palmer fought for a breath. His visor was knocked from his head. Letting go of the man’s wrists, he reached for his dive knife, but his leg was pinned, his boot too far away. He pawed behind himself and felt his visor, had some insane plan of getting it to his temples, getting his suit powered on, overloading the air around him, trying to shake the man off. But as his fingers closed on the hard plastic—and as the darkness squeezed in around his vision—he instead swung the visor at the snarling man’s face, a final act before the door to that king’s crypt sealed shut on him. A piercing shriek returned Palmer to his senses. Or it was the hands coming off his neck? The naked man howled and lunged again, but Palmer got a boot up, caught the man in the chest, kicked him. He scrambled backward while the man reeled. The other diver. Brock’s diver. Palmer turned and crawled on his hands and knees to get distance, got around a desk, moving as fast as he could, heart pounding. Two divers. There had been two divers. He waited for the man’s partner to jump onto his back, for the two men to beat him to death for his belly full of jangling coin— —when he bumped into the other diver. And saw by his dive light that he was no threat. And the bib of gore on the man chasing him was given sudden meaning. Palmer crawled away, sickened. He wondered how long the men had been down here, how long one had been eating the other. Hands fell onto his boots and yanked him, dragging him backward. A reedy voice yelled for him to be still. And then he felt a tug as his dive knife was pulled from its sheath, stolen. Palmer spun onto his back to defend himself. His own knife flashed above him traitorously, was brought down by those bone-thin arms, was meant to skewer him. There was a crunch against his belly. A painful blow. The air came out of Palmer. The blade was raised to strike him again, but there was no blood. His poor life had been saved by a fistful of coin. Palmer brought up his knee as the man struck again—and shin met forearm with a crack. A howl, and the knife was dropped. Palmer fumbled for it, his dive light throwing the world into pale reds and deep shadows. Hand on the hilt, his knife reclaimed, he slashed at the air, and the man fell back, hands up, shouting, “Please, please!” Palmer scooted away, keeping the knife in front of him. He was weak from fitful sleep and lack of food, but this poor creature before him seemed even weaker. Enraged and with the element of surprise, the man had nearly killed him, but it had been like fighting off a homeless dune-sleeper who had jumped him for some morsel of bread. Palmer dared to turn his dive light up so he could see the man better. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” the man said. “Thought you were a ghost.” The

Find a quiet space where you can be alone and focus on the dive ahead. Slow your heartbeat, establish a deep breathing rhythm, close your eyes or gaze out on to the ocean. Get yourself into a nice peaceful zone. Put away any thoughts circling around your mind concerning other aspects of your life, particularly areas where there is something negative going on. You are going diving; there is nothing you can do about anything that is happening in your surface existence while you are underwater.

Complacency KILLS!

Much like many other sports, I have seen good & bad divers, as well as talented & not so talented instructors from all walks of life & all certifying bodies. What matters is that you wish to improve & continue to have positive, safe interactions with the underwater world. Equally important is that you encourage others to do the same. This book will help you do both.

Breath-hold divers doing many repetitive dives over 100 ft are at great risk of developing DCS and so too breath-hold divers practicing for long durations (around three to five hours) even in shallower waters.

For example, since there was no such thing as a means to control your buoyancy, the earliest buoyancy compensators were plastic milk jugs. To keep themselves out of the silt that obscured visibility, cave divers took the regulators out of their mouths, shot air into the jugs, and clung to them or clipped them off on their belts to give themselves more buoyancy. After that they started using jerry cans. First they tied them to their arms but found it tiring to have their arms lifted, but nothing else. So they put them back on their waist. Then they decided to use two for balance, attaching them to a military style cartridge web belt. About the time cave divers were saying there had to be a better way, the dive industry came out with what was to be called a “buoyancy compensator

The biggest downfall of the cave divers in the 60s and early 70s was deep diving,” said Wes Skiles. “We’d figured out all the other things about the dangers of incorrectly using lines and lights, the air rules, and we now had pressure gauges. We had no excuse. When I came into the sport in 1973, there was really no reason not to operate safely. But deep diving they hadn’t figured out. A number of trained cave divers—all in a short period of time—lost their lives in caves.

loon 1   n. INFORMAL a silly or foolish person.  late 19th cent.: from LOON2 (referring to the bird's actions when escaping from danger), perhaps influenced by LOONY. Linked entries: LOON LOONY loon 2   n. a large diving waterbird with a sleek black or gray head, a straight pointed bill, and short legs set far back under the body. Loons breed by lakes in northern latitudes and have wailing calls.  Family Gaviidae and genus Gavia: five species, including the common loon (G. immer) of both Canada and Eurasia.  mid 17th cent.: probably by alteration of Shetland dialect loom, denoting esp. a guillemot or a diver, from Old Norse.

Don’t ever teach the poor how to survive; it’s like teaching a diver how to dive. Though with nothing they can yet keep breathing; though they’re hurting they can yet keep smiling.

Article F: Alternobaric Vertigo and Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. Charles D. Bluestone, MD; J. Douglas Swarts, PhD; Joseph M. Furman, MD, PhD; Robert F. Yellon, MD. Case Report: Persistent Alternobaric Vertigo at Ground Level due to Chronic Toynbee phenomenon. Laryngoscope 2012;122(4):868–72. The term “alternobaric vertigo” was coined by Lundgren in 1965 to describe vertigo in deep-sea divers, but also referred to aircraft pilots in 1966. It occurs during ascent and rarely descent and is a result of asymmetrical middle-ear pressures. Classically the vertigo due to this pathogenesis is transient but may last for several minutes. It is frequently associated with nausea and vomiting. It has been reproduced in pressure chamber experiments with some divers and fliers, but has not been reported spontaneously at ground level (Figure F–1). FIGURE F–1. Alternobaric vertigo can occur during ascent in an airplane or when scuba diving. We encountered a 15-year-old female with bilateral tympanostomy tubes who manifested persistent severe vertigo, at ground level, secondary to a unilateral middle-ear pressure of +200 mm H2O elicited by an obstructed tympanostomy tube in the presence of chronic nasal obstruction. She had had long-term tubes placed due to recurrent and chronic otitis media. Physical examination revealed achondroplasia, which is an autosomal dominate disorder characterized by abnormal bone growth, short arms and legs, short stature and a large head, which is associated with otitis media. The pathogenesis of otitis media in these individuals may be related to abnormal anatomy causing Eustachian tube dysfunction. Balance testing was abnormal, Eustachian tube function tests revealed dysfunction of tube. Surgery was performed to replace the obstructed tube with a patent one, and an adenoidectomy and bilateral inferior turbinate reduction to relieve the chronic nasal obstruction. Postoperatively balance testing was normal, Eustachian tube function remained dysfunctional, but she had complete resolution of her vertigo following the surgery. FIGURE F–2. Pathogenesis of alternobaric vertigo due to the “Toynbee phenomenon” One tympanostomy was obstructed and when swallowing, she developed high positive pressure in the middle ear, but in the ear with a patent tube, the pressure did not remain in the middle ear. We believed this was a previously unreported scenario in which closed-nose swallowing insufflated air into her middle ears, resulting in sustained positive middle-ear pressure in the ear with the obstructed tube. Swallowing, when the nose is obstructed, can result in abnormal negative or positive pressures in the middle ear, which has been termed the “Toynbee phenomenon.” We concluded that in patients who have vertigo, consideration should be given to the possibility that nasal obstruction and the “Toynbee phenomenon” are involved (Figure F–2). CHAPTER 7 PATHOLOGY The pathology of the ET may or may not be involved in the pathogenesis of otitis media, whereas the

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A new survey of recreational scuba divers reported that 41 percent people face dental problems from scuba diving. From most of the people suffer with a pain from the increased pressure underwater, but some people experienced loosened crowns or cracked fillings. And an unhealthy tooth under water could face much more dental problems. If you are suffering from tooth pain or need an emergency dentist contact Dental Made Easy in Forest Hills, Cedarhurst, Rego Park, and Greenpoint NY.

Aman iman, Adaora weakly thought. The phrase meant "water is life" in the Tuareg language of Tamasheck. She'd once worked with a Tuareg man on a diving expedition. "Aman iman," had been his answer when Adaora asked how a man of the Sahara Desert became an expert scuba diver. Despite the pain in her lungs now and the swallowing darkness, she smiled. Aman iman.

asked that each member of our team attach a little, plastic strobe light to his or her BCD vest. The strobes are cheap, they come with long-life batteries, and, when activated, they can be seen at night from at least three miles away. Anyone who travels over water in foreign lands, aboard foreign vessels, or who dives, should carry one. Few boat passengers or sport divers expect to be in the water after dusk. But all sunny days over a reef ultimately darken, and accidents are never planned. Which is why, each year, a surprising number of passengers and sport divers are set adrift and die. A strobe is the cheapest possible insurance against disaster.

Although the fight-or-flight response may have helped primitive man survive, it is deadly to the diver. Underwater problems have to be solved underwater.

Her psychoanalytic training led her to conclude that there was an unconscious level of motivation within each of us. According to Dr. Hunt’s training and beliefs, unconscious memory, thoughts, and feelings stem from earlier parts of life, including childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. These unconscious recollections, notions, and emotions affect what we think, what we say, and how we act. Unresolved conflicts from earlier life experiences may be hidden in the unconscious and influence behavior, which is especially important to people such as divers, who engage in high-risk activities.

Both in cave diving and in life, the darkness of uncertainty was beckoning. I was scared, but I knew that if I could be brave enough to step over the brink into the blackness, my eyes would adjust and new possibilities would be revealed. I had moved to a new country once before, and it felt easier the second time around. The

We dive so humanity survives.

In the 1690s, Edmund Halley, the English astronomer known primarily for tracking the comet that would be named for him, built a barrel-shaped diving bell out of wood and lined it with lead. It had greater girth than Link’s cylinder but about the same interior volume. Halley devised a system of barrels and leather tubes that channeled fresh air from the surface to give the bell’s occupants more breathing time. During one trial, Halley wrote that he and four others stayed in the bell for an hour and a half at a depth of about sixty feet. The men couldn’t do much while submerged, although Halley had ideas for supplying air so that divers could work outside the bell. No one suffered any ill effects, but Halley and his crew had no way of knowing that with the depth and duration of their dive they narrowly averted getting bent, or worse. Nonetheless, his innovative bell and record stay in the sea made diving history, even if Halley’s Comet would become better known than Halley’s bell.

My dive that day would be the first salvage dive inside the sunken hull. An external survey revealed what appeared to be a hole below the mud line on the after port side, presumably made by an unexploded torpedo or bomb. My mission: find the missile and attach a lock on the propeller to prevent it from arming itself and exploding. The submarine base assigned a chief torpedoman to provide technical assistance if we needed help to disarm the torpedo. No salvage work could begin until the missile was rendered safe. This is a simple task for a trained diver. But as it turned out, there was nothing simple about it.

I pulled down my coupled lifeline and air hose, coiling them at my feet. My lifeline contained a quarter-inch-diameter wire built to withstand a strain of three thousand pounds. Telephone wires were wrapped around it and encased in rubber. There was a watertight telephone connection attached to the rear of the diving helmet. Telephone wires ran inside the helmet to the transmitter-receiver located in the top of the helmet. The other end of the telephone wires and lifeline connection were attached to the telephonic transmitter-receiver box on the diving barge. The diver could transmit and receive messages. The telephone talker could receive the diver’s messages continuously. When the talker wanted to communicate with the diver he depressed a transmitter key and sent his message. The diver could not transmit until the key was released.

Ben rolled the two-thousand-pound shell out of the freezer, and we used a chainfall to lift it aboard the diving barge. It was a fifteen-inch shell that at one time had been used by old U.S. coastal guns, long since obsolete. The U.S. imprint was clearly visible stamped into the base of the shell. Stabilizing fins had been welded to its base in order to give it the characteristics of a spiraling bomb. The old shell had been sold to Japan years before as scrap iron, and it had been returned to the U.S.A. with a vengeance. Ordnance experts came out, retrieved the shell, and sent it back to the Bureau of Ordnance in Washington, D.C., for analysis.

There were now three options open to the navy. The first was to sever the forward section of the ship using dynamite. This would take months to accomplish, but would allow the after section of the ship to be floated and probably salvaged. The second was to flatten the ship with dynamite and drive her deeper into the mud. This would clear the quay, allowing other ships to use it. This second option was never seriously considered because the graves of the crew would be desecrated. The third option was chosen. The plan was to cut off the superstructure above water and construct a memorial in tribute to those who lost their lives on 7 December. When the decision was finalized, diving work was suspended on the Arizona. The two barges were moved, and we soon began work on the USS California.

Lieutenant Haynes then gave us our diving assignments: dynamite the concrete quays that pinned the Tennessee against the West Virginia, and sound the hulls of the sunken ships to insure that no one was trapped within them. He indicated that the rescue of any possible survivors took precedence over every other operation.

We were disappointed that we had not been able to find any survivors on the sunken ships, but after six days of sounding, we were sure no one was alive within them. While our diving crews were occupied sounding the ships and freeing the USS Tennessee, the shipyard constructed two diving barges, each one twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. Buoyancy was provided by three cylindrical pontoons. Wooden planks formed the deck, while corrugated sheet metal on the roof provided protection from the elements. A long pipe spanned the upright stanchions along the side of one barge, which provided an area to hang the divers’ rubberized canvas dresses. Along the opposite side were hangers for the four sets of lifelines and air hoses. A large workbench was situated in the middle of the barge. Installed at one end was a wooden diving ladder that led down to the water four feet below. Next to the ladder was a table that held the diving telephone equipment. Four dressing stools were neatly stacked near the table.

Our first safety measures began after my near brush with death when the yard maintenance people came out to the Arizona and removed my air compressor. We placed metal plates on the diving compressor after that which forbade anyone from touching it unless they checked with us first. As an added safety feature, we acquired a large high-pressure air flask that held enough air to allow a diver an extra twenty minutes of bottom time if the compressor failed. We also required that a standby diver be fully dressed so he could tend the working diver at the entrance to the ship. This precaution was used whenever a dive was more than one hundred feet inside the ship.

Diving operations on the Nevada began in mid-December as a joint effort with units in Pearl Harbor who had divers attached. Divers from submarine rescue vessels Widgeon and Ortolan excavated mud from under the stern and dynamited and removed sections of her bilge keel in an effort to attach a large patch over the forty-eight-foot-long, twenty-five-foot-high torpedo hole. The patch was made by the shipyard, and the bottom of the Oklahoma was used as a pattern because she was a sister ship of the Nevada. The divers from the Widgeon and Ortolan tried to secure the patch for more than a month before a halt was called to the work. After the Nevada was dry-docked, it was discovered that the torpedo blister on the side had blown outboard about two feet, which explained why the patch would not fit. Eventually, the patch was aborted and diving efforts were concentrated on isolating and making watertight all interior bulkheads contiguous to the hole. This required closing watertight doors and fittings, welding or caulking split seams, and driving wooden plugs in small holes. Our crew from the Salvage Unit was assigned this work. At the same time, Pacific Bridge civilian divers fitted and secured wood patches over bomb holes in the Nevada’s outside hull.

Most experienced scuba divers frequently use the Valsalva maneuver on descent to prevent “locking” of the tube. Scuba diving in the presence of preexisting dysfunction of the tube, when nasal congestion develops, or both are risk factors for severe tubal problems and barotrauma. It is probably not wise for individuals with chronic ET dysfunction to pursue the sport of scuba diving.

After 30 dives, I thought I knew everything. After 300, I was sure that I did. With over 3000 dives, I know that a surprise is always waiting for me. Also, I thought that I had great buoyancy after having more than 1000's dives. It was only when I took an overhead environment course, that I realised that there was a lot of room for improvement.

Only use sliding bolt clips to clip off gear. Avoid carabiners at all costs. They are dangerous & designed for climbing NOT diving.

As Bond would find out for himself, there was much more to hardhat diving than tramping along the ocean floor like an undersea gladiator, as might be inferred from the movies. The Mark V helmet alone weighed some fifty pounds, the lead-soled boots twenty pounds each. Together with the rubber-lined canvas suit and a belt of lead weights held up by leather suspenders, the hardhat diver wore nearly two hundred pounds of gear. On dry land he could hardly walk.

It had taken more than six hundred hardhat dives and almost four months to complete the rescue and salvage of the Squalus. A diver’s typical bottom time had been twenty minutes. Nearly twenty years later, at the dawn of the space age, an underwater job similar to the Squalus recovery would have been handled much the same way.

In all over 400 dives were made on Nevada totaling over 1500 diving hours. The divers performed all manner of work from underwater cutting with oxy-hydrogen and electric torches to hydraulic and syphon excavating, to using dynamite to remove sections of the docking keel, to the use of hand and pneumatic tools for drilling and setting patches. They also did much interior work for pumping operations, adjusting watertight closures, etc. The successful accomplishment of all assigned diving tasks without casualty or injury was the result of excellent supervision on the part of Lieutenant Commander H. E. Haynes, who was in general charge of all diving, plus Gunner Duckworth of Widgeon, Gunner Arnold Larson of Ortolan, and Carpenter Mahan of the Salvage Division.

A fast, seaworthy, very mobile diving boat with echo-sounder. Slack water for small area searches, but use fast tides and mobility of aqualung gear supported by small mobile diving boat to cover the large areas, especially in delimitation. Divers and boat handlers to be practised in working together; all divers to have practical underwater archaeological experience and to be well briefed for each separate wreck; land archaeologists with some understanding of the special problems to be carried in the boat whenever possible, and ultimately expected to dive. Basic assumption that the most important part of a wreck search is to go where there is no wreck, so that the characteristics of the natural seabed surrounding

That is one reason why shipwreck divers don’t spend hours working underwater; the decompression time for a two-hour dive might be as long as nine hours.

That day, after barely resurfacing from a seventy-two meter warm up dive into the Blue Hole, Mevoli went into cardiac arrest and died. This time, he wasn’t able to bring himself back. When asked to comment on the accident, Natalia Molchanova, regarded by many as the greatest freehold breath diver in the world, said, “the biggest problem with freedivers . . . [is] now they go too deep too fast.” Less than two years later, off the coast of Spain, Molchanova took a quick recreational dive of her own. She deliberately ran though her usual set of breathing exercises, attached a light weight to her belt to help her descend, and swam downward, alone. It was supposed to be a head-clearing reset. But, Molchanova didn’t come back either. And that’s the problem that free diving shares with many other state-shifting techniques: return too soon, and you’ll always wonder if you could have gone deeper. Go too far, and you might not make it back.