Diving Skills

Need to brush up on diving skills? Here are a few articles to get you thinking about diving and diving related skills.

Boathandling Skills

• The Do's and Don'ts of RHIB Driving - Dive, Charlotte Boan

• Top of the Cox - Dive, Charles Hood
  The ability to handle a boat is the perfect complement to your diving skills.

• Combined Diving Associations (CDA) Guidelines for the Safe Operation of Member Club Dive Boats

Dive Kit

• Are You Overweight - Diver, Anne-Marie Kitchen-Wheeler
  Did you know that, for every unnecessary kilogram of weight you add to your belt you can use up 10% of your gas supply in compensation? Anne-Marie Kitchen-Wheeler wants us all to become weight-watchers.

• Diving with Wings - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  When to make the switch from a stab jackets to a wing.

• The Truth About Drysuits - Diver, Mike Ward
  There's what they tell you in those fancy catalogues, and then there's what divers learn through bitter experience.

• What a Drag! - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Configure your kit to reduce drag.

Diving Skills

• 50 Ways to be a Better Diver - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  From buoyancy to buddies, kit configuration to boat etiquette 50 tips on how to do it better!

• The Art of Drinking and Diving - Diver, Mark Brill & Laura Harris
  Diving while your body is dehydrated leads to aching muscles, fatigue and even decompression sickness - it's that serious.

• Buoyancy for Beginners - Diver, John Bantin
  Good buoyancy control is the essence of pleasurable diving. Making yourself perfectly neutral so that you neither float up nor sink renders your diving effortless. So it's a pity that so many divers never seem to master this basic technique, says John Bantin

• Buoyancy Masterclass - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Good buoyancy skills separate the real divers from the wannabes. But how do you perfect buoyancy?

• Chill Out - How to Beat Stress Underwater - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Charlotte Boan asks a panel of diving experts about stress, its causes and how to avoid it.

• Coping with Nitrogen Narcosis - Dive, Dr Pete Larkin
  Euphoria or desperation? it Affects us all in different ways. Dr Pete Larkin finds out the truth about getting ‘narked’

• Current Affairs - Diver, John Bantin
  John Bantin offers his rough guide to tides and currents.

• Doing It Wrong - Diver, John Bantin
  John Bantin shares 20 of his ripest bloopers, from each of which he gleaned another valuable nugget of experience.

• Edge of Darkness - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Diving in low visibility

• How to Dive in Current - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  A panel of diving experts give tips and advice on how to get the best out of currents and tidal movements.

• How to Deploy a Delayed SMB - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Incidents attributed to poor SMB deployment incresed in 2005; here's a step-by-step guide to deploying an SMB from a wreck and from mid-water

• How to Pinpoint a Dive Site - Dive, Charlotte Boan

• Imagine Your a Superdiver - Diver, Brendan O'Brien
  How mind games can help with diving phobias.

• Setting the Stage - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  A panel of diving experts - Jeff Reed, Clare Peddie and Richard Bull - give their tips and advice on decompression diving.

• Safer Penetration - Diver, Mark Ellyatt
  A beginners guide to wreck penetration.

• Take a Deep Breath - Dive, Andrew Spooner
  How free-diving techniques can enhance your scuba diving skills.

• The Subtle Art of Stopping - Diver, John Bantin
  Some divers do, some don't. Make decompression stops, that is. Those who don't may be over-cautious, those who do may become complacent. John Liddiard looks at the dos and don'ts of deco stops.

• Year of the Lotus - Diver, Jacqui Cozens
  Jacqui Cozens considers an approach to diver fitness and improved breath-control that taps into traditional Eastern wisdom.

Marine Archaeology

• Are You Wreck Friendly? - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  You may do a lot of wreck diving, but are your skills up to scratch?

• Dive with a Purpose: it could be you - Scottish Diver, Alison Fuller-Shapcott
  Launching the Nautical Archaeology Society's Dive With a Purpose scheme in Scotland.

• X Marks the Spot - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  The real world of underwater archaeology.

Marine Life Survey

• Ahh, the Blobby Things are Tunicates: Seasearch as a Student - Scottish Diver, Alison Fish & Rod Hope
  Learning to be a Seasearch Observer in Scotland.

• Why Would You? - Dive, Charlotte Boan
  Surveying Carribean coral reefs with Earthwatch