My favourite kit – Martyn Farr

Renowned Welsh cave-diver MARTYN FARR has discovered many miles of cave passage in many countries in the course of his career. He started caving at the age of 10, and cave-diving in 1971. By 1981 he had set a world record for underwater cave penetration, in the Bahamas. In the UK he made his name exploring Wookey Hole in 1977 and 1982. He has taken part in expeditions all over the world and is a leading cave-diving photographer, as well as the author of the classic book The Darkness Beckons. A PSA Cavern, Nitrox and Cave Instructor-Trainer, he has taken many celebrities underground, including the royal princes, and his cavern and cave-diving courses have provided a gateway to the sport for hundreds of today’s cave-divers. more...

My favourite kit – Mike Rutzen

South African diver MIKE RUTZEN started working with great white sharks 15 years ago, as a skipper on a cage-diving boat. In 2000 he began freediving with the sharks, and is now known worldwide as one of the few people able to interact with the creatures outside the safety of a cage. Dubbed ‘Sharkman’, he has produced documentaries on freediving with great whites for Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, CNN, CBS and the BBC among others, and has appeared at the UK Dive Shows on several occasions more...

My favourite kit – Monty Halls

IT’S 13 YEARS SINCE DIVER PUBLISHED MONTY HALLS’ first article, about a dive-site near Plymouth ferryport. He had recently left the Royal Marines to study as a marine biologist. Since then, Monty has dived the world over and over, initially with his ground-breaking Full Circle expeditions, which caught the eye of the TV producers. He has made many television programmes, including the Great Ocean Adventures series, discovered a lost city off India, written several books and won not only Channel 4’s Superhuman title but a Scientific Exploration Society award for services to exploration. Watch out in July for his third BBC series, Monty Hall’s Great Irish Escape – in which he lives and works in Connemara with the Irish Whale & Dolphin Conservation Group – and, in 2012, a major new BBC series called Reef. But what, you ask, about his kit? more...

My favourite kit – Andrea Marshall

Few divers put their gear through the rigours to which American Dr Andrea Marshall subjects hers. The Queen of Mantas, who started diving when she was 12, has lived and worked as a researcher in Mozambique for the past eight years. Her PhD at the University of Queensland was the first ever doctoral thesis on manta rays, and she went on to form the Foundation for the Protection of Marine Megafauna. Her research has increased dramatically the level of knowledge on mantas, and she is now building on that work with an ambitious global tagging programme. Andrea discovered a new species, the giant manta, in 2008, and can identify many hundreds of individual rays off Mozambique from their markings more...

My favourite kit - Mark Powell

MARK POWELL, one of the speakers at TEK/2011 in March, wrote the book Deco For Divers, which appears to have become firmly established as a DIVER readers’ favourite. Surrey-based Mark, who has been diving since 1987, has been an instructor for the past 17 years, teaching technical diving at all levels up to and including Advanced Trimix. more...

My favourite kit - John Kean

JOHN KEAN, author of the popular book SS Thistlegorm, has carried out some 5000 dives as a recreational and technical diving instructor and guide in the Red Sea. It makes him an involuntary guinea pig for the longevity-testing of diving equipment. If it fits, reliably serves its purpose and lasts, it’s OK! more...

My favourite kit - Paul Rose

Pro diver and instructor, polar guide, mountaineer and yacht skipper, author, conservationist, TV personality and public speaker (catch him at Dive 2010 this month) - PAUL ROSE is a man of many parts. A former Base Commander and science-support diver for the British Antarctic Survey, he was awarded HM The Queen's Polar Medal, and the US Polar Medal for work with NASA and the Mars Lander project in Antarctica. The Royal Geographical Society added a Ness Award for "popularisation of geography and the wider understanding of our world". He was diving ops adviser to the RGS Shoals of Capricorn project in the Indian Ocean, ran a US Navy diver training programme and has trained many emergency-response dive teams. TV audiences know him from the BBC's Oceans, and he is now filming a new series on British diving. But what about his kit? more...

My favourite kit - David Doubilet

David Doubilet is probably the world's foremost underwater photographer, the recipient of many prestigious awards. Born in New York, he began snorkelling when he was eight and started taking underwater photographs at 12. A contributing photographer and author for National Geographic, he has photographed more than 65 stories for the magazine since his first assignment in 1971. A feature columnist, contributing editor and author of many books about the sea, his work continues to appear in publications and exhibitions worldwide. The first published collection of his work, Light In The Sea, raised the creative stakes of underwater photography, and the follow-up Water, Light And Time is regarded as a classic. more...

My favourite kit - Jack Ingle

Jack Ingle is a stalwart of the Dive Show scene, his kit-configuration workshops never seeming to lose their lustre. Jack started diving with the British Sub Aqua Club 30 years ago, and soon realised that he enjoyed the teaching side. He became a BSAC First Class Diver and National Instructor and remained heavily involved with BSAC until about 2000, as Technical Diving Advisor and Nitrox Chief Examiner, writing the club's first nitrox courses. He had begun diving on mixed gases in Florida in the late 1980s and moved into technical instruction, going full-time in 1996 with TDI, IANTD and PSA qualifications. Jack has been running a dive school and expeditions ever since, teaching everything from nitrox to advanced mixed-gas rebreathers. more...

Back-mounted to the future

Why did no-one think of making a tank-mounted DPV before? John 'Jetboy' Bantin goes west to try out the Pegasus Thruster on some big wrecks more...

My Favourite kit - Teresa Telus

TERESA TELUS is one of the most experienced deep wreck-diving women in the world, and has been a key member of several major expeditions. In 2003 she dived Britannic, running longer bottom times than her male counterparts. She co-led an expedition to identify the pre-Dreadnought Duncan-class shipwreck HMS Russell in Malta. Part of a team exploring and filming the Lusitania, she has also joined expeditions to the Egypt, HMS Vandal and many others. Teresa spends most of her dive-time exploring sites in the English Channel, including countless virgin wrecks. An experienced speaker on expedition diving, she has appeared at recent UK Dive Shows talking about the deeper wrecks of Truk Lagoon
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My favourite kit - Innes McCartney

Innes McCartney is a deep-wreck diver, a historical consultant specialising in submarines, and a naval history and diving publisher. He has discovered many historic shipwrecks, including the M1 and HK Komet, and HMS Indefatigable and HMS Defence at Jutland; organised the Operation Deadlight expeditions; identified 44 mystery submarine wrecks; and been a key figure in the making of TV documentaries such as Deep Wreck Detectives and Clash of the Dreadnoughts. Innes was also the first diver to visit all three of the greatest diveable liner wrecks: Britannic, Lusitania and Andrea Doria more...

Life support with the Sentinel

Fatal incidents involving closed-circuit rebreathers can't all be dismissed simply as diver error, says Kevin Gurr - but he reckons that all the life-threatening problems that have arisen in the past can be engineered out. John Bantin spends a week with the CCR designer on a Red Sea liveaboard, to see if his Sentinel 'life-support system' lives up to his claims more...

My favourite kit - Pete Atkinson

Pete Atkinson, 52, is a professional underwater photographer. For 20 years he sailed and dived all over Polynesia - then, five years ago, he sold his yacht, bought a house in Australia and married another photographer, Darin Limsuansub. He claims not to be a grumpy old man, but his attitude to current dive fashions suggests that he is more...

How dry is your drysuit?

You might get the outside dry, you might even get the inside dry, but how do you prevent mouldy boot syndrome? John Liddiard offers some sweeter-smelling solutions more...