In Kevin McMurray's book, Deep Descent, Billy Deans is described as "the world's best diver".[1]
Billy Deans was one of the early pioneers in relation to the use of trimix for deep diving. During the exploration of U-869 chronicled in the best selling book, Shadow Divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler sought instruction from Billy Deans in the use of trimix (which had, until then, largely been restricted to cave exploration diving in Florida). These presaged a number of North Eastern wreck divers to seek trimix training from Billy Deans, leading to its popularity as a deep diving breathing gas.[2]
Billy Deans has been involved in a number of high-profile shipwreck expeditions over the years, including Gary Gentile's expedition to the USS Monitor, various exploration dives on the SS Andrea Doria,[3] the USS Wilkes-Barre and U-2513. In late 1993, Billy Deans served as Dive Operations Officer for an expedition recovering treasure and artifacts from a Spanish brigantine which sank in the Gulf of Mexico off New Orleans.
Billy Deans ran a dive shop (known as Key West Diver) in Key West, FL for many years prior to retiring from diving in 1998.[citation needed]
Trimix is a breathing gas consisting of oxygen, helium and nitrogen and is used in deep commercial diving, during the deep phase of dives carried out using technical diving techniques, and in advanced recreational diving.
Technical diving is scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving for non-professional purposes. Technical diving may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to greater risk of serious injury or death. The risk may be reduced by appropriate skills, knowledge and experience, and by using suitable equipment and procedures. The skills may be developed through appropriate specialised training and experience. The equipment often involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, and multiple gas sources.
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
The International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD) is a scuba diving organization concerned with certification and training in recreational diving, technical diving, cave diving, wreck diving, rebreather diving and diver leadership. Formed in 1985, it pioneered the introduction of Enriched Air Nitrox diving to the recreational diving community. The European Association of Technical Divers (EATD) became part of IANTD in 1993.
SS Andrea Doriapronounced [anˈdrɛːa ˈdɔːrja], was an ocean liner for the Italian Line home-ported in Genoa, Italy, known for her sinking in 1956, where 46 people died.
Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving where the diver uses a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba), which is completely independent of surface supply, to breathe underwater. Scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, allowing them greater independence and freedom of movement than surface-supplied divers, and longer underwater endurance than breath-hold divers. Although the use of compressed air is common, a mixture of air and oxygen called enriched air or nitrox has become popular due to its benefit of reduced nitrogen intake during long or repetitive dives. Open circuit scuba systems discharge the breathing gas into the environment as it is exhaled, and consist of one or more diving cylinders containing breathing gas at high pressure which is supplied to the diver through a regulator. They may include additional cylinders for range extension, decompression gas or emergency breathing gas. Closed-circuit or semi-closed circuit rebreather scuba systems allow recycling of exhaled gases. The volume of gas used is reduced compared to that of open circuit, so a smaller cylinder or cylinders may be used for an equivalent dive duration. Rebreathers extend the time spent underwater compared to open circuit for the same gas consumption; they produce fewer bubbles and less noise than open circuit scuba which makes them attractive to covert military divers to avoid detection, scientific divers to avoid disturbing marine animals, and media divers to avoid bubble interference.
Scuba Schools International (SSI) is an organization that teaches the skills involved in scuba diving and freediving, and supports dive businesses and resorts. SSI has over 2,500 authorized dealers, 35 regional centers, and offices all over the world.
John Chatterton is an American wreck diver. Together with Richie Kohler, he was one of the co-hosts for the History Channel’s Deep Sea Detectives, for 57 episodes of the series. He is also a consultant to the film and television industries and has worked with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and CBS.
Technical Diving International (TDI) claims to be the largest technical diving certification agency in the world, and one of the first agencies to offer mixed gas and rebreather training. TDI specializes in more advanced Scuba diving techniques, particularly diving with rebreathers and use of breathing gases such as trimix and heliox.
Gary Gentile is an American author and pioneering technical diver.
Master Scuba Diver (MSD) is a scuba diving certification or recognition level offered by several North American diver training agencies, such as the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), Scuba Diving International (SDI), and Scuba Schools International (SSI). Other agencies offer similar programs under other names, such as "Elite Diver". Each of these agencies touts their program at this level as the highest, non-leadership program.
Tom Mount is a technical diver and cave diver. In 1991 Tom Mount joined Dick Rutkowski in the new organisation formed by Rutkowski, IANTD, dedicated to teaching Nitrox to recreational divers. In 1992 Mount was named president and chief executive officer of IANTD, a position that he held until 2005. Mount was also one of the pioneers in relation to diver training and development of dive tables in relation to the use of trimix as a breathing gas for diving. At the time, and for many years subsequently, IANTD was the only technical diver training organization in the world. Mount remains a member of the board of directors of the IANTD.
William "Bill" Nagle (1952–1993) was a pioneering American wreck diver.
Richard Rutkowski is a pioneer in the fields of hyperbaric medicine, diving medicine and diver training, especially in relation to the use of breathing gases.
Ratio decompression is a technique for calculating decompression schedules for scuba divers engaged in deep diving without using dive tables, decompression software or a dive computer. It is generally taught as part of the "DIR" philosophy of diving promoted by organisations such Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) Innerspace Explorers (ISE) and Unified Team Diving (UTD) at the advanced technical diving level. It is designed for decompression diving executed deeper than standard recreational diving depth limits using trimix as a "bottom mix" breathing gas.
Steve Lewis is an active cave and wreck diver. Born in Peckham, New Cross London, he currently resides in Muskoka, Ontario Canada.
The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (2000) is a non-fiction book written by diver Bernie Chowdhury and published by HarperCollins. It documents the fatal dive of Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrissy" Rouse, Jr., a father-son team who perished off the New Jersey coast in 1992. The author is a dive expert and was a friend of the Rouses.
Bret Clifton Gilliam is a pioneering technical diver. He is most famous as the founder of TDI, and as the one time holder of the world record for deep diving on air. He is also one of diving's most popular writers.
Krzysztof Starnawski is a Polish technical and cave diver and International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD), Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS), French Federation of Speleology (FFS) diving instructor.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of scuba equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
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