Customer Reviews

Deep Diving, Revised: An Advanced Guide to Physiology, Procedures and Systems

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Deep Diving is one of the first books to openly discuss the "taboo" subject of diving beyond recreational depth limits (>130'). In it Bret Gilliam (founder of Technical Diving International, president of Uwatec USA, former deep-air diving depth record holder) shares wonderful (and gruesome) stories and describes the history and today of the theories and practices of diving deep. This book can help you decide if getting training for deep and technical diving is for you

Although he has some points, I disagree with the previous reviewer's harsh one-star assessment of this text. The second edition of this text dates to 1995, and as such can't be completely dismissed (other than some details which I will cover below).

I have been diving for 17 years, and even my technical dive training (TDI Extended Range) wasn't as informative to me (the theory part, at least) as this book. Just the historical references, including detailed accounts of fatal deep diving accidents, could make a book on their own, and really instill in the reader the value of training & advances in technical diving equipment systems, and provide a deep appreciation for the very expensive lessons that have been learned over the past half-century of experience.

I found this book to be more detailed in many aspects than many Technical Diving training manuals, and much more interesting to read. Certainly, this book is not a replacement for officially sanctioned manuals, though when I (soon) become a Technical instructor I plan to make my students absorb this text as required "additional reading".

Nevertheless, due to a lack of further updates beyond the first revised edition of 1995, readers should be aware that this book is slightly dated or completely outdated in the following aspects:

- New approaches to using helium mixes at much shallower depths than before, and more attention to breathing mixtures such as hyperoxic and normoxic trimix

- New developments in dive computers, particularly multigas, gas-switching computers such as the Suunto Vytec, the VR3, and Nitek He, the latter two supporting helium mixtures.

- Pre-dive planning of dive Multi-level, multi-gas profiles using PC-based software

- Various general diving and decompression procedures have become more standardized and stricter since this book's publication, particularly issues like gas-supply redundancy.

Despite these and some other less significant issues, this book remains a very important text which I think all technical divers should read, at least as a historical reference. Of course, it would serve both TDI and the diving community greatly if Bret Gilliam & co. would produce a new revision to this book, Which is why I am giving this book "only" four stars.

Reaslistic, practical, and easy to understand. Hazards and rewards of deep diving are both well defined. Safety well covered and emphasized. Good resource for either tekkies or those who will dive within recreational limits.

Highly recommended for those already doing deep diving or people who are considering getting into it. It also serves as an excellent reference for divers seeking additional information outside of their classrooms.

The information in this book is out of date. Techniques discussed are no longer in use as they've been replaced with safer practices.

Better approaches to buddy procedures, use of trimix and heliox beginning at depths of 100' and other techniques are NOT mentioned, although they should be. Equipment configurations are not fully discussed with modern emphasis on more streamlined, cleaner configurations.

The book is getting old, but then history stays history. The book should be titled deep air diving as that is what this book is more about. Has a nice history of deep air diving, plus some highly informative text on mixed has diving. Also loads of information on the problems when diving deep, both on air or mixed gas. All this is explained in well-understood text. The author's humor is refreshing. But what this book does best, is it makes you think for yourself, and that is worth more than double its price. If you are a stick to the rules person, then you probably would not like this book much. But if you are one for finding new horizons and limits. Give it a go.

A good book for getting an overview of deep diving, however the poor writing and editing makes it almost unreadable. An added plus in my copy was the upside-down placement of a large group of pages. Was this published in Gilliam's garage?

This is one of the most poorly written books I have ever seen. It reads like a very bad first draft of a book, or a transcript of some rambling interview. Obviously the author knows a lot about diving, and has some strong opinions about it, but the writing is disorganised and incoherent, the details are sloppy, the writing is vague on almost every technical issue, and the quoted references are mostly absent.

A book that covered indepth of deep diving, all technical divers should not miss!