WThe Blue Hole of Santa Rosa is a circular, bell-shaped pool east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico that is one of the most popular dive destinations in the US for SCUBA diving and training. The Blue Hole is an artesian well that was once used as a fish hatchery. It is a clear blue body of water with a constant 62 °F (17 °C) temperature and constant inflow of 3,000 US gallons per minute. While the surface is only 80 feet (24 m) in diameter, it expands to a diameter of 130 feet (40 m) at the bottom.
WAllan Bridge was an American conceptual artist best known for his creation in 1980 of the confessional phone system known as the Apology Line. He went by the pseudonym Mr. Apology and used new technology of the time, an answering machine, to record confessions from anonymous callers.
WBerry Louis Cannon was an American aquanaut who served on the SEALAB II and III projects of the U.S. Navy. Cannon died of carbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair SEALAB III. It was later found that his diving rig's baralyme canister, which should have absorbed the carbon dioxide Cannon exhaled, was empty.
WMaurice Fargues was a diver with the French Navy and a close associate of commander Philippe Tailliez and deputy commander Jacques Cousteau. In August 1946, Fargues saved the lives of Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas during their dive into the Fountain of Vaucluse. On September 17, 1947, while attempting to set a new depth record, Maurice Fargues became the first diver to die using an aqualung.
WThe Wildrake diving accident was an incident in Scotland in August 1979 that killed two American commercial divers. During a routine dive in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea, the diving bell of the diving support vessel MS Wildrake became separated from its main lift wire at a depth of over 160 metres (520 ft). Although the bell was eventually recovered by Wildrake, its two occupants, 32-year-old Richard Arthur Walker and 28-year-old Victor Francis "Skip" Guiel Jr., died of hypothermia. The accident resulted in extensive subsequent litigation and led to important safety changes in the diving industry.
WOwen Francis Patrick Hammerberg was a United States Navy diver who received the Medal of Honor posthumously for rescuing two fellow divers.
WStephen Robert Irwin, nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian zookeeper, television personality, wildlife expert, environmentalist, and conservationist.
WJames Ray Jones was an American football defensive back who played one season with the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in the third round of the 1958 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Washington. Jones was also a member of the BC Lions and Oakland Raiders.
WHenry Way Kendall was an American particle physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 jointly with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics."
WIn June and July 2018, a widely publicised cave rescue saved the lives of members of a junior football team who were trapped inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged eleven to sixteen, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after football practice. Shortly afterwards, heavy rains partially flooded the cave, blocking their way out.
WThe Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (2000) is a non-fiction book written by diver Bernie Chowdhury and published by HarperCollins. It documents the fatal dive of Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrissy" Rouse, Jr., a father-son team who perished off the New Jersey coast in 1992. The author is a dive expert and was a friend of the Rouses.
WLoïc Leferme was a French diver who was the world free diving record holder until 2 October 2005, when he was surpassed by Herbert Nitsch. Loic was also a founder of AIDA in 1990 with Roland Specker and Claude Chapuis in Nice. In 2002 he set the world free diving record without any breathing apparatus at 162 meters. His first world record was 137 meters (1999). On 30 October 2004, he extended his own world record to 171 meters in the no limits free-diving category. The premier advocate of this type of freediving which has come to be known as Chapuis Style Freediving.
WThe Blue Hole is a diving location on the southeast Sinai, a few kilometres north of Dahab, Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea.
WKirsty Anna MacColl was a British singer and songwriter. She recorded several pop hits in the 1980s and 1990s, including "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" and cover versions of Billy Bragg's "A New England" and The Kinks' "Days". Her song "They Don't Know" was covered with great success by Tracey Ullman. MacColl also sang on recordings produced by her then-husband Steve Lillywhite, most notably "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues.
WAgnes Milowka was an Australian technical diver, underwater photographer, author, maritime archaeologist and cave explorer. She gained international recognition for penetrating deeper than previous explorers into cave systems across Australia and Florida, and as a public speaker and author on the subjects of diving and maritime archaeology. She died aged 29 while diving in a confined space.
WNatalia Vadimovna Molchanova was a Russian champion free diver, multiple world record holder, and the former president of the Russian Free Dive Federation. She has been described as "possibly the world’s greatest freediver".
WAlex Pullin, nicknamed Chumpy, was an Australian snowboarder who competed at the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics. He was a two-time snowboard cross (boardercross) world champion.
WThe Drill Master diving accident was an incident in Norway in January 1974 that claimed the lives of two Ocean Systems' commercial divers. During a two-man dive from the North Sea rig Drill Master, the diving bell's drop weight was accidentally released, causing the bell to surface from a depth of 320 feet (98 m) with its bottom door open and drag the diver working outside through the water on his umbilical. The two divers, Pier Skipness and Robert John Smyth, both died from rapid decompression and drowning. The accident was caused by instructions aboard Drill Master which had not been updated when the bell system was modified and which stated that a valve should be closed during the dive which should have been open.
WDewey Dewayne Smith was an underwater diver, former United States Navy medic and professional aquanaut. He died during a dive from the Aquarius underwater habitat off Key Largo in May 2009. A subsequent investigation determined that multiple factors combined to cause the accident.
WThe Drill Master diving accident was an incident in Norway in January 1974 that claimed the lives of two Ocean Systems' commercial divers. During a two-man dive from the North Sea rig Drill Master, the diving bell's drop weight was accidentally released, causing the bell to surface from a depth of 320 feet (98 m) with its bottom door open and drag the diver working outside through the water on his umbilical. The two divers, Pier Skipness and Robert John Smyth, both died from rapid decompression and drowning. The accident was caused by instructions aboard Drill Master which had not been updated when the bell system was modified and which stated that a valve should be closed during the dive which should have been open.
WCharles Spalding was an Edinburgh confectioner and amateur engineer who made improvements to the diving bell. He died while diving to the wreck of the Belgioso in Dublin Bay using a diving bell of his own design.
WRob Stewart was a Canadian photographer, filmmaker and conservationist. He was best known for making and directing the documentary films Sharkwater and Revolution. He died at the age of 37 in a scuba diving incident while in Florida filming Sharkwater Extinction.
WBror Fredrik "Esbjörn" Svensson was a Swedish jazz pianist and founder of the jazz group Esbjörn Svensson Trio, commonly known as e.s.t.
WIn June and July 2018, a widely publicised cave rescue saved the lives of members of a junior football team who were trapped inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged eleven to sixteen, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after football practice. Shortly afterwards, heavy rains partially flooded the cave, blocking their way out.
WThe Wildrake diving accident was an incident in Scotland in August 1979 that killed two American commercial divers. During a routine dive in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea, the diving bell of the diving support vessel MS Wildrake became separated from its main lift wire at a depth of over 160 metres (520 ft). Although the bell was eventually recovered by Wildrake, its two occupants, 32-year-old Richard Arthur Walker and 28-year-old Victor Francis "Skip" Guiel Jr., died of hypothermia. The accident resulted in extensive subsequent litigation and led to important safety changes in the diving industry.
WCharles Spalding was an Edinburgh confectioner and amateur engineer who made improvements to the diving bell. He died while diving to the wreck of the Belgioso in Dublin Bay using a diving bell of his own design.
WJoachim Wendler was a West German aquanaut who died of an air embolism while returning to the surface of the Gulf of Maine from the Helgoland underwater habitat. He was participating in a checkout mission for the First International Saturation Study of Herring and Hydroacoustics (FISSHH) project.
WArne Zetterström is best known for his research with the breathing mixture hydrox for the Swedish Navy.