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Nancy Tilles is an award-winning artist based in Florida who works in traditional oils, but captures on canvas a timeless vibrancy and immediacy in her underwater scenes, which highlight the diversity of marine life found on reefs but also their fragile nature.

X-RAY MAG caught up with the artist to find out more about her work and artistic process, gaining insight into her experience of the underwater world.

In late April 2013, a dele-gation of 16 people from IAHD Adriatic – International Association for Handicapped Divers visited Moscow in Russia to become the first disabled divers to dive in the Hydro Lab of the Russian cosmonaut testing facility located in Star City.

So… you have your new photo equipment. Cool... now what? Should we just jump in the water with it?

Jim Abernethy, owner and operator of Scuba Adventures, was the dive operator who showed all of the others that sharks are peaceful animals who want nothing to do with humans as a food source.

He spends most of his time with wild sharks during dives from his liveaboard ship, The Shear Water, at remote sites in the vicinity of the Bahamas, and is on land for only about 40 days a year.

A rebreather dive begins before you enter the water. You strap on the machine, put on your mask, or pinch your nose, and “pre-breathe” the unit for five minutes while monitoring the sensors and heads-up display (HUD) for any signs of trouble. It’s usually one of the last checklist items to complete before commencing the dive depending on the rebreather.

The month of November sees the return of the international dive industry trade convention, the DEMA Show, to Orlando, Florida, USA. In a peek-behind-the-scenes conversation with Tom Ingram, Executive Director of DEMA (Diving Equipment and Marketing Association), Rosemary Lunn’s interview reveals an engaged, enthusiastic diver who is passionate about our industry and the business of diving.

Stretching west and north of the Isalo Ranges, the Mahafaly Plateau runs like a dragon’s tongue to the very tip of Madagascar’s southwest coast. This is a remote country in the Great South, where numerous historical shipwrecks have lain below the waves since the 16th century.

Years of preparation finally paid off on 3 August 2013 when the first Belgian cave diving team reached deeper territory in Ressel Cave in Lot, France. This underwater cave—located in the heart of French cave diving paradise—is known to be one of the more engaging, difficult and technical cave dives. The expedition was an exploratory dive of several hours, with all its complications in logistics and difficulties.

For the first article in this series, I have chosen to get up on my soapbox with a little constructive (I hope) rant about an area where I think the dive industry is failing itself and its customers.

very now and then I get an assignment close to home, which means my dive buddy and I can usually load up the car with dive and photography gear, and maybe a kayak or two, and head out for a full weekend of adventurous exploring. If the location is exceptional, like an assignment to dive in Washington State’s San Juan Islands, we often allocate several days to experience all that’s available.

Okinawa—simply saying the name has so many connotations. The island itself is huge, and yet it’s an oceanic island far from the Asian continent. It takes two and half hours to fly from Hong Kong, the closest point on mainland China, to get here.