Our next Big Shot underwater photography competition starts now – send us your best shots from caves, caverns and overhangs for the chance to win an Aggressor Adventures liveaboard trip to Thailand Our Big Shot underwater photo competition continues to be a great success, with some absolutely stunning photographs entered into previous iterations of the contest. For the Summer 2024 issue of DIVE, we’re asking you to send us your best shots taken from the caves, caverns and overhangs of the underwater world. The best pictures will be printed in the magazine, with the overall winner rewarded with ..read more

Preliminary report names medical event, not mechanical failure, as the cause of the celebrated diver’s death The Divers Alert Network (DAN) has issued a preliminary report into the tragic death of popular cave-diving expert and Dive Rite General Manager, Jared Hires, who died in Norway’s Plura cave system on 3 April. Internet speculation has revolved around the possibility of CNS (central nervous system) oxygen toxicity, a known danger for rebreather divers should a controller failure inject pure oxygen into the breathing loop while the diver is at depths sufficient to exceed the safe partial ..read more

Industry stalwart Jared Hires died on 3 April in Norway’s Plura cave system (Photo: Dive Rite) Technical cave-diving expert and Dive Rite General Manager, Jared Hires, has died while diving Pluragrotta, a popular cave-diving system located in Rana, Norway. According to the local chief of police, Alf Ulrik Stenberg Rokstad, Hires was part of a group of nine divers, although he was in the water with just two other people when the tragedy occurred on the afternoon of April 3. The group was heading towards the exit after stopping in an open chamber for a gear check, when Hires reportedly suffered ..read more

The new BSAC Divesoft Liberty CCR course will be launched this month (Photo: Divesoft)The British Sub-Aqua Club is bolstering access to technical dive training with its new BSAC Divesoft Liberty CCR course, the first step into the silent bubble-free world of rebreather diving Founded in 2013 in the Czech Republic, Divesoft developed its closed circuit rebreather (CCR) primarily with the guidance of cave divers. The Divesoft Liberty was the first fault-tolerant, electronically controlled rebreather released into the recreational diving market. The design of the Liberty rebreather follows the sa ..read more

The Women Divers Hall of Fame (WDHOF) has announced it is welcoming seven new members for 2024, including the first posthumous award in the Hall of Fame’s history. Founded in 2000, the Women Divers Hall of Fame is an international not-for-profit professional honour society dedicated to recognising and honouring the contributions of women divers, with members spanning a wide variety of diving-related fields including the arts, science and medicine, sports, exploration, underwater archaeology, media, diver training and education, safety, business and marine conservation, as well as free diving ..read more

Karst Underwater Research president, Bret Hemphill (Photo: KUR/Facebook) By Mark 'Crowley' Russell Brett Hemphill, president of Karst Underwater Research (KUR) and holder of the record for deepest underwater cave dive in the United States, has died after failing to surface from a dive at Phantom Springs in West Texas. Hemphill and his buddy, KUR director Andy Pitkin were diving on the morning of 4 October while exploring more than a mile into the Phantom Springs cave system. According to a statement on the KUR Facebook page, the dive began at a depth of 450ft (137m) at about 7300ft (1.3 miles ..read more

Duangpetch Promthep filmed after being located by British divers (ThaiSEAL/Facebook) Duangpetch Promthep – also known as Dom – one of the 12 members of the Wild Boars youth football team that was rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018, has died in the UK. Duangpetch, a talented footballer, moved to the UK in 2022 to attend the Brooke House College football academy in Leicestershire, England. The cause of his death has not been confirmed, but a spokesperson for Leicestershire police said that they were not treating the death as suspicious. Reports in the Thai media state that he was fo ..read more

All 12 of the boys and their coach were found alive by specialist divers By Max James In a remarkable conclusion to a remarkable rescue operation, all of the 12 teenage members of the Wild Boar football club and their coach were rescued from the Tham Luang Cave Complex today. The last boy and the coach were led out around 6pm local time and taken to hospital. The boys had been trapped 5km underground for 19 days. The eleventh boy came to the surface at 5.15pm local time (8.15pm AEST), the tenth at around 4.30pm local time (7.30pm AEST) and the ninth just minutes earlier at 4.06pm. The rescue t ..read more

ProTec instructor Skanda Coffield navigates cenote The PitAlfred Minnaar spent four months in Mexico learning to cave dive and meeting some exceptional divers along the way. Here is his story of an experience that took him to his limits and beyond Words and photographs by Alfred Minnaar My philosophy on taking photographs is that you can’t fake it; everything must be authentic. Determined people who push themselves to the limit make for great images and compelling stories. To find such stories you must search out the special people who put themselves in difficult environments and face tough ch ..read more

My name is Byunggil You. I am from Korea and currently run a dive shop called Flare Dive in Okinawa, Japan.  At the age of 25, while travelling to Cairns, Australia, I started scuba diving and fell into the underwater world. From my first dive, I was fascinated with the ocean world and the feeling of being weightless. By 2015, my passion for diving drove me to pursue it professionally, and I also began exploring underwater photography. I bought a housing for my old Canon compact camera and most of my first images were commemorative photos of new divers. I gradually fell in love with the ..read more