ISSUE 22 ARCHIVE - EDITORIAL

Hello Tanked Up readers, and welcome to our UK Diver edition. By the time this issue hits your dive shops, our fate as a European nation will have been decided, and in hindsight our chosen theme for this issue is perhaps a little provocative no matter what the outcome, but nevertheless here we are, celebrating why it is great to be a diver in the UK in 2016.

Last month we enjoyed our 17th annual Dive Lectures at the Royal Geographical Society in London, in aid of our good friends at The Scuba Trust, and boy what a memorable night it was for all. Opening the Lectures this year was the infamous Lord Prescott, (via video link at the last minute thanks to a very important immigration bill) good ol' two-jags brought a lively and energetic presence to the stage and thankfully no one was in range of that deadly right hook! Our main two speakers Patrick Spain (all the way from Boston USA no less) and Graham Hancock (unconventional ancient ruin thinker extraordinaire), had our 600 strong audience enraptured from the start, and I am delighted to announce that we raised a record breaking £3051 for Scuba Trust.

The focus for this issue is UK Diving. With more and more people opting for 'staycations' in the current climate, and British divers having a reputation for being, let's face it, the best around, we thought we'd pack this issue full of articles designed to aid those who want to get the most out of diving in the UK.

In our health section our docs talk you through cold water diving and share the best of patients UK based dive medical questions. We also take a trip to Portland and Weymouth in Dive Trip UK and look at the trials of being a UK diver with our resident techie Paul Toomer. Maybe you're not convinced that UK diving is for you? Take our quiz and find out.

I am also very excited to introduce our brand new Youth Corner into this issue, youth editor Maddie and her team are on hand to inspire the next generation of divers as they share their experiences of being a teen diver in the UK.

We also raise an important issue facing divers at the moment, the change in HSE medical guidelines. The new stricter rules are causing ripples in the sport and commercial diving industry as divers are forced to seriously reassess their health and fitness regimes in order to get their certificate. Hear from the guys in the know, our HSE dive medical certified doctors.

As always we want to hear from you, our Tanked Up readers, what do you think of the stories covered in this issue? What would you like to see in the next one? Join in the conversation on Twitter or Facebook by finding us @TankedUpMag or fb.com/londondivingchamber

Happy diving!