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	wrt the history of diving.

	BSAC descended in part from the RN divers, mine clearance and
harbour working parties, of the second world war. The oil industry came
a lot later, and descended (in part) from the Standard Dress divers.

	BSAC got bigger, then the oil guys turned up. The diving
techniques and facilities are chalk and cheese. Rather like flying a
kite vs flying the shuttle.

	In the words of one pro-diver (paraphrasing many I've spoken to)
comm divers are of the two short planks variety, wheras the sport divers
who impinge on their realm (anything beyond recreational diving) have to
self-organize, self-rescue, etc etc.

	And the Scientific diving community in the UK still suffers from
the consequences of the HSE having it's head so far up it's arse it
takes a heated heliox line with it.

	The part IV (enabling air to 30m, no stops, with HSE backup) is
beeing revamped to allow a scientific diver situation both in terms of
training and qualification, and on site regulation.

	The rebreathers question is a real worry. Enabling mixed gas
deco and variable mixture diving will be unvbelievably emancipating to
the sci diving community. But if they're still expected to operate under
the HSE regs, it's utterly useless.

	The difference as far as the HSE are concerned is that a dive
under a professional situation is a dive where the diver is coerced by
concerns other than safety into doing a dive. He can't call it off
without his judgement and his professional status coming into question.
(As if we sports divers can).

	Scientific diving is far more commonly of the type where the
dive has to be done, but very rarely *now*. This greater operational
freedom is the get-out for sci divers.

	That said, I've done dives that I shouldn't because the time
point required it... :-)

	I await the Sci-diver regs with great interest, and if they
don't mention mixed gas SCUBA systems then the HSE are wasting a
valuable opurtunity to get ahead of the field for a change, rather than
being the bureacrats everyone loves to hate.

	Jason

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