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Interpreting statistics is dangerous. Do you realise that 100% of people who mistake correlation for causation die?

I don't know if you remember but, some years ago, a young female tourist from S.E. Asia lost her life at the adjacent spot, Fairy Bower. It is impossible to reach more than 6 metres depth there. She became separated from her buddy and, although she would only have been at maybe 5 metres depth...

Yes - the typical dives at Long Reef would have a maximum depth of around 25 metres. It is a beautiful spot with colourful sponge gardens, swim throughs, lots of fish. The article reported a rapid ascent from 10 metres, suggesting that maybe something happened towards the end of the dive.

From the Northern Beaches Advocate

That should be pinned to the top of the board in large letters! I know that it is easy to get complacent about shore dives in 5 or 6m of water, but plenty of people drown in swimming pools in less than 2m of water. The bottom line is: water is a hazard, because we can't breathe it! As to how...

Obviously there isn't enough information to tell what happened; but the fact that someone attempted a bodged-up repair on a damaged CCR with, apparently, little understanding, sounds like a massive red flag to me. I'm an engineer, so I'm all for doing field repairs and making do, but you have...

32 m is enough. Heck, 3 m is enough.

It is the basis for risk management and safety engineering: the ALARP principle, "As Low As Reasonably Practicable". Zero risk isn't possible - even staying home doing nothing carries a certain risk.

My (purely anecdotal as opposed to scientific) observation is that sharks are wary of OC SCUBA divers underwater. I've been on dives where I was using OC but another diver was using CCR, and I've seen sharks reacting completely differently - very reluctant to let me get near, but completely...

There have been several disasters caused when a small, smouldering fire flashes over. Often the original combustion appears so minor that it either goes unnoticed or is not taken seriously. The Bradford City football stadium fire would be an example. People died still sitting in their seats, the...

What sort of PPO2 would you set for a 14-hour dive? Anything much above 0.5 bar, wouldn't you be increasing the risk of CNS issues (especially considering elevated CO2 levels, fatigue, and cold associated with a long CCR dive)? Would you have to take special precautions to monitor PPO2 that was...

First Law of safety: just because you got away with it last time, doesn't mean you'll get away with it this time.

Examples of excellent safety cultures do exist - I have worked in such a company. But they take a lot of work to build and continuous effort to maintain. As our head of safety used to say, "There are three simple rules to ensure a good safety culture. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

Tables forced you to at least think about a plan for every dive; and doing a decompression dive meant a lot of planning for dive profile and air consumption. Computers make life much easier but, as a grumpy old man, I do seem to see quite a few divers with a "Don't worry about planning - the...

That's definitely a likely scenario to get stung. The exact same thing happened to a diving buddy, up near Broome. Wading ashore from a boat in the shallows, she stepped on a stingray, and received a nasty gash in the leg - very painful but, luckily, it didn't damage any major blood vessels. But...

I doubt there's anyone here who doesn't feel a sense of horror at what happened to this poor guy, and I imagine everyone feels the deepest sympathy for him, for the awful decision his buddy faced, and for his friends and family. An accident like this hits home to anyone who has done a bit of...

If you believe that, then you've never been interviewed by a journalist about some technical subject! The person interviewed was responsible for designing the Deepsea Challenger. He's one of a tiny handful of people who has actually built a manned vessel that operated safely at these depths! Do...

Have you ever been interviewed by a journalist about some technical subject? It's like they take the words you say and give them to an infinite number of monkeys to type out into an article. The person interviewed was an engineer who was responsible for building the Deepsea Challenger so, when...

This is a journalist quoting an engineer, so we know how accurate that usually is. Plus this an engineer from the team that built the Deepsea Challenger, so I think he probably knows more about it than you or I do.

As an engineer, I'm astonished that it doesn't seem to have been equipped with an independently-powered locator beacon, like an aircraft black box recorder would have. Those emit an ultrasonic 'ping' that operates for more than 30 days, and they are designed for depths of at least 20,000 feet...