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Home » DeeperBlue

LXD 035 : Michael Menduno – Author, Editor & Technical Diving Forerunner

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

LXD Michael Menduno

Michael Menduno – Author, Reporter, Editor of AquaCORPS and Technical Diving Forerunner

Hey everyone welcome to another episode of the League of Extraordinary Divers. I’m so glad you’re here today. Have you ever wondered who came up with the name technical diving? Well actually our guest today did. Michael Menduno aka “M2” is an award-winning reporter and technologist who has written about diving and diving technology for more than 30 years. He coined the term “technical diving.” Menduno serves as the editor-in-chief of Global Underwater Explorers InDepth online magazine, is a contributing editor for DAN Europe’s Alert Diver and X-Ray magazine, and writes for DeeperBlue.com. He is also on the board of directors for the Historical Diving Society.

Michael founded and served as editor in chief of “aquaCORPS: The Journal for Technical Diving (1990-1996), and its sister publication technicalDIVER, which helped usher tech diving into mainstream sports diving. In addition, he produced the first Tek, EUROTek and ASIATek conferences, and organized Rebreather Forums 1.0 and 2.0. His work has also appeared in Alert Diver, AQUA, Asian Diver, Business 2.0, DeeperBlue.com, Discovery, Dive Log Australasia, DIVER, the Journal of Diving History, InDepth, NACD Journal, Outside, Quest, Scientific American, Scuba Times, Sports Diver, Undercurrent, Undersea Journal, WIRED and X-Ray magazines.

Michael worked with Capt. Billy Deans to set up the first technical diving training center in Key West, Florida in the early 1990s, which quickly became a Mecca for tech divers from around the world. He has studied and trained with many of the best and brightest in the business. Michael received the OZTEK Media Excellence Award in 2011, the EUROTek Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and the TEKDive USA Media Award in 2018.

Michael earned his open-water certification in 1976, is Full Cave certified (1990, 2018), certified on AP Diving rebreathers and is a member of Global Underwater Explorers (GUE). In addition to diving, Michael is actively involved in U.S. Masters swimming and has been a performing bass player.

Items In This Podcast

  • Watching Jaws Before His Checkout Dives
  • Early Days of Technical Training
  • The Emergence of Enriched Air Nitrox
  • Technical Expeditions
  • AquaCORPS Magazine
  • A Humorous Encounter with The Legendary Sheck Exley
  • Aggressive Sharks

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Aggressor Adventures

Thanks For Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

Please leave an honest review for The League of Extraordinary Divers podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! And, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

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Filed Under: League of Extraordinary Divers Podcast Tagged With: AquaCORPS, DeeperBlue, GUE, Michael Menduno, Technical Diving

Why Dive Pro’s Should Take Freediving Courses

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast freediving expert Ted Harty discusses why taking a freediving course will benefit all diving professionals.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

Our lives have certainly changed. Truly, everything is different in our day to day happenings. In once sense it is unsettling and disruptive and on the other hand I’m connecting with my family more. One day I’m shaken by this virus and what it could do it i or a loved one or friend gets it, and the next day I’m like so what if I get it, Im not a high risk health individual. One day you hear wear masks and the next day you hear don’t wear masks. One day I think how are we going to get through this financially, and the next day I think about all the things I want to do when we are not homebound anymore and how I believe the economy will strongly bounce back. Are you feeling these same opposite feelings? It’s pretty crazy.

Resources to Get Through These Crazy Times

Well, let me point you to some resources that may help this time in our lives. First, our buddy Stephan Wheelan at DeeperBlue has created an entire coronavirus information area on deeperblue.com. It mostly relates to diving related coronavirus articles, but there are good general information pieces there as well. Well done Stephan. Also, DEMA is reporting on the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act also known as the CARES act to offer assistance to US Small business. This is great news. And DEMA has circulated the Small Business Owners Guide to the CARES Act so that you can apply for these funds. This 11 page document covers so many different business needs, you really need to take a look at it. Check it out at DEMA.org .

Also, if you want some mental health tips to keep your sanity at this time, my wife Dr Heather Clark is a clinical psychologist and she has just come out with a YouTube video series called Coping with Coronavirus. Here she gives a two-three minute tip per video on how to cope with these challenging times.

And finally, speaking of YouTube is the number one trending video in the world right now. It is called Some Good News with John Krasinski – you may remember him from the hit show The Office, well he just released an organic home-grown YouTube channel dedicated to sharing only good stories seen on social media around the world. It is awesome. Yep, I had some tears going on, because of the great stuff he highlighted. Plus, the guy is hilarious too. So check out Some Good News with John Krasinski – you’ll love it, and you’re welcome.

Upcoming Episode on Fitness to Dive

So that’s it for coronavirus items. Actually one more thing, I’m actually previewing fitness and exercise apps to recommend to you for an upcoming episode. I don’t know about you, but I’m not doing such a great job keeping fit these days. My gym is closed, I can’t do my workouts in the park anymore. So everything has to be at home or in my neighborhood. And, not eating like i used to, and yeah, I might be doing more happy hours now that the commute from my home office to my home bar is ten steps away. No 40 minute commute home! So I’m going to share the programs and apps that I have been trying in an upcoming episode so that when its time to dive again, we can all be in shape.

Interview with Ted Harty

Today lets focus an area near and dear to my heart and that is freediving. But the specific thing we’re sharing with you is how freediving can make you a better dive professional. I have with me my friend and freediving expert Ted Harty with Immersion Freediving and we discuss all the ways that you taking a freediving class will help you be a better divemaster or instructor. Ted began his professional underwater career as a Scuba Instructor for PADI,NAUI, and SSI in 2005. In 2008 he took his first freediving class with Performance Freediving International. After that course on his days off he didn’t want to go scuba diving he wanted to go freediving, and realized his passion was freediving. In 2009 Ted took PFI’s first official Instructor program, and immediately started working for PFI helping Kirk Krack and Mandy Rae-Kruckshank teach courses all across the USA.

Ted went to his first freediving competition in 2009 as an overweight out of shape scuba instructor and progressed from 80-90ft freediver to 177ft in 3 weeks. After the experience he wondered what he could do if he actually started training. Since that time he broke a USA Freediving record in 2011, won 3 freediving competitions, was selected to be the co-captain of the USA Freediving team in 2012, and his deepest dive is 279ft. Isn’t that awesome. And Ted also has a series of online courses – perfect for this time of us staying at home. Ted has also given a special promotion to The Dive Locker nation. You’re gonna like this, and in case you’re wondering we recorded this a few weeks ago prior to stay at home orders. So here we go pro’s time to change it up and hold your breath.

Online Freediving Courses Offer

Very cool stuff, thanks Ted for a great interview and thanks for your offer. Folks go to Ted’s Immersion Freediving Online Courses that Ted talked about and you’ll get 10% off any online course as a listener to this podcast. Simply enter tecclark (all one word) in the coupon code on your checkout screen to get 10% off. That’s really great, thanks again Ted.

Immersion Freediving's Online Equalization Course
Immersion Freediving's Online 28 Day Freediving Transformation Course

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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Filed Under: The Dive Locker Podcast Tagged With: DeeperBlue, DEMA, freediving, Immersion Freediving, Performance Freediving International, Ted Hardy

LXD 015 : Stephan Whelan – Founder of DeeperBlue.com

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

WhelanStephan Whelan  – Founder of DeeperBlue.com

In this episode of The League of Extraordinary Divers I chat with Stephan Whelan, founder of DeeperBlue.com, diving industry maverick, and all around great guy.

As an eight year old child while on holiday in Canary Islands, Stephan tried scuba in a hotel pool.  That set his passion.  He went on to take BSAC training in high school and became an Assistant Instructor at the young age of 16 years old.  As a freshman at university he joined the campus scuba club and by his Sophmore year he was leading it.

While studying Business Computing at De Montfort University England, Stephan set up DeeperBlue.net in 1996.  He was writing stories in the early days of blogging.  Then he published others content and quickly became the “Worlds largest community dedicated to freediving, scuba diving, spearfishing and dive travel.”  One of biggest diving lifestyle websites in the world, DeeperBlue.com publishes 3 to 6 items daily.  They have over a quarter million visitors per month and over 200 contributors to the site.  And leading it all is Stephan “Papa Smurf” Whelan.

 

Items in this Podcast

  • An eight year old in a hotel pool
  • How DeeperBlue originated
  • What happens when a strong current meets split-fins
  • Hear his bucket-list of dive destinations
  • The mean, awful, terrible triggerfish
  • How freediving is opening up underwater exploration to teens and twenty-somethings
  • Tips for divers

Resources

  • DeeperBlue.com
  • De Montfort University
  • Funky Buddha Brewery
  • The Blue Wild Show
  • Bob Croft Episode #1
  • Umberto Pelizzari

Croft Pelizzari Whelan
(L to R) Bob Croft, Umberto Pelizzari & Stephan Whelan

 

 

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Fleet

afl-logo-process-fin

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The League of Extraordinary Divers podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! And, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

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Filed Under: League of Extraordinary Divers Podcast Tagged With: DeeperBlue, Whelan

About Tec Clark

Tec Clark is a diving industry expert who has held very elite positions in the dive industry including Managing Director of the University of Florida’s Academic Diving Program and National Director of the YMCA Scuba Program. He holds over 40 professional certifications with over 15 diving agencies. Tec has received numerous honors for his instructional abilities and has co-edited several diving texts. He also appeared as a diving expert on A&E, The Learning Channel, and Outdoor Life Network. He was Captain of the US Freediving Team and is the founder of both Reef Ministries and ScubaGuru.com. Tec is the Associate Director for Aquatics and Scuba Diving at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Read More…

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Aggressor Adventures BSAC c-card CMAS confined water Cousteau COVID-19 DAN DAN Risk Retention Group Darcy Kieran DeeperBlue DEMA DEMA Show Doug McNeese First Dive Insurance Owl Underwriting Agency Force Blue Fourth Element freediving Gareth Lock GUE Immersion Freediving Kirk Krack Mark Evans mask Mastery of Domain NAUI Ocean Education International PADI Performance Freediving International Professional Liability Insurance RAID RSTC scuba SDI SEI SSI Stream2Sea Ted Harty The Human Diver Tom Ingram UHMS University of Florida Vicencia & Buckley HUB International Willie Cline YMCA

Welcome Dive Professionals

Welcome to ScubaGuru.com!  The ScubaGuru brand is dedicated to giving dive professionals tools and techniques to be GREAT LEADERS – leaders in the classroom, leaders underwater, and leaders in their diving businesses.  With unique leadership skill-sets, the dive professional can create:

  • Better divers
  • Loyal customers
  • A thriving dive center
  • A flourishing dive industry

See what we mean by Go Beyond the Standard and enjoy the rewards of being truly great at what you do!

Sincerely,

Tec Clark

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