PADI

Reg Sprigg’s Chamber

A scientific ‘all-rounder’, South Australian, Reg Sprigg (b.1919 – d.1994) was a geologist and early environmentalist whose many credits include the discovery of the world’s oldest fossils in South Australia’s, Flinders Ranges and the first person in Australia to make… Read More ›

Inky and Pinky: Puppy Love

1965 was, ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’. Operating in and out of Singapore and the dockyard at Sembawang throughout 1965 – during ‘Konfrontasi’ with Indonesia – there were, before again falling into an on-going routine of ship’s bottom searches and… Read More ›

A Test Of Offshore Mettle

The following article was written for – and published in –  ‘Professional Diver Journal’ in 1996. ——————– Out in Australia’s Bass Strait oil fields the last diver of the day shift completes his surface decompression schedule and climbs from the… Read More ›

“Lest We Forget”

On the 25th August, 2000, in a ceremony as dignified as the deeds of those that it honoured, the Royal Australian Navy paid tribute to the Clearance Diving Branch with the dedication of a permanent memorial to those Clearance Divers,… Read More ›

The ‘Polly-Gaff’ Gas Analyser

Technology has enjoyed considerable advances since the Polly-Gaff’ Gas Analyser was first announced – almost thirty years ago, in the May 1997 pages of Scuba Diver Magazine —————– The inherent problem with gas analysers is their frailty.  While primary diving… Read More ›

Old Bottles

For more than two hundred years, Sydney Harbour has been a focal point of Australian life.  For immigrants fleeing countries either torn apart by war, or facing economic collapse, arrival in Sydney Harbour marked the beginning of a new life. … Read More ›