Product Description
Scuba Diving 101 focuses on bringing together both proven practical knowledge and personal experiences for first time and entry level scuba divers. Subjects include what to expect and how to pass the PADI Open Water Diver certification course, over the counter medications, How not to get left at sea and what to do if you are, managing diving emergencies and much more that is critical to diving safely. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Author Review
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT ALL BEGINNING DIVERS NEED TO READ!
There have been many books written on the subject of Scuba Diving but there has never been a book until now that brings together both proven dive training and personal experiences. This is the perfect book for the person just starting out in scuba diving or the person that is interested in diving and would like a glimpse into what diving really is about. I would urge Dive centers and dive instructors to have their students read this book because not only will it help enhance their skills but it will teach them important safety skills while diving.

Some of the subjects that are covered are:
Overcoming your fears
Who and where can you scuba dive
The different type of scuba diving
Scuba diving equipment and its proper care
Scuba diving certification agencies and choosing which one to use
How to properly wash your dive gear
Dive medicine and safety
Drugs and diving
Over the coutner medications
Decompression Illness
Flying after diving - cracking the code
Common ear injuries
A comprehensive guide to the PADI Open Water Diver certification
Knowledge development
Confined Water Dives
Open Water Dives
Scuba Glossary and Slang
PADI Dive Tables
............ and more

When I started writing this book I decided that it needed to not only contain relevant diving information that you need to be a safe diver and successfully pass the Open Water Diver certification but it should also contain real-life experiences. So with that in mind, in this book you will learn the basics about scuba diving, what it is all about, what you can expect, who can scuba dive, what equipment you will need or not need, and personal experiences of breathing underwater for the first time. I walk through the Open Water Diver certification program so that you will get a thorough understanding of what you will be doing in class, in the pool and in the open water, and also what will be expected of you to pass your first scuba diving certification.
... Read more

Product Description
This all-inclusive guide covers almost 100 dive sites on the islands, pinnacles and banks off the California coast from Point Conception to the Mexican border. From the placid kelp beds of San Clemente in summer to the ocean-fed pinnacles at San Miguel in fall, diving offshore California has special rewards unparalleled in the diving world. This volume covers it all – history, marine life, accommodations, transportation, maps and a host of practical information that will make your offshore California dive trip a successful and memorable one. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Expertly written
The word "California" conjures up all manner of images from sun-drenched beaches to Hollywood - rarely making one think of the offshore islands that have so very much to offer the visiting Scuba Diver.

"Diving Offshore California" measures 10" x 7" and is another guide in the medium size format favoured by Aqua Quest. These particular publishers set high standards and demand all contributing authors/photographers maintain those standards at all times. This is, therefore, another worthy addition to the series.

The book is well laid out thus ensuring every page has the right mix of written information and visually informative colour photographs or maps. Commencing with an overview of the past and the present, the book then goes on to include all that useful information required by any potential visitor - weather, access boat diving, preservation, visibility, photography, currents and much more besides. We are then treated to a map of California showing the location of the offshore islands roughly situated between Santa Barbara and San Diego. The next 13 chapters are then dedicated to each of the featured islands - and one of them even includes diving around oil-rig platforms. A total of over 90 individual dive sites are included and each of these contains all the information the potential visitor will wish to know.

With a final chapter devoted to Marine Life, the book then concludes with a number of Appendices containing that all-important emergency information and useful numbers such as Charter Boats and Dive Centres.

Altogether, this book contains all the information the potential visitor will require for contemplating such a trip. My only criticism is reserved for a couple of the photographs which are not quite sharp enough and might be replaced at the next re-printing stage.

NM

... Read more

Product Description
The beautiful locales, exotic plant and sea life, and relaxing environs of dive locations are even more peaceful when you are armed with the expertise and skill to stay safe in any situation.

With self-rescues, buddy rescues, open-water resuscitation, and towing techniques, Scuba Diving Safety will become your most valuable diving companion. Covering a full range of underwater environments, as well as dangerous marine life, entanglements, and equipment failures, this vital resource is an essential reference for every underwater enthusiast.

Do not rely on someone else--or chance--to keep you safe. Let Scuba Diving Safety help you prepare for the unexpected and provide the confidence to enjoy your underwater adventures to the fullest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Informational and Educational
Another good book from Human kinetics, covers area of like PADI Rescue course matherials, but with more details and real-life expiriences. If you want to enrich your knowledge and you are an inexpiriences (new) diving proffessional, this is the right book for you.

Great Book
This was a great review of safety practices while diving. If you have been certified for awhile and have not attended training for a few years this is a great book to get you back up to speed.

It says Survival Guide - It really is...
It does say on the cover that it is the survival guide - it really is. I readquite a few rescue diver manuals, but this completes it. From the planning to the equipment to the environment to the first aid, everything is technically covered. There are some sections that provide some tips on diving skills, and dive professionals should pay attentions to them as those little things can save a lot of your time and your students' in the class while you actually are passing important dive safety tips down to them.

Some sections, especially rescue technique sections, were visually explained so that a reader can visualize the body positions also.

Orr's Safety Stop section was added touch to the book as it is based on the real story and experience. Some of them made me think of what I would do if I were in his position so that a rescue would be conducted safely.

As certified dive equipment repair technician, I seriously appreciated Equipment section of the book. It is easy to forget that we carry life-support equipment while having fun underwater, and this book not only took it seriously but pointed out the basic facts that are easily forgotten by divers in professional manner.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to all divers as this is easy to read comparing to other dive safety books out there that make my head scratch, but I'd highly recommend to all rescue-level divers that want to extend their knowledge in overall dive safety, and instructors should definitely use this book as a reference and addition to your dive safety related courses and encourage your students to obtain a copy. They say that the knowledge is a power, but it really is. ... Read more

Product Description
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Cozumel offer some of the Caribbean's most exciting diving experiences including the new frontier of the sport: cenote (sinkhole) diving.Explore this vast world of underwater caves and passages--more than 100 miles of them--and learn about Chichorro Banks, an unspoiled area, charted for the first time in this guide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Just what I was looking for.
This is the 3rd dive travel book I have purchased writen by Lawson Wood. He covers all the information you will need to plan a dive trip to Cozumel, Cancun and the Mayan Riviera. Besides the 160 dive and snorkel sites there is a brief history of the area and lots of travel tips. If you are a diver you will like the dive site discriptions and underwater photography. This is one of the best books of its kind on diving in the Mayan Riviera area.

good coffee table book on dive sites of the Yucatan
This book is very nicely arranged and designed. The writing is clear and concise and well thought out. The sections on the marine environments and diver safety were great. Not so great were directions getting to some of the dive locations. The author may have visited most of the dive sites on a dive boat and never attempted to reach the locations by car. We are snokelers and tried unsuccessfully to reach some of described locations on the Mexican Riviera. The map of the Mexican Riviera was not good. The scale was off by an order of magnitude. A few of the roads listed in the book on the map were not actually there. Some of the actual roads were not on the map. Most roads going from Highway 307 toward the shore are hotel private property. We repeatedly got turned around by uniformed personnel at hotel gates and had to give up reaching dive sites. It might be useful in future editions to tell how to get to a location by car. Giving GPS coordinates would be good too. This is a good book for planning a diving trip to the Yucatan area. But not so great once you get there.

A Good Book Overall But Lacking For A True Adventurer
This is a good book for someone visiting the Quintanna Roo Coast and Cozumel who is going to use commercial dive operators for most of their diving. For the true adventurer however it is not really adequate. Why? Well say you need to find a reef on your ocean kayak and you are without a dive guide. This book will not really help you find that reef because it does not go into exact reef location detail, it just says like 100 yards off beach X. Well those beaches in Cozumel are long white strips of sand and are prettty much indistinguishable from one another. Also, no information on where to camp on Cozumel and on the Quintanna Roo Coast. It does however have good reef descriptions, general travel info and helpfull advice for tourists.

General travel guide and dive guide together
The dive sites of COZUMEL AND THE YUCATAN, the comprehensive coverage of diving and snorkeling by Lawson Wood is a decent generalist travel guide covering the history, climate, maps, travel tips, basics of diving andsnorkeling, brief rating of selected dive sites, nice photos anddescriptions of underwater marine environment and animals, ..etc...Fourregions are covered: Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Isla Contoy, Cozumel, theCaribbean coast (Cenote dive sites described)in 176 pages.There is somebasic travel info(places to eat, stay, and play)however, no reviews areprovided to base a decision...lots of phone numbers though.

The bookrates dive sites by the following factors: Location, Access, DiveConditions, Min. Depth, Max. Depth, Average Visibility, Basic descriptionof what you may see at the dive site.There are 55 dive sites rated forCozumel, 14 for Cancun, 12 for Isla Contoy and Isla Mujeres, and 72 alongthe Caribbean Coast. Each review is about 120 - 150 words.

Page 3 ofthis book acknowledges all the organizations used for the info in this bookand the photograph equipment used for the underwater pictures...a goodsource of contacts.

This book is great if you are thinking abouttraveling and diving for the first time to the Yucatan and want to knowwhat to expect when you get there.Advanced divers looking for more divesite descriptions and dive maps may be disappointed...therefore 4 stars fora GENERAL Travel guide and dive guide together. ... Read more

Product Description
Nitrox has gained wide acceptance in the recreationalscuba diving community over the past few decades.While it is widelyused by the military as well as technical, commercial and scientificdivers, the techniques, procedures, and tables have been refined tothe point that with training, nitrox diving can be safe and enjoyablefor the recreational open-circuit scuba diver.

This authoritative guide provides in-depth discussions of physics,physiology, oxygen toxicity and oxygen limits.It reviews the latestsafeguards and procedures, equipment considerations, and guides thereader through easy-to-follow nitrox dive planning examples.Includedare nitrox planning tables plus the latest NOAA oxygen limits.Thisbook is a must for every certified or prospective nitrox diver. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

wonderfull
Nitrox diving explained clearly from an expert.
I highly recommend it to all divers no mater
they will ever use nitrox or not.
It helps indepth understanding of gas physics and
diving physiology.Easy to read as well!
Thanks to the author and Amazon of course!

Somebody messed up the MOD table (3-2, p37)
This is really a very good book which is unfortunately the victim of a flawed table that was not caught during the editing process.Three of the columns in the "Maximum Operating Depth" table (3-2 on page 37), corresponding to PO2 Max of 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 list a depth of 130+ in every cell from EAN24 to EAN40.This is not only impossible, but fairly obviously so when noting that depth numbers for a given line should decrease moving right to left (less conservative to more conservative).One can create their own corrected MOD table by using the following equation:

MOD = 33*((PO2/FO)-1)

where:MOD is Maximum Operating Depth (in feet)
PO2 is Partial Pressure of Oxygen (i.e. 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 . . . 1.6)
FOis Fraction of Oxygen (i.e. 0.24, 0.26, 0.28 . . . 0.40)

The author uses standard rounding, but you can round down for a more conservative table if desired.But don't take my word for any of this.Every diver is ultimately responsible for themselves.Check your own gear, verify your own blend, derive the equation yourself so you can see where it comes from and don't take anything for granted.I'm not so surprised that the table is bad as I am that four people gave the book 5-star reviews, apparently without even noticing that fact.

Aside from the above issue, the book is well written and has a great deal of useful info.The photos and diagrams are clear and there is even a glossary of the terms and acronyms that were used.Overall the writing is concise and well organized and the calculation examples are simple and easy to follow.I recommend "Recreational Nitrox Diving", not as a substitute for a certification course in NITROX, but as a compact, handy reference on the subject.

Straight up
This book is great for a quick overview of nitrox diving.If you dont know to much much about nitrox diving this book will be great for you.It offers alot of information in a very understandable way.

Good nitrox info
This book is probably the best value for your money right now if you want to learn to dive with nitrox. I also read another online nitrox course booklet and attended a NAUI nitrox course, and this book was better than either one alone, though they did add new things to my understanding of nitrox and scuba diving in general.

Contains inaccuracies
I bought this book in preparation for diving Nitrox on a dive vacation.One of the tables simply did not make sense.I contacted the publisher, who, after at least 2 emails from me, provided me with corrections by .pdf file.I subsequently asked the publisher how it intended to address the clear inaccuracies in this book and received no response.Further, although the publisher includes errata for certain books on its website (www.bestpub.com), despite my notification of these errors, it has issued no similar errata for "Recreational Nitrox."In my opinion, anyone relying upon this book without inquiring into the validity of the information provided therein is misplacing their reliance. ... Read more

Product Description
SCUBA Scoop answers more than 115 of the most frequently asked questions regarding recreational SCUBA diving.SCUBA Scoop contains more than 120 black and white images related to diving, a list of certifying agencies, certification cost and open water equipment check lists, and the best places for the novice to dive world wide.SCUBA Scoop also contains, a survey of 499 U.S. dive shops as to the best dive sites in the U.S. by state, a reference section including SCUBA periodicals, a diving etiquette section, a short history of SCUBA, an extensive glossary of terms, and an index.SCUBA Scoop is not a training manual.It answers questions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Informative and fun to read
This book answers a lot of questions for those comtemplating taking a scuba course and reminds experienced divers of a lot of things they have forgotten.Authors humor makes book more entertaining and easier to read.

An invaluable introduction to scuba diving for fun & sport.
Scuba Scoop is a "user friendly" compendium of answers to themore than 115 most frequently asked questions by novice divers regardingthe recreational sport of scuba diving. Gary Shumway's straightforward textis enhanced with more than 120 black and white images related to diving, alist of certifying agencies, certification costs, open water equipmentcheck lists, and the best places for the beginner to dive world wide. Asurvey of 499 U.S. dive shops, organized by state is also provided as are areference section of scuba diving periodicals, a section on divingetiquette, a short history of scuba diving, an extensive glossary of terms,and an index. Scuba Scoop is not an instruction manual on the sport, butrather a handy, reliable, comprehensive reference for questions on andabout the sport of scuba diving, especially designed for the newcomer toone of the most fun forms of athletic recreation and exploration availabletoday. ... Read more

Product Description
A book from the diver’s perspective on owning, maintaining, transporting, operating, and diving from their own boat. The book includes detailed information on selecting and outfitting a boat, trailering, and diving operations. Special sections were included for recreational diving, scientific diving, and search and rescue operations. An excellent guide to buying and outfitting a small diving boat. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great book, especially for the beginning boat owner
I bought this book to give me some tips about diving from a small boat. Specifically, I was interested in diving from a kayak, which is the boat that I dive from.

The book doesn't get into diving from kayaks, but I am going to keep it just in case I ever decide to buy a powered boat. This is because the book covers so much about what to look for in buying, maintaining, and, to a smaller extent, diving from a powered boat.

By the way, diving from a kayak is great, but it does take a lot of effort. You have to put it on your car, take it off the car at the dive site, load it, and haul it to the water.

When you are done diving, at the time when you shouldn't be doing a lot of exercise because of the possibility of bringing on decompression illness, you will now have to haul the loaded kayak (either that or make multiple trips with the gear) to the car, unload it, and then put the kayak on top of the car.

Then, when you get home, in addition of rinsing/soaking your gear and wetsuit, you will have to take the kayak off the car. This whole process adds at least two to three hours to my dive day.

I just bought a dive scooter and that make it a lot easier to get the my favorite dive sites than using the kayak. I'll still use the kayak on days I'm not going to dive or when I feel like making the extra effort.

Before you buy a boat for diving you need to read this book!
Absolutely EXCELLENT! A well organized reference any SCUBA diver should read before purchasing a boat. It points out the numerous pit-falls to avoid, the expenses and maintenance necessary, and what to look for basedupon where and what type of diving you do. This book provides details onmany issues the average diver would not consider prior to purchasing aboat, including whether it would be worthwhile to own a boat or considerrentals instead. Anyone planning to purchase a boat for diving should buythis book first!

Wayne Sundmacher Co-Author "Whitewater RescueManual" ... Read more

Product Description

Comprising some 40 islands and cays in the northeast corner of the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands are low-key and uncommercial. Topside, they offer lush subtropical forests and endless pristine beaches. Underwater, divers and snorkelers delight in coral-covered pinnacles, caverns, walls and shipwrecks, including the famed 19th-century RMS Rhone. Once a notorious pirate hideaway, today's British Virgin Islands continue to be a sailors' paradise and are counted among the Caribbean's premier yachting destinations. This book describes 63 of the British Virgin Islands' best dive sites, with full-color photos throughout.

You'll get specific information on:

• depth range, access and conditions
• Common and hazardous marine life
• Topside activities and attractions
• Diving services, live-aboards and yacht charters
• 8 easy-to-read maps

Customer Reviews (2)

An essential guide to BVI diving and snorkeling
This book picks out the twenty-one best diving sites in the British VirginIslands and gives a page or two of descriptive text about each.Each divesite has one or more pictures to show the reader what to expect.Each divesite also has some general descriptions such as the typical depth, thecurrent condidtions, how to access the site, and what expertise isrequired.There is a map on which all of the sites are located.There isa rating system the book uses to inform the diver whether a place issuitable for a beginner or an expert.The book also serves as a generalguide to the BVI, including history, food, culture, lodging, and touristinformation.The book includes some helpful tips on diving in the BVI andwarns about the dangers underwater.

Very comprehensive
Our group used this guide in doing dives from our yacht in the BVI.I found it to be comprehensive enough to help us to find the dive sites fairly well without asking too many questions of the locals.There wereonly one or two sites which we wanted to dive which we didn't find.

Iliked the ratings of the dives from beginner to expert but I think adding a'star' rating would help people to determine what particular dive to choosewhen there are many choices.Also helpful would be to include a map of thedive site (some other dive books do this) which would help in planning thedive.These are the only reasons I didn't give this book a 5 star rating.

This book was also valuable in explaining potential problems with divessuch as currents or choppy seas.It also provided the maximum and minimumdepths and these were pretty much on target.The book was definitely avaluable asset on our trip. ... Read more

Product Description
If you like mystery, suspense, and drama, Diving Into Darkness is for you. Night diving is a dark, rich experience which cannot be achieved by simply flipping the switch on a new dive light. This book logically and thoroughly presents the many factors separating day and night diving, and it outlines useful procedures to make night diving as safe as possible. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Superb
The autor is an expert in the profesional and recreational scuba
diving.The book was worth each eurocent I paid for it.
I heartly reccomend it to any scuba passionate!
Night diving is no longer a mystery for me!
Thanks Amazon as well!

An Excellent Resource
This is an excellent book on night scuba diving.It is easy to read and very infomative, I sugggest it to all my diving students!
Current and up-to-date! ... Read more

Product Description
The world's second-longest barrier reef, three of the Western Hemisphere's four coral atolls, more than 400 fish species and a host of invertebrates sheltering in warm Caribbean waters make Belize an irresistable destination for divers and snorkelers alike. This guide will introduce you to the wonders both underwater and topside that have earnt the country its reputation as an ecotourism hotspot.

In This Guide:

Detailed dive information to 82 sites
Full-color photos throughout
Easy-to-read maps of dive regions
Guide to marine life
Travel logistics and topside attractions
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Diving Belize
Handy little book to have when planning a trip to the area. Nice compact size, so easy take along as a reference guide. Lonely Planet guide books are known for thier attention to detail in all categories of a trip using 4or5 contributors. Missing from this one are details on accomadations and dining. For me a dining section is not the most important, but listing details on hotels and the like gives travelers a useful heads up, also the purpose of the guide book. Lonely Planet strayed from their signature format, I'm afraid, by being very informative for the diver while he's under water, but then leavoing him high and dry on the surface. All in all they did a yeomans job, but if I go to Belize, I'll need to surf the net for necessary info on where to stay inthe former British Honduras, Belize.

Usefull Book for Divemasters
With this book, you get a overview on the Belizean Dive Sites.
Because Belize has so many cayes and each of them has so many dive sites, its nearly impossible to cover them all. This Book is a nice try and worth to read it. The only way to know more about the dive sites in Belize, is just jump in to the water and dive.

Not reallly about snorkeling..
The pictures are great.. but the book is not really about snorkeling. We went where the divemaster took us (Hol Chan, Shark Ray Alley, Mexican Hat) on our snorkeling trips and book didn't really add to the experience. I wish I'd had a picture book with some more information about the fish/corals/crustaceans and their behavior.

Great book lots of pics
I like this book because it is right on with the dives we went on.Very Accurate.They don't chum the blue hole anymore though, thank god.

Scuba & Snorkeling in Belize
This book has great information, but be aware that it doesn't even begin to cover 1/2 the Cayes in Belize.In fact it only mentioned one that we visited while sailing for 7 days.Use this guide as an accompaniment to other info. ... Read more

Product Description
The complete source book for the sport diver:

-Covers basic equipment and accessories: how to evaluate, use, and maintain them
-Lists and describes certifying organizations, training programs, and publications
-Introduces the reader to specialty diving: cave, ice, and wreck diving; diving at night for gold or for archaeological purposes
-A special chapter on underwater photography: schools and labs; cameras and camera housings; care and maintenance; tricks of the trade
-First-person accounts by famous divers
-A section on fish and marine mammals: identification aids; collecting tropicals; avoiding dangerous species
-The travelling diver: dive areas around the world; adapting equipment
-Boats for divers: inflatables; charter boat diving; basic boating safety

Profusely illustrated with 75 line drawings and 275 photographs, The Sport Diving Catalog is written so that the reader can open it to any page and begin reading, as the text consists of short, self-contained articles. A unique reference book no diver, amateur or professional, should be without.
... Read more

Product Description
Yoga for Scuba Divers teaches you poses, breathing exercises, visualization methods, and yoga ethics that make you a better diver. By practicing the poses you can: enhance your finning techniques and underwater stability, build core power and abdominal control to fine-tune your buoyancy, and improve your balance and strength for walks on the shore in full gear. The breathing exercises teach you to breathe steadily during physical exertion, keeping you calm under water. All the yoga poses are practiced on land. Yoga for Scuba Divers includes visualizations to prepare you mentally for upcoming dives. Athletes use visualization to enhance performance; it's powerful for divers, too. You will also learn yoga principles, such as non-violence, and how they apply to divers. Todd Stedl is a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. Kimberlee Jensen Stedl is a Registered Yoga Teacher and an American Council on Exercise Faculty member. Together they have been diving and doing yoga since they met in 2002. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Not very usefull
I scuba dive a lot and started doing yoga recently. The potential usefulness of yoga for diving struck me, and so I bought this book. I can't say that I learned much which I had not learned or couldn't learn just as well or better from other Yoga instruction and publications. I didn't learn anything new about diving.

The book comes across as written by Yoga instructors who took up scuba diving a while ago (reaching the instructor level) and also saw the useful connection. Then they wrote an fairly average Yoga-instruction book and added a few pages about diving. The exercises are mostly pretty standard yoga exercises. There is very little depth to the connection between diving and yoga. Fining uses leg muscles? That was not surprising to me.

Also, I must say, what always makes me suspicious is the over abundance of quotations from famous people to -often- cover up the lack of content in a book. Typically, Einstein and Gandhi are heavily abused for this purpose. You'll find lots of slightly out of context words of wisdom in this book!

Appreciation
I appreciate the work the author went through to get something like this published for divers.I'm sure there wasn't a lot of money in it as there aren't that many divers in the world and of them, how many would spend the time to do yoga?So I am most grateful for all the work that was expended on getting this volume, that speaks to a divers needs on using the powerful techniques of yoga, into my hands.

good book
just started yoga at local gym, books shows all the poses we normally do, fills in all the gaps the instructor leaves out.
going scuba diving in october, see how this effects the dive.

do you NEED it? no, but do you WANT it?? sure!
as someone just getting in to yoga, it is still interesting to me to find all the ways yoga can help. i am also a scuba diver and this book simply helps point out the obvious ways specific yoga poses can help get a diver prepared. this is not the most all-inclusive yoga book you could buy, but for a diver, this is a nicely done additional tool to use.

Great, but wish it was spiral bound
I am an avid scuba diver, and I thoroughly enjoy yoga, so I thought this would be a great book.It is!My one complaint in the bind on the book.It would be much better if it was spiral bound, so you can leave it open during your workout.I took my book to Office Max and had this done for about $3, and now it is perfect.I work out with it almost every morning.On my last dive, I noticed I was using significantly less air than normal, and it is a site I visit regularly.I attribute my better air consumption to my yoga workouts from this book. ... Read more

Product Description
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. ... Read more

Product Description
An authoritative and encouraging guide to SCUBA diving for the beginner or intermediate enthusiast, this book contains expert advice and step-by-step illustrations on how to perfect key skills, how to buy and maintain equipment, what the different diving options are, and where to find classic dive sites around the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Scuba Diving book
Very easy to find the book I was searching for, great service from the book provider. Book was received in a timely manner, so all-in-all, I would be likely to order more books in the future.

Excellent Book
Very current, wide range of topics (equipment, techniques, dive sites, marine life, etc.), lots of great color photos, well written, nicely organized, and it's the perfect size.

If you're only going to have one book on diving, this should be it.

Give this book as a present to a SCUBA diver or a diver-to-be!
There are many books on SCUBA diving.And there are many books on a variety of topics published by DK.There is only a single book on SCUBA diving published by DK!Diving makes a superb topic for a publishing company like DK, with the high-quality color photos, the mix of photos, diagrams, and texts, and the use of no-nonsense models to feature equipment and techniques.

This book focused on the history of diving, diving fundamentals, diving physiology, equipment, techniques, natural history, and diving sites.It did all these things pretty well.There was great detail in some things, like how wet suits work to keep you warm, and less in others, such as specifics of great dive sites of the world.

I did enjoy this book.My favorite dive sites were not featured but I didn't feel slighted.I did want more details of the featured sites, such as California's kelp forests off Monterey.I guess I'll look elsewhere for some information to help plan this particular dive.Another omission that I thought this book really needed was a copy of dive tables and instructions on how to use them.Why wasn't this fundamental and important issue discussed?Liability?Potential revisions of future dive tables?

Finally, I noticed that there was a reference that sea turtles withdraw their flippers into their shells if threatened.Not for sea turtles!Extra shell is just extra weight and drag for swimming sea turtles, and natural selection has encouraged a modification of the strategy common in land turtles.Also, those bigger sea turtle muscles really fill up the space between the carapace and the plastron (upper and lower shell, respectively).

This book is an excellent gift for the new, the novice, and the experienced diver.

Beautifully designed and illustrated guide to diving
Eyewitness Companions: Scuba Diving is one in a whole series of "Eyewitness" books, each of which describes all aspects of a hobby or passion. I initially hesitated buying it because it is fairly expensive and seemed to cover the same scuba diving basics -- equipment, physics, physiology, navigating, marine life, different types of diving, photography and video, places to go and so on -- as various other scuba intro books. Yet, I found myself picking it up again and again in the bookstore because it is different from any other diving book. And eventually I bought it.

What sets Eyewitness Companions: Scuba Diving apart is its presentation. For starters, it's sort of a hybrid between hardcover and paperback with some genuine innovations. For example, the front and back covers have three inch flaps that double as a quick and handy table of contents and also as a built-in bookmark. Very clever. The second big difference compared to many other diving books -- many of which are a bit bare-bones -- is the gorgeous layout and design. Here, again, Eyewitness is a hybrid, one between a book and a magazine. Virtually every two page spread has at least three superb photographs, illustrating and explaining the topic at hand. And photos are not just printed as plain rectangles in a box. No, they are pathed, they fade in and out, the are combined, overlayed and neatly labeled and described. Typography and organization are first rate, all geared towards providing information clearly and concisely, but also in an interesting, appealing way.

As a result, while the narrative and explanations are simple and straightforward, you simply get more in this book. Instead of a brief chapter on a topic, you get a thoughtfully subdivided and excellently edited version that describes all aspects, has beautiful photos, several illustrations, how-tos, equipment close-ups, and often sidebars, graphs and charts. The section on freediving, for example, not only describes the sport and shows excellent pictures, it also has a clever graph that illustrates diving depths as they relate to the Statue of Liberty and Big Ben. All of it is professional quality. Yet, whereas magazines are often all style and little substance, Eyewitness Comnpanions: Scuba Diving skillfully uses all those visuals to merge information and illustrations into a polished, informative publication that's as close to multimedia as a printed book can get.

Travelers will enjoy the over 60 description of popular dive locations, sorted by continent. Each, of course, with pictures, statistics, and relevant information. Sections on underwater life are equally interesting, with great pictures and many interesting facts and tidbits.

This is a unique book that is really much more than the sum of its parts. It's an excellent example how an almost magazine-style approach to book design can result in something that is both informative and a real pleasure to read. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a book for divers who (like to) read. Scuba and skin diving can provide a delightful (if brief) escape from our topside travails, or an outlet for our fascination with technology and gadgets. But it also offers the opportunity for introspection, exaltation, and riveting action --in short, the stuff of great writing. Down Time explores this deeper side of diving.

It's a diverse collection. Beginning in 1928 and continuing to the present, the selections are hilarious, serious, bizarre, beguiling, but always engaging reading. In essays and novels, magazine articles, poems and short stories the authors take us to tropical reefs, lightless caverns, and under the ice. A glance at the table of contents reveals famous names, forgotten heroes, distinguished and talented writers -- all lucky enough to have been underwater when inspiration, or adventure, struck. Thanks to them, Down Time explores the underwater experience in ways most readers (and most divers) haven't encountered. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

A great read!
It is hard to get across the myriad of feelings one experiences in Scuba diving. This collection succeeds in doing so. Particularly good was the selection from Philippe Diole , "Mingled Atoms." In short, I emphatically recommend this collection to both divers and non divers.

To Random and Hard to Read
This book has some good information in it but it is poorly put together and extremely hard to read.

60% dull
I consider myself to be an avid diver and reader, so I'm naturally drawn to books that cover a wide berth of topics regarding the ocean and diving.This particular book I had a difficult time wanting to finish.The perspective of the stories were grossly limited by both the recurrent theme of being a new/first time diver and by the fact that few were written after the mid 1970's.There are a few gems amongst the chapters, Dave Berry's lobstering for instance, but the wade through the rest of the book was tiresome.My advise is do not purchase, visit the Library and be willing to skip large portions.

Fascinating collection of stories, butlimited appeal to nondivers
As a diver, this collection of stories is varied and most of them are fascinating.With any collection, there is bound to be some that are similar and some that are not for everyone's taste.I didn't like most of the poems, for instance.I have to say I really enjoyed most of the stories though.I found the cave diving stories spellbinding.

My only caution would be that I think the book appeals most to divers or those with an interest in diving.It is a great gift for such a person.

Decent collection, not all stories fantastic
I recently read this collection of stories while on a nice tropical vacation where I did a couple of dives - so was in the mood. Below, I have broken down some of the positives and negatives that I took away from this collection:

The positives: This is without a doubt a comprehensive collection of writings - in terms of the time period covered and styles of writing (humor, poetry, etc). I thought that some of the stories were really great - couldn't help but laugh at Dave Barry's description of diving. I found a few of the older pieces very interesting due to the historic perspective / context.

The negatives:Any time you take on a project to complile a collection this large across different writing styles, it should be a given that all pieces are not going to appeal to all readers. About 25% of the stories simply did not appeal to me.

Secondly, there also seemed to be arecurring "What my first dive was like" or "What it feels like when you are down there" theme. I also found this a bit tiresome after awhile.As a diver, unending explanations of how clear and blue water is, the sense of weightlessness, etc got to be a bit much. Almost drove me to the best example I could think of - a bottle of Bombay Gin.

Closing:A large enough body of work that I think that every reader will find some of the stories very worthy reading.Light enough for a good vacation or bedtime read. Worthy enough purchase - I think a good gift type of purchase for that diver's christmas fin.

... Read more

Product Description
SCUBA diving is thriving in the New York Area. The diving up here is much more challenging than warm water destinations due to our local conditions of cold temperatures, low visibility and currents. Written for both the diver and the non-diver, this book draws the reader into the exciting world of Northeast Technical SCUBA Diving. The book opens with an 'Introduction to SCUBA Diving' that explains the equipment, local conditions and dangers of diving to those new to the sport.Consisting of over 70 true stories of local dives this book has the reader descending with the author on numerous local shipwrecks such as the USS San Diego and ocean liner Oregon, both over 500 feet long and sunk in the Atlantic off of Long Island.The book also contains a number of dive site maps.The stories, chronicle the author's diving adventures and what it feels like to dive locally both exploring the wrecks and from popular shore diving sites .A site/equipment index allows the reader to also use the book to experience specific wrecks and sites. Let's say you have never dove the USS San Diego, a naval Armored Cruiser that sank in 1918 off of Fire Island. You can easily find all the stories about dives on her in order of increasing difficulty. Or you are considering getting an underwater scooter. You can locate all the stories where a scooter was an important part. Perhaps you want to understand how a reel helps keep a diver from getting lost inside a wreck or what its like to be entangled by a line of reel inside a wreck. Interested in finding out more of the dangers of technical decompression diving? It's all here in this book. This book takes you diving.. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

wonderful read
This book was a great read. The author is a great person and he inspired me to go out and wreck dive too. He also cares about his fans because he answered my email. He also indirectly inspired me to get into the IT field. There were several funny moments in his book so I go a few laughs and raised eyebrows. So if you are into wreck diving too and want a little laughs and inspiration on the side, this book is for you. I would recommend it to anyone, even if they aren't into what the book is about.

Scuba diving The Wrecks And Shorers Of Long Island, NY
I have been Scuba Diving off of the NJ coast for over 20 years.I found this book very entertaining, and suprisingly informative.David describes his exploits in an easy to understanding manner, even for the non diver.But within his narrative are many helpful hints, even for the experienced diver.I looked forward to reading it every night till completed.I hope David has another bunch of stories to tell in the future.I will surely be a customer again.Thanks.

A wonderful personal diary and chronological account of Long Island diving!
Long Island New York is one of the best training grounds for Technical Wreck diving in the USA. Some consider the northeast a cold and treacherous environment that makes words like dive, and fun, sound absurd in the same sentence. But not wreck divers! David Rosenthal's book, Scuba Diving the Wrecks and Shores of Long Island NY, consists of over 70 of David's own personal adventures taken directly from his diving logs. Well written, this book is informative and truly an "eye opener" in regard to the wondrous world waiting to be discovered amongst New York's local shipwrecks and popular diving sites.

The stories are written more as a personal diary and chronological account of his day to day diving activities and the result is one of those rare reads that you just cannot put down. What a refreshing break from the norm of most diving books out there, that are full of facts and dates but don't allow you to live the moment. David puts you in the dive gear, splashes you in the water, and invites you to dive with him!

Every chapter makes you feel like you are a character in an adventure novel. One minute you're diving one of the 500 foot plus wrecks like the USS San Diego or the Oregon ocean liner. The next you are zooming up and down local beaches at the East Rockaway Inlet trying to beat the tides and the changing currents on your underwater scooter. Then it's off to catch a dive at Ponquogue Bridge, or maybe wrestling the waves on dive charters like the Lockness or Eagle's Nest; not to mention the seasickness, the marine life, lessons about the bends, and even now and again, a little wry humor that only David can pull off.Each chapter introduces you to a new location and another journey taken right from his past experiences. If you have never been diving in Long Island, you will feel as you have after reading Scuba Diving the Wrecks and Shores of Long Island NY!

David takes you below the water with him and he shows you the rest of the story that encompasses a diver's life. Things like packing gear the night before and setting the alarm clock for 3 am to catch the early morning dive boat trip to finding time to squeeze in a shore dive just before work in the morning and knowing the perfectlocal cafe to enjoy the best pre-dive egg sandwich and coffee in town. This book takes you diving!

Whether you are the most dedicated technical diver, a new wreck diver, or just want to know more about the history in the waters off of Long Island, Scuba Diving the Wrecks and Shores of Long Island NY deserves a place in your library. It's a journey diver and non-divers will enjoy.

Highly Recommended for Divers and Non Diver Alike
This book is a very interesting, entertaining, and enlightening narrative of the author's adventures SCUBA diving in the Long Island area. The author skillfully combines the suspense and challenge of his escapades with wry humor and fascinating historical anecdotes surrounding the sunken vessels he explores. As a diver myself, I found the tips and suggestions highly valuable, but you don't have to be a diver to enjoy this gem.

Excellent
I am not a SCUBA diver. I had to read this book for my job, and I was pleasantly surprised. It is not very often when I want to hurry up and finish my day and get home to continue reading a story. And these are true stories. It reads like an adventure, and reminded me of adventure books I read in my youth. I also found myself laughing out loud, like when the author was taken over by currents and finds himself in the middle of the Rockaways on an island with Firemen trainees geared up in his dive suit post 9/11 and exclaims as they are running towards him, "this isn't France!". Some of these wreck dives the author went on sound downright scary and dangerous, yet their is a coziness about them. You can feel the pain of the early morning cold minimized by the sheer love of adventure, (and warmed up by an egg sandwich and cup of coffee). There is also a sense of history, and many interesting details. Yes, read this book, and live something you wouldn't ordinarily live. ... Read more

Product Description
A DRM free book.

* The Scuba Diving Handbook
o Diver Training
o Diving Safely
o Learning How to Breath
o Diving Equipment
o Diving Preparation
o Handling Dive Emergencies
o Physiological Concepts
o Adapting to Diving
o Planning Your Dive
o Environment
o Diving As a Career
o What is Skin Diving?
o Tips to Conserve Air
o About Night Diving
o Top Diving Locations

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reduntant, poorly written and lacking depth
This book is not very helpful at all. It is very poorly written -full of poor grammar and redundant information. It also gives very little real information that can be useful to people with any dive experience.

If you know nothing about diving, a little web research and a conversation with your local (or hotel) dive instructor will provide better information than this book does.If you have some experience and are looking for a book to brush up on core concepts or guide you in your next steps in diving, this book will simply be of no help at all.

At least the book is quite inexpensive, but I still think that $3 is too much for this poorly written, information-light pamphlet. ... Read more