Encyclopedia and Guide to Diving with a Full Face Mask

Diving is an exciting sport as well as a requirement of some vocations such as commercial diving, military diving, public safety diving, and scientific diving. In sport diving, most learn to dive with a half mask to cover their eyes and nose. A second stage regulator supplies their breathing gas (air). This method of diving is safe, simple, and time-tested over the last half century. The diving scenarios that appear throughout this guide are actual situations that occurred to divers. The author spoke with these divers and recorded their experiences for the educational benefit of the reader. The scenarios are described as the author interpreted each of the experiences. All the divers and the people that might be associated with their dive experience should not be faulted for any bad situations they came to be in. Every person has had some type of mishap in life, and the purpose for sharing these scenarios is to teach and help avoid future incidents that might cost someone their life.

Matthew Robinson lives in Rhode Island and primarily works as a crime scene detective for the City of East Providence Police Department; as a commercial diver for Northeast Diving in Newport, Rhode Island; and as a dive instructor with East Bay Dive Center, Warren, Rhode Island. Matt has been teaching people to dive since 2008 and has taken part in many diving operations and expeditions over the last decade. Matt has worked under US Coast Guard Cutters and has conducted technical dives to wrecks such as the Empress of Ireland in Canada and the USS Monitor off the coast of North Carolina. As the police department prepared to institute an underwater search-and-recovery team, Matt was tasked with developing protocols and identifying required team equipment. These endeavors led Matt to research full face masks and FFM training for a law enforcement dive team. Matt found that there was little literature in this regard and set about studying full face masks, diving many models, and compiling this text.