Putting on my health and safety hat.

Not of those divers is wearing any safety gear, no life jacket or Stab jacket. There is other gear that we used to carry ( encumbered)

The only bailout item is their weightbelts which if ditched may allow the buoyancy of the wet or dry suits to bring them to the surface. However that could create a big problem as then no control so possible air embolism.

The buoyancy of dive suits always suspect as the thickness of the neoprene reduces with depth.

At 10 metres it’s halved 20 mtrs 1/3 30 mtrs 1/4 of surface thickness, hence under a dry suit you wore thermal suits. With a wet suit you just got cold.

Dry suits usually have an air supply to prevent suit squeeze.

When I started I made my own wet suit, you bought a kit.

Then bought wetsuits and then onto dry suits.

First was what we called a bin liner then neoprene. Our chairman in 1971 wore a naval “ Buster Crab” type.

A wet suit is only any use for short shallow dives due to water temperature. By wearing a dry suit and suitable thermals your dive time and comfort extended.

The down side was the amount of lead on your weight belt, I used about 28 lbs against 12 with a wet suit.

These days Scuba diving has got so technical that the mind boggles. Rebreathers, mixed gases, tri mix etc..

The depths that some now go are WHAT?

They will be of a wreck for say one hour and spend 2 or more just getting back to the surface. Then they may go into a POT, a decompression chamber. These are the pro’s of course.

I don’t know what the members of my branch actually do, but it probably is not much more than I and other did up to 2001.

To do the hard stuff requires a lot of gear and time and therefore £

It still fascinating to me, it’s the best sport that I ever did.

My knowledge is now way out of date.

I only wish that I could be able to go up to dive the wrecks in Scapa Flow.

Allan C.