Ever since the release of the Lord of the Rings, New Zealand has been synonymous with Middle-earth—a South Pacific wonderland of forests, mountains, volcanoes and geysers featured in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Although revered for its topside beauty, New Zealand remains somewhat obscure as a diving destination.
In my time, I have been head coach and assistant coach to pro, semi-pro and national league rugby teams as well as the Irish women's team. I have been a sports psychologist and an advisor on performance and setting performance environments in rugby, golf, motorcycle racing, rally driving and many other professional and Olympic sports. I am now a technical diving instructor as well. Why the mini-CV?
There may not be an "I" in team, but there's one in "win", "live", "first" and "dive"!
I was recently given this picture, signed by David Prowse—the original actor who played Darth Vader—by one of my students. It's awesome. Why? Well, I am a bit of a Star Wars fan and a lot of a geek anyway, but also, there is a little sub-culture in technical diving, especially cave and rebreather diving, in which divers like to refer to themselves as members of the dark side!
When divers on technical dives become task-fixated, critical cues that warn divers that their broader attention is needed can be missed. Psychologist and technical diver, Matt Jevon, discusses the effects and dangers of flow and task fixation in diving.
I read a blog recently that suggested our egos could be responsible for many of the casualties that technical diving regrettably suffers. Sadly, my comments on this blog never made it past the moderator. As a scientist and psychologist, I am somewhat protective of terminology used to describe human thought, emotion and behaviour, and the author of this blog fell into a common trap in how one described ego.
Learning skills from some instructors might be a waste of time. Skills are the foundation of safe and enjoyable diving and the building blocks of all diving certifications. The comment here is not that learning skills is a waste of time, but that if you learn them from the wrong instructor, you may have to re-learn them completely for the skills to be of any use.
The research team from University of Western Australia arrived at this conclusion after a study involving two coral reefs. At one of the reefs (Scott Reef), shark hunters had been legally permitted to hunt sharks while the other reef (Rowley Shoals) was situated in a marine protected area.
The doors of Buddy Dive Watersports have been open for almost a month and there had been positive feedback back from costumers. “We continue to have new arrivals throughout the year to get the best products on Bonaire for our costumers”, Paul Coolen, the shopmanager, said. And according to him that’s also what the shop stands for. “We do not only cater Bonaire’s tourists, but would also like to offer something new to our residents by bringing new top brands to Bonaire, such as O’Neill.”
There is an island at the bottom of the Earth playfully referred to as the end of the world, or the edge of the world, and if I did not know better, I could picture this to be true. Standing at the edge of some of the steepest cliffs in Australia on the Tasman Peninsula of southeastern Tasmania, I looked out over the steep, jagged coastline and the steel blue Southern Ocean.
