REPOST: Badass dive suit will make even astronauts jealous

With Nuytco’s $600,000 Exosuit, the tedious decompressing after prolonged diving is now a thing of the past. Wired.com fills in the specifics.

Image Source: www.wired.com

After eight hours underwater at a depth of 1,000 feet, a diver must spend 10 days in a decompression chamber. That’s why shipwreck salvagers and pipeline inspectors use submarines or unmanned rovers. Now there’s a better solution: Nuytco’s Exosuit. The articulated shell keeps its inhabitant at surface atmosphere while enabling free movement on the seafloor. Divers have worn a version of the $600,000 suit to do internal repairs on New York City water supply pipes and will soon use one to check for oil pipeline leaks off Dubai. With thrusters and an optional hook hand, the Exosuit is way more badass than scuba gear.

1// Helmet The domed window lets divers see past their chest down to their feet. That means they don’t have to contort to see what they’re working on.

2// Air Two redundant oxygen systems provide up to 50 hours of air, which is constantly recirculated through carbon dioxide scrubbers.

3// Thrusters Divers control four 1.6-horsepower thrusters with their feet. If your mission needs more juice, you can upgrade to eight thrusters.

4// Telemetry A fiber-optic cable connection allows topside monitoring and control of the suit in case the diver loses consciousness.

5// Manipulators The suit comes with accessories: claws for all occasions, including large and small grippers for different sized objects, a saw for cutting lines, and a hook.

6// Extreme flexibility Eighteen rotary joints in the arms and legs allow the diver to bend and flex freely.

Phil Newsum is executive director of the Association of Diving Contractors International Inc., an organization dedicated in promoting safety in the commercial diving industry. To learn more about safety in diving, whether commercial or recreational, click here.

REPOST: 5 best diving spots to warm your bones

Need a get-away vacation from the bitter cold of winter? FOX News lists these five beautiful spots around the world for scuba diving and snorkeling. Boasting a wonder of underwater treasures, these places will not only warm your bones but also your heart. Take the plunge!

With all the snow and bitter cold we’ve had this winter, it’s hard to imagine jumping into a large body of water. But not far away, there are plenty of warm places where you can not only splash and swim, but dive deep below the ocean’s surface to discover a wonder of underwater treasures.

Here are our top picks for “hot” places to scuba dive and snorkel this winter:

Image Source: foxnews.com

1. Snorkel the Philippines

On the other side of the world, there are some amazing hidden destinations in the Pacific Ocean that offer spectacular scuba diving and snorkeling. The Coral Triangle, recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and described as the underwater equivalent of the Amazon, includes the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It is named for its vast variety of corals, some 600 different species. And, according to the World Wildlife Fund, the area is home to six of the seven world marine turtle species and more than 2000 species of fish.

You can snorkel over vast corals and World War II shipwrecks, and you can scuba dive into the sunken vessels for an underwater history lesson. The Tubbataha Reef offers hundreds of feet of visibility, as well as sharks swimming nearby. Or you can head to nearby Anilao, Cebu or Calamaines Islands for more great reef diving.

Wilderness Travel offers guided snorkeling adventures to the Philippines in the company of a marine biologist on their Philippines Snorkeling Expedition. The trip heads to the Central Visayas archipelago of islands for swimming with whale sharks, dolphin watching and night snorkels to find creatures like octopus not usually seen during the day. Accommodations include several dive and scuba resorts on the various islands. The excursion departs February through May.

Image Source: foxnews.com

2. “Buddy” up in Bonaire

Often referred to as a diver’s paradise, Bonaire, part of the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean, 50 miles north of Venezuela, has an average forecast of 82 degrees and sunny year-round. Did we mention they also have 12 hours of daylight, because they are so close to the equator? And it’s easy to get there, with direct flights from Atlanta, New York, Houston and Miami.

Bonaire is known for “shore diving,” which means you literally put on your scuba gear, walk into the water and off you go. There are more than 50 easily accessible dive sites in Bonaire, mostly along the west coast, and each marked by a yellow stone, with natural reefs full of more than 400 colorful species of fish, eagle rays, sea turtles and coral, as well as several shipwrecks.

Buddy Dive is one of the most popular scuba dive resorts in Bonaire, offering two pools, 11 buildings with apartments, a restaurant, their famous drive-through air and Nitrox refill station and more. They are currently offering a Drive & Dive package that includes a 7-night stay, 7-day truck rental for driving to dive sites, 6 days of unlimited oxygen tank refills, daily breakfast buffet and airport transfers. If you book this package, they’ll throw in their coral restoration adventure dive, where you can help replenish the island’s coral, one of the earth’s most endangered species.

Image Source: foxnews.com

3. Dive the Depths of Dominica

Also in the Caribbean is Dominica, though it’s a bit harder to get to (you have to transfer at hubs in Antigua, Barbados, St. Maarten, Puerto Rico or others). Keep in mind that they tend to operate on “island time” there, so be sure to allow for delays. And if you don’t fly a major airline, anticipate expensive fees for checked luggage.

But once you get there, Dominica is a scuba diver’s dream, offering amazingly clear and fairly calm water. Here you’ll “boat dive,” meaning you’ll head to your dive site by boat and jump right in. Beneath the surface you’ll find canyons and cliffs, just like you see above, as well as steep walls, volcanic craters, huge stands of coral, species rarely found in other Caribbean diving spots, seahorses, squid, electric rays, frogfish and much more.

Close to the capital city of Roseau, the waterfront Fort Young Hotel, the location of a 300-year-old fort, is a good home base for divers on Dominica. It offers air-conditioned rooms with terraces or balconies, a swimming pool and Jacuzzi, a fully equipped gym, bars and restaurants and a private jetty with boats for divers.

Image Source: foxnews.com

4. Plunge the Depths of Palau

Also in the Western Pacific is the remote island of Palau, part of the Rock Islands and nicknamed “Rainbow’s End” because it’s so far away. It is not easy to get to, as you have to fly from Asia, but Palau is very much worth the hassle. Like Bonaire, its average temperature year round is 82 degrees, and it’s been named one of the underwater wonders of the world, as well as one of the world’s last Edens, by National Geographic.

In Palau, divers and snorkelers will find drop-offs, shallow reefs and channels beneath the sea. Reef walls in Palau team with marine life, schools of fish, old growth coral gardens and hidden marine lakes. Don’t miss snorkeling in Jellyfish Lake, an enclosed body of water filled with jellyfish that have lost their sting.

If navigating this far-off land sounds a bit overwhelming, consider traveling with a tour operator like Wilderness Travel, which offers a snorkeling and kayaking trip to Palau. On the 11-day trip, stay at luxury resorts on white sand beaches as well as several nights at a full-service campsite with fresh cooked meals and opportunities for stargazing. The tour includes plenty of snorkeling at key sites like Jellyfish Lake and the Big Drop-Off (a sheer wall plunging 1000 feet deep), a visit to a secluded lake surrounded by 300-foot rock walls and kayaking through a mangrove forest.

Image Source: foxnews.com

5. Drift in Cozumel

When it comes to Mexico, the island of Cozumel is a premier warm-weather diving and snorkeling site, with the second largest reef system in the world (Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest). And it has lots of activities beyond snorkeling and scuba diving in the bustling town of San Miguel.

Easy to reach by plane from the U.S., Cozumel is known for its massive underwater walls and “drift diving,” where you drift along the water and the boat moves to you wherever you come afloat. In Cozumel, you’ll find a vast number of fish, corals, sponges, moray eels, nurse sharks, big stingrays, hawksbill turtles and lots of macro life within its clear blue and very warm waters.

Try the Hotel Cozumel & Resort, which is walking distance or a short cab ride away from the downtown area with many restaurants and bars, and just across from the water for easy access to diving boats. They offer 4- or 7-night diving packages that include accommodations and morning or afternoon dives, as well as all-inclusive meal plans. The hotel also has a beach club with beach access, several restaurants and bars, a gym, a large swimming pool, Jacuzzi and Kids Club.


Phil Newsum of the Association of Diving Contractors International, Inc. is an advocate of marine conservation. Visit this blog for more stories on underwater adventures.

REPOST: Spectacular pictures show daredevils diving in for the ultimate thrill of swimming inches from 40-tonne whales

This article from Daily Mail features stunning photos of divers swimming with huge whales, as well as insights from one of the divers.

Swimming next to 40 tonne whales, dare-devil divers take the plunge with these gentle giants of the sea.

The amazing photographs were captured by an underwater diving company while out exploring the ocean in Tonga.

Deep sea swim: Swimming next to 40 tonne whales, dare-devil divers take the plunge with these gentle giants of the sea. Image Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Scott Portelli, 41, manager of Swimming with Gentle Giants, said: 'I have been swimming with whales in Tonga for over 12 years.

'It's hard to describe a feeling, but from a visual perspective, we are in a vast blue environment with a 40 tonne, 18 metre long whale.

'Whales are the gentle giants of the sea and humpbacks specifically are the most charismatic, they are curious and will often seek out interactions with humans.

'I never feel in danger even though they have the ability to swipe me like a fly with their enormous tail if they wanted, but they are so thoughtful conscious of your space they will manoeuvre within inches of you.'

Image Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

As well as whales, other underwater life such as dolphins, manta rays, turtles, blue marlin, sharks and seals occasionally pop along to enjoy the experience.

Mr Portelli added: 'People have come out of the water in tears after being in the water with a whale; some cry with joy and amazement, and some just can't speak as they take in the experience.

'It is clear that its life changing for anyone that swims with a whale, their perspective changes, and swimming with whales is addictive, I have so many returning guests each year.

Life of luxury: Scott Portelli, 41, manager of Swimming with Gentle Giants, said: 'I have been swimming with whales in Tonga for over 12 years'. Image Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

'My simple aim is to raise awareness of these beautiful animals.

'The Japanese hunt 1050 whales every summer, but there is no reason for this lethal form of research.

'It is great being around like minded people as well as being able to bring joy to people that experience the whales, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.'

Phil Newsum is an advocate of commercial diving.  He serves as the executive director of the Association of Diving Contractors International, Inc.  Visit this Facebook page for more articles about diving.

Diving deeper: Life in a saturation chamber

Saturation diving requires divers to remain in a pressurized chamber for days on end to allow their bodies a considerable amount of time to become adapted to the high-pressure environments of the deep. This has the advantage of allowing them to decompress at a much shorter span of time than if they were to make repeated dives at great depths.

Image source: Best Diving

Saturation chambers called deep diving systems (DDS) allow divers to remain in an underwater setting for multiple days, even weeks at a time. These serve as a pressurized temporary home for the divers, and contain all the necessary facilities to keep the divers alive and comfortable throughout their stay, including toilets, sleeping quarters, a built-in breathing system, a medical facility, tables, and chairs. Food and water are sent down through the system by vault.

Image source: The Underwater Centre

Divers go in and out of the DDS through a personal transport with a pressure similar both to the outside and inside the DDS. Each of the personnel in the transport take turns accomplishing a task.

Image source: Oceangate

A team of six divers can live continuously in the DDS for a month, with at least one diver in active duty at any given time. This is far more time-saving than conventional diving apparatuses due to the amount of decompression time that has been condensed.


Phil Newsum is with the Association of Diving Contractors International, a regulatory organization committed to upholding safety practices in commercial diving. Get updates on the Twitter.

REPOST: New safety support in place for deepsea divers

The safety of divers, especially those involved in subsea industrial work, is a top priority for diving contractors. The Telegram’s Ashley Fitzpatrick writes about a facility that addresses emergency response and worker safety for offshore divers.

The Hyperbaric Reception Facility (HRF) is the only shore-based HRF in North America.
(Image source: thetelegram.com)

 
Companies using divers for subsea industrial work offshore Newfoundland and Labrador now have access to a rare facility to support emergency response and worker safety.

The new hyperbaric reception facility was built by Submarine Manufacturing and Products Ltd. in the United Kingdom for local company Sea-Force Hyperbaric. It can accommodate up to 20 divers for decompression, in the case of a catastrophic incident offshore.

Offshore divers go deep, typically living in sealed chambers onboard a diving support vessel for up to 28 days at a time. They transfer from the vessel to a pressurized diving bell to head out to work.

The deep diving is called “saturated” diving because, under the pressure, gases are absorbed into body tissues, and the tissues become saturated with the gases. The absorbed gas has to be released slowly after the dive.

Safe decompression typically takes about four to six days.

“Every year now, there’s a diving ship here every single year and when they’re here, they’re here for probably six months and there’s guys in saturation diving 24 hours a day during the six months that it’s here,” said Sea-Force Hyperbaric’s Jim Hynes.

The workers have access to hyperbaric lifeboats, but they are generally cramped spaces with divers having limited ability to move or deal with injuries during decompression.

Enter the “hyperbaric reception facility,” stationed inside the large, blue building at the NewDock yard off Water Street, near the St. John’s waterfront.

Now, in an emergency, divers’ lifeboats can be brought to land and — like a space shuttle docking with the International Space Station — be placed atop the T-shaped facility. It allows workers to escape into a somewhat more spacious, still pressurized, area with potential for more direct medical care.

The safety business

The hyperbaric facility is under private ownership. Sea-Force Hyperbaric has had help in startup from several sources.

According to online records, the federal government, through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), contributed $50,000 to a feasibility study for the hyperbaric business in December 2011. In April 2012, a separate $500,000 loan was approved by ACOA for the business.

The provincial government contributed $500,000 for the purchase.

“The other over $4 million we got ourselves,” said Sea-Force’s Hynes, placing the grand total at more than $5 million.

As a business, he said, Sea-Force Hyperbaric plans to sustain itself by establishing stand-by contracts with diving companies and major offshore operators.

“The investors here went out and saw an opportunity and sort of got ahead of the curve and recognized there was a need from a health and safety point of view,” said Innovation, Business and Rural Development Minister Keith Hutchings after seeing the facility at a reception Wednesday.

The facility is portable, allowing the company to pursue contracts elsewhere in the world as well, whenever there is a lull in dive work offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Emergency response

There have been divers killed while working offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

At least three lives were lost during attempts to move the remains of the Ocean Ranger following the loss of that rig.

At the time of the Hebron public review, The Telegram contacted the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board, requesting information from the standard forms to be submitted by companies to the offshore regulator in the event of an accident or near miss during dive work offshore.

For the 10 years prior to 2012, there were 23 reports and the incidents ranged from a diver reporting dizziness, to objects dropping onto the seafloor in divers’ work area. In one case, a crane’s headache ball was “lowered to the seafloor within five metres of the divers without divers’ consent.”

Of note, saturation diving work will be required for installation of the Hebron gravity base structure.

Phil Newsum of the Association of Diving Contractors International (ADCI) champions diving safety, whether commercial or recreational. Get timely updates on diving from this Twitter account.

The thrill of free diving

Image source: gapinternshipsthailand.com

Considered an extreme sport, free diving relies solely on the diver’s ability to hold his or her breath rather than using a breathing apparatus such as a scuba gear. The sport is growing in popularity these days. Unknown to some, free diving has existed for hundreds of years that “Homer and Plato [even] wrote about it,” reports 60 Minutes .

For those who chose to take up the extreme sport, the beauty of free diving lies on conquering “death-defying feats” never thought possible. As Alexander Davies of Discovery News pointed out, “Divers push the limits of human evolution by descending hundreds of meters below the surface, fighting massive levels of water pressure and minutes without oxygen.”


Image source: enzomaiorca.it

The 50-meter mark was first breached in 1962 by Enzo Maiorca. Fourteen years later, Maiorca’s fiercest rival, Jacques Mayol, hit 100 meters. And as the sport developed, divers started incorporating fins, weights, inflatable balloons, and diving sleds, going even deeper. According to the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA), an organization established in 1992 to set global standards and verify free diving records, the deepest dive record set was 273 meters by Goran Colak in 2011.

A lot of people may ask, “Why go down at all knowing how extreme the sport is?” For some enthusiasts though, they do not see free diving as an extreme sport – they see it as a adventure. As champion free diver Tanya Streeter explained to 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, “It is journey of self-exploration.”


Image source: news.com.au

Phil Newsum believes that safety should always be a priority in diving, whether free, or commercial. Select updates about the diving industry are available at this Facebook page.

Guam's extraordinary underwater critters

The glut of tourists flying in for the Caribbean’s famous dive spots has seasoned divers looking for other watering holes. The vast Pacific reassures them of the supply of open water. Guam is one of those diving spots that have outgrown ersatz tourism and come out as stars of their own.

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

It would take special dives to reconnoiter with the renowned underwater critters, numbering in thousands of fish species. Guam has dozens of diving spots, popular in their own right for specific features. The Blue Hole is a natural choice for underwater archaeology, a 60- to 300-ft. plunge with sightings of the World War II wrecks of the SMS Cormoran (a German vessel) and the Tokai Maru (a Japanese one). A way’s side from the island’s northern coast, divers negotiate a 100-ft. dive in search for the Napoleon wrasse, a lumbering humphead with, reportedly, an amicable mien that balances out the thrill of dealing with non-malicious shark species. It also lurks among uncorrupted corals, of the kind Australia might put in tourism campaigns, but they’re stashed in a secret world only experienced divers could maximize.

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

Over 20 new species of mollusks are also clacking against the sea wall. Amateur divers can content themselves with shallow acquaintance: 30 feet into a dive spot called the Blue & White, invertebrates slither around for a primordial fish eyeview. Shy of those, schools of pyramid butterfly fish are already a magical scream for first-timers.

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

Phil Newsum is the executive director of the Association of Diving Contractors International, Inc., which promotes safety measures in commercial diving. More diving features here.