Oceans of Opportunity

Tag: rebreathers

New Book : Closed Circuit, Open Sourced

During my recent Blogging hiatus, I shifted my time allocated towards writing to bottom out a long overdue book project., and am pleased to share here that ‘Closed Circuit | Open Sourced’  is now published and available on Amazon.com. I’ve been diving closed circuit rebreathers for almost 20 years, having realized the strong potential for…

Read More

Overpopulation Nation? We need a Sea Station!

Call it one of those quirky fateful twists – as I started up my truck this morning, the local radio was airing an interview with Frank Carini from EcoRI News (my favorite environmental watchdog) which was tackling the controversial subject of overpopulation. I haven’t written about this in some time, so figured that in the…

Read More

tech tips: think subject illumination, rather than ‘lighting’

As recently as two days ago I was mucking about at the bottom of Narragansett Bay to identify and recover debris that may have posed a problem for a dredging operation. While at it, I made the effort to do some tests with a recently launched underwater LED light. The design was pushed by your…

Read More

Confined Spaces and Atmospheric Management 101

Confined space entry is among the most hazardous occupational activities in the industrial sector. The issues that must be addressed are clear ingress/egress of the space, collapse, and of course atmospheric management. The latter is what makes the activity very similar to diving, and in fact, advanced techniques for extended range confined space penetrations are…

Read More

the chronic tinkering disease

Well, I played hookie this Monday morning and went for a dive. Guilty? Heck no…I call it good strategy in that I worked through the weekend so was due for a break and skipped the weekend dive site crowds in favor of the very still and quiet Monday morning. Not a soul in sight. For…

Read More

diving with ‘style’

In more recent time, especially now that my R&D shop is up and running, I’ve been paying closer attention to the equipment refinements that make the job of working underwater all the more efficient. In some cases, I’ve had to develop  things from scratch, in others, its a matter of making minor changes to existing…

Read More

2012 Northeast Rebreather & Advanced Diving Technology Workshop

We’re just one week away! Space is still available – register today! All are invited to attend the 2012 Northeast Rebreather & Advanced Diving Technology Workshop on Saturday February 4th, 2012. The event is being organized by Ocean Opportunity Inc, and graciously hosted at the University of Rhode Island. Our first workshop in 2010 proved hugely…

Read More

Conquering the Abyss

‘Spooky’ is the word to describe my forays into the deep, and ‘flattered’ would be the word to describe my reaction to this great News Desk piece released by National Geographic. Curiously, I often ponder the realization that it’s been 40 years since Walter Starck used his first ‘Electrolung’ off the deep reefs of Andros.…

Read More

Past to Present | first CCR dives on Lee Stocking Island

In 2004, Lombardi fights an uphill battle to gain approval to dive closed-circuit rebreathers under institutional auspices at NOAA’s Caribbean Marine Research Center. The effort results in new standards established for the organization, liability issues mitigated, and the first CCR dives conducted for science at this NURP facility.

Read More