— Four Pioneering Wreck Divers

Gary Gentile not only helped pioneer deep wreck diving, but also documented its art and craft, in addition to his finds so that others may follow in his footsteps.

I first spoke with Sheck Exley in the summer of 1991. I had begun publishing aquaCORPS: The Journal for Technical Diving, a year earlier and I was working out of the office at Capt. Billy Dean’s dive shop in Key West, Florida, the first technical diving training center in the United States. “Technical diving”, a term we had just coined to describe this new style of diving, was just in its infancy.

Judging from the recent spate of PADI ads, we’re in the midst of a new “Tec Revolution”. The last one was reportedly when the training behemoth launched its TecRec program 2000, or so the blog said.

Breathing hyperbaric air causes a syndrome of behavioral and subjective effects called nitrogen narcosis, which limits the work efficiency of divers and is ultimately life-threatening.

Corey Mearns from Light Monkey mentioned it when I was interviewing him. You never know what connections you are going to make through diving, and the path each individual relationship will follow.

Some of the most experienced leaders in the scuba world are dead set against releasing information—let alone encouragement—on the diving methods under discussion here.

Buddies are not essential for a safe dive. On the contrary, buddies often increase the risk of a dive, either directly through unpredictable or unreliable actions, or indirectly, through an unfounded belief that security is enhanced by numbers alone, regardless of the training or state of mind of the buddy. In most instances, a competent solo diver would be much safer than the average buddy dive.

Every time I think of deep diving, both good and bad memories surface together in my mind. I can recall those exciting evenings over 15 years ago when my friends and I would drive from Jacksonville to Eagle’s Nest just for an evening dive. We were full of anticipation back then for the promise each dive held. Among other things, these dives offered the challenge of testing ourselves against narcosis, which we viewed as an obstacle to be overcome, so that we could be “good deep divers”. Mastering the depths was extremely satisfying to my ego.