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So this is a short review of the Between the Devil and The Deep by Mark Cowan and Martin Robson.
The book has a good mix of technical diving, decompression history, and human interest all weaved into a compelling story. For me the story is broken down into 3 distinct parts. The first being the lead up. The story of how Martin Robson came to be deep diving in a remote Russian lake in search of a cave entrance and the dives preceding his fateful dive. The middle section being the dive he got his in-water hit, and the immediate post dive actions. The last section being the recompression and conclusion.
I really enjoyed the author's approach to weaving the sequence of real time events occurring to Martin with relevant background materials. At first I thought it was going to be the standard scuba decompression explained to layman readers. However Cowan was able to weave far more historical detail to the development of dive tables. I thought I had a pretty good background but picked up a lot in this area and was really impressed with detailed history and the narrative he was able to wrap around it.
For many there will be some coverage of topics you may already know, but I would wager for most they will learn something as well.
Overall it's a very good read and was highly enjoyable.
So this is a short review of the Between the Devil and The Deep by Mark Cowan and Martin Robson.
The book has a good mix of technical diving, decompression history, and human interest all weaved into a compelling story. For me the story is broken down into 3 distinct parts. The first being the lead up. The story of how Martin Robson came to be deep diving in a remote Russian lake in search of a cave entrance and the dives preceding his fateful dive. The middle section being the dive he got his in-water hit, and the immediate post dive actions. The last section being the recompression and conclusion.
I really enjoyed the author's approach to weaving the sequence of real time events occurring to Martin with relevant background materials. At first I thought it was going to be the standard scuba decompression explained to layman readers. However Cowan was able to weave far more historical detail to the development of dive tables. I thought I had a pretty good background but picked up a lot in this area and was really impressed with detailed history and the narrative he was able to wrap around it.
For many there will be some coverage of topics you may already know, but I would wager for most they will learn something as well.
Overall it's a very good read and was highly enjoyable.
