This post contains affiliate links. The Salt Sirens earns from qualifying purchases.
What better way to spend a surface interval than to read about scuba diving or freediving? No matter if you’re a beginner diver or have thousands of logged dives, these books about scuba diving are sure to entertain and inform.
1. The Complete Diver: The History, Science, and Practice of Scuba Diving
The Complete Diver, as the name suggests, covers absolutely everything from underwater research and technology development to diving history. The author of this book, Alex Brylske, covers what wouldbe dense topics such as such as diving medicine, health, and safety practices for scuba divers in an easy to understand way thanks to his background as a professor in marine science and technology. A longtime member of the diving community, Alex wrote wrote various guides and programs in the ’80s that today are recognized everywhere in the world and used by many scuba divers.
2. Scuba Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Better Diver
If you are a beginner scuba diver, this book is a must-read. The author, Simon Pridmore, has collected all the secrets of the latest diving professionals who reveal how to be more self-reliant and safe underwater. This book helps divers master the basics such as how to choose your dive equipment, where to dive and when, and covers many of the mistakes seasoned dive instructors often see beginner divers make. The book also covers more advanced topics like the reality of being a technical diver, how to dive deep while staying safe, and what distinguishes amateur divers from true professionals.
3. The Last Dive: A Father and Son’s Fatal Descent into the Ocean’s Depths
This is a heartbreaking story about Chris and Chrissy Rouse, a father and son, who with their diving skills, wanted to bring secret of undocumented World War II German U-boat to the surface. Book writer, Bernie Chowdhury, was a friend of the Rouse family. He himself was a very experienced diver, who studied the psychology of this underwater duo and recorded their 230 feet deep quest.
4. Deep Shadow
The Caribbean island of Bonaire, inspired Nick Sullivan to write this adventurous novel. This little island, a so-called Paradise on Earth, is where divers gather around the world to enjoy crystal clear waters and the beautiful underwater world. But, as we soon find out, it has its own mysteries. The story follows divemaster Boone Fischer who saw something strange in his routine diving that left him speechless. This interesting adventure will drag you deep into a story of intrigue and suspense.
5. Diver Down: Real-World SCUBA Accidents and How to Avoid Them
A set of several true stories that will point out to you the various situations that can happen to you during diving and ways to overcome them. Each of these scenarios goes into a deeper analysis of the situation and how to avoid it. This unique survival guide explores the gamut of diving situations, including cave and wreck diving, deep-water dives, river and drift diving, decompression sickness, and much more. You’ll no doubt be a safer diver after reading this book.
6. A Walk on the Deep Side
John Kean describes the behavior of people behind the scenes of of competition extreme deep diving of the 1990s, during a time when it was the norm to push the human body’s limit beyond what it can safely handle. The story follows Leigh Cunningham and Mark Andrews, two British dive masters, on the way to their deep scuba diving achievements.
7. Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
James Nestor transformed his interesting experience as a freediver into a book that introduces us to the underworld and how it affects us. If you always wanted to know what exists in the deepest corners of the ocean, how animals communicate and other unusual marine phenomena, then this book is something you don’t want to miss. This book covers many aspects of freediving like how the mammalian dive reflex works and how humans are connected to marine mammals, an inside look at the competitive freediving scene, and what it’s like diving with lifelong freedivers in Japan.
8. Ocean: The Definitive Visual Guide
This is the second edition of, Ocean, a book which consists of the latest scientific research and atlas of the world’s oceans and seas compiled using satellite data, brand-new 3-D Earth modeling. There are also a handful of images that describe the underworld in interaction with people and their behavior. This book is visually stunning and a must-have for divers who happen to love data.
9. One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits
One Breath describes the life of Nicholas Mevoli, a freedivering star, and his competition at Vertical Blue in 2013. The results of this competition were supposed to put Nicholas on the map of being one of the world’s best divers, but instead, Nicholas unfortunately lost his life. This book covers the intriguing story of his life and how competition drove him to his limit.
10. Scuba Diving and Snorkeling For Dummies
No matter what you may think, each of us is able to become a diver. A little escape from everyday life and getting to know the beauty that exists beyond the ocean’s surface would benefit everyone. Scuba Diving & Snorkeling For Dummies contains all the information and techniques you need to know before you embark on an adventure. John Newman, a PADI-Certified diver, has written this manual in a way that prepares you for your open water course and fulfilling your dream of a becoming a certified scuba diver.
The Salt Sirens is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.