Welcome to the wonderful recreation of scuba diving. You are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime as you learn to explore the magnificent underwater realm. Scuba diving can lead you through the entire spectrum of emotions. It can be very exciting and exhilarating, and can also be incredibly peaceful. It can be soothing and, at times, it can be stressful and frightening.
Overall, diving is a relatively safe sport. However, given the fact that we are not designed to live underwater, there are some very real risks in diving. The key to safe diving is to understand and control these risks. In my view, safe diving requires adequate medical and physical fitness, appropriate training, suitable and reliable equipment and a good dose of common sense.
A cornerstone to diving safely is an adequate knowledge of diving physics and physiology, equipment, the marine environment and safe diving practices. In this text, Steve and Russell carefully navigate you through the theory behind safe diving. The book is designed as a resource for all divers, from introductory to instructor level and the authors' years of diving and instructional experience are placed at your disposal.
Read carefully and learn well, and enjoy your ventures into the underwater world.
John Lippmann
Executive Director
Divers Alert Network (DAN) SE Asia-Pacific.