The Great Dive Podcast

This week we finally make it to Dave Shaw's last dive. Unfortunately, Dave does not come back. It's a sad story but offers all of us divers many lessons to learn from.

What do you say when a diving project goes from bad to worse? I'll tell ya what I say... That's Diving mate! Join the boys as they continue to unwind the many little stories that is The Dave Shaw Story.

This week the boys dive into Dave Shaw’s last dive. Risking your own life to do a world record dive is not as simple as it may seem, and it involves the lives and safety of many others. A team of divers, support divers, safety teams, medical team, a surface team. All of these need to come together, and all of them are at risk. But hey, That’s Diving.

Join us as we continue the saga of Dave Shaw and his fatal dive to 270 meters at Boesmansgat in South Africa!

What do deep cave dives, Mr T, the law, and synchronicity have in common? Find out in this weeks episode as the boys continue their deep dive into the continuing saga of the Dave Shaw Story! Have A Listen!!

James and Brando discuss a recent listener email regarding Cave Diving Speed Limits that were inspired by Episode 409. As we get deeper into the Dave Shaw story we see how his progress looks a lot like many divers’ journeys. What can we learn from Dave’s story and others? The boys try to answer the philosophical questions around Bushmans’s Hole.

We're talking about Nudibranchs you dirty minded listeners! In recognition of Testicular cancer awareness month, we've joined our sole corporate sponsor, Manscaped, in their efforts to raise awareness of Testicular cancer as well as Nudibranchs. What does this have to do with Dave Shaw's depth record story? Maybe nothing... maybe everything! But you won't find out unless you listen to Part IV of o...

Holy Logbooks, Batman! We are into April and still on Cave Month. This week, Dave breaks the Inspiration in over 180 Meters, not feet, of water. We are getting deeper, we are getting new machines, we are getting bent…. But nothing will stop us from the world records we are going to set in Bushman’s Hole.

Join the boys as they continue their deep dive into the events surrounding Dave Shaw's fatal last dive!!

Welcome back to TGDP International Cave Month. This week the boys finally get into the subject of this series, David Shaw. In roughly 5 years, Shaw traveled the world earning advanced diving certifications and filling his logbook with almost 300 dives. Soon he will try to hit that number 300 in depth, in meters, in a cave.

This week the boys get into a discussion about the hazards of diving. Hazards that should not be there with certification cards, log books, or mentors but somehow we seem to still have tragedies like the one discussed here about Deon Dreyer.

Join the boys as they continue this deep dive into the world of deep cave diving. This epsiode centers on the dives conducted by Sheck Exley and Nuno Gomes in the Boesmansgat cave in South Africa. Reading through Sheck's personal journey detailing this adventure and his own accounts of the dives down into the 800 and 900 feet range of depth. And then to Nuno's own accounts of the same dives from h...

To get to the bottom of Bushman’s Hole and find out what happened to David Shaw, we first need to go back in time and learn a little more about this area of South Africa. This area known as the Cradle of Humankind has many caves, and with caves come cave tragedies.

Cave Week 2025 continues with this episode discussing a case study of a cave diving fatality. The incident involves an extremely deep cave dive on a rebreather with respiratory failure! Listen in as the boys discuss the details of what lead to this tragic dive! Have a listen!!

TGDP International Cave Diving Month is back. This week we start off the series with a little lesson from the cave, we learn what a cave is and also what a cave is not.

The boys are back and taking a break from the Dive Table series to discuss a "Lessons For Life Article". This week the story centers around a technical diving instructor that suffers a DCS incident. Was it avoidable? Listen to the ramblings of Ol' Jamesy and Older Brando as they discuss what happened to Trevor way back in the "almost 1900's"!

How confident are you in the decompression model you are using? Is it just assumption and trust? Because the data can be frightening. All dive tables come with a percentage of probable risk of DCS. What can we do to dial in that probability and reduce our risk?

This week the boys continue their talk on decompression and the evolution of dive tables and computer generated decompression algorithms based on decompression models. The discussion centers on an article from the late and great Dr Robert William (Bill) Hamilton where he discusses the changes undergone in the world of decompression theory and practice during the technical revolution in diving of t...

This week the boys get back to work after a little Christmas break. Picking up where Haldane left off we get into more changes of the traditional dive tables. Hempleman and the Royal Navy start to look more at diffusion than perfusion, bubbles are discovered by doppler and new thinking emerges from Hawaii, new names like Hills, Yont, Spencer begin to evolve the game of decompression even more.

Enjoy this replay of the Cold Miser Quiz Show while Jamesy and Brando enjoy a holiday break with friends and family.

This Christmas don't get relegated to the "kid's table'... join Jamesy and Brando at "The Dive Table"!! We'll laugh and sing Dive Carols and celebrate the most wonderful time of the year as we 'dive into" part 4 of our "in depth" discussion of dive tables!! This week we discuss the beginnings and evolution of the dive tables and decompression science! Have a listen!

In the mid-90’s everyone had a personal desktop computer and decompression software was the new tool for dive planning. This week, we discuss Bill Hamilton and George Irvine’s look at decompression software. The path for ascent was evolving, but we were still working with adapting the same old navy tables.

Join the boys as they continue their discussion on dive tables (and everything else!)! How important are the numbers? What role does ascent rate play in the development of the different tables?? And what effect does it have on the test results? Is it even addressed in those old days? How hostile are those tables?? Should I just buy the most expensive dive computer? Why can't you do the math? How o...

These are not your grandpa’s dive tables, anymore. What good are they for? Is it really necessary to know how to calculate dive profiles from a dive table? Listen as Jamesy and Brando talk tables and what the dive tables really symbolize.

Sit back and enjoy the soothing voice of Ol' "Sea Shanty Mott" as he regales you with tales of the shipping trade on the Great Lakes during a time when they were among the most treacherous waters to traverse!! YES!! WE ARE BACK! The boys from the Great Dive Podcast have returned and with tales of the Gales of November and just in time for... well....the Gales of November... Have a Listen!!