NEW YORK — The divers live in a windowless, pressurized chamber for weeks at a time. They descend 700 feet — greater than the height of the Space Needle — to toil for 12-hour shifts in dark, murky water.

Then there's the helium they have to breathe to survive at such depths. Their voices are so high support crews need to use a special recording device to translate.


Read full article: 'NYC water tunnel job'

By Daniel Carson
NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY, PANAMA CITY

In simulated ocean depths of up to 1,000 feet, the 10 divers taking part in a Navy Experimental Diving Unit saturation dive start their decompression today.

The dive is taking place in NEDU’s three-story Ocean Simulation Facility, within an environment that, at 1,000 feet, the divers feel 445 pounds of pressure per square inch against their bodies and breathe in an atmosphere that’s only 1.4-percent oxygen; the remainder is helium.



Read full article: 'Divers head back to the surface in saturation experiment'

By PAUL POST

GLENS FALLS - Shark feeding is Rich Morin's favorite scuba diving activity and he has the cuts, scars and gouges to prove it.
When it comes to evidence, he's also an expert at handling underwater crime scenes. Within a year's time, police and rescue divers from throughout the state will benefit from his years of experience beneath the waves.
Morin is writing a full curriculum to help investigators solve cases the same as they would on land that could make the Lake George area a national training destination.

Read full article: 'Solving mysteries in the murky deep'

More than 900 striking North Sea divers and support staff accepted a pay offer from employers, a union said on Friday, ending a 10-day strike that had raised concern about disruptions to oil output.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT) said a large majority accepted the deal that will increase current pay rates by 44.7 percent in the next two years.

Read full article: 'North Sea divers end 10-day strike'

JOHN ROSS (jross@scotsman.com)

MORE than 900 North Sea divers and support staff were set to strike at midnight last night after rejecting the latest pay offer from employers.

The start of the biggest strike the industry has seen for 20 years was confirmed after members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT) rejected the deal, worth a 37 per cent rise over three years.

Read full article: 'North Sea divers reject a 37% pay rise and vote to strike'

More news appear about Buster Crabb, we had the topic a good while back at the "old" DivePro - Info message board. Well, it is one of the "big" mysteries in diving history (at least in british diving history), so we keep you "up to date" with new information on the disappearance of Buster!:

New evidence has emerged of Britain's attempts to cover up the fate of a diver who vanished in 1956, while apparently spying on a Soviet warship.

Lionel "Buster" Crabb disappeared while spying on the Ordzhonikidze - which had brought the Soviet leader to Britain for talks - in Portsmouth Harbour.

Papers released at the National Archives set out his last known hours.

The Admiralty documents make clear that whoever sent him on his mission, it was not the Royal Navy.

Read full article: 'Details on vanished 'spy' diver'

There's good money to be made by those willing to tackle underwater oil and gas work. Diver shortage is deeply felt.

By BRETT CLANTON

It used to be a novelty for Mike Oden to stick a thumbtack into the map on his office wall. Each tack meant the recruiter at Houston's Ocean Corp., one of the nation's biggest commercial diving schools, had landed another student from outside the U.S.

These days, however, new tacks are going up all the time. China, Colombia, Pakistan — more than 40 countries in all are represented, and the list keeps growing.

The word is out about the shortage of divers in the oil and gas industry, and the good money even young recruits can make by going into the dark and cold depths of the sea to do work few are willing and able to do.

Read full article: 'Strong demand for divers in oil and gas industry'

Portishead, UK (Oct 11, 2006 19:48 EST) A former Portishead schoolboy, who set a world record breaking dive half a century ago, is to unveil a plaque to remember his achievement.

British Royal Navy diver Lt George Wookey, who now lives in Australia, is to unveil the plaque near the diving site at Sorfjorden, Arna in Norway at a special ceremony tomorrow.

Read full article: 'World Record Diver Honored with Plaque'

Nitrox is part of the diving landscape now, but has it turned out to be the brave new future of diving predicted 10 years ago? John Liddiard investigates...

IT'S STRANGE TO THINK THAT, JUST OVER A DECADE AGO, technical diving was the new big thing. Not the deep wreck exploration that gets the press these days, just simple things like using nitrox on an average 24m dive to double no-stop times.

Read full article: 'What happened to nitrox?'

In the old days of brass helmets and dangerous depths, Phil Fatolitis was a model of macho. Now he’s a model of longevity.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG, Times Staff Writer
Published September 28, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS -- The old man still dreams about the bottom of the sea. He dreams about sponges, about tiger sharks, about big-hearted men he figured would live forever but are now gone.

“It is hard getting old,’’ the old man said. Of course it is. You outlive your friends. Your body rebels. Your short-term memory fails. And yet you can’t forget.

He has not forgotten the time he found a body. He pulled on his helmet, descended to the bottom and lumbered against the tide to look for a sponge diver who had become incommunicado.

Read full article: 'The last of a diving breed'

News Update as at 31st August 2006
DEEP Indonesia 2007, Indonesia’s First International Diving, Adventure Travel and Watersport Exhibition, has made significant progress in ensuring the success of the event by adding key supporting stakeholders :

Read full article: 'DEEP Indonesia 2007'

Read full article: 'Mystery Surrounds Deaths of Coast Guard Divers in the Arctic'

Read full article: 'John Bennett declared legally dead'