Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World

I'm just getting interested in scuba after a trial dive on holiday, and a friend who has the diving bug badly lent me this book.To be honest I wasn't sure what to make of it at the outset. I wasn't sure I especially needed to know about how people dived before scuba, or even why they bothered. Surely scuba with all its possibilities must be the only thing worth reading about nowadays? But I trusted my friend's judgement (we read lots of other similar books) and so I pushed on past my initial misgiving.What a result! This is such a fascinating, beautifully-written book.Tim Ecott has written about the technology (no it is NOT boring!), the real-life heroes, and the needs and wants of divers and diving through centuries of human endeavours; he also met some of the modern icons and has such an admiration for them that the interviewees gave plenty of time to him.In any book there are high points. One I didn't expect was Umberto Pellizzari. Why should I be interested in free diving? Some people who just hold their breath and dive - why don't they use cylinders etc.? But Tim Ecott captures the passion and excitement of these athletes so wonderfully that I savoured every word.He also spends alternate chapters covering his own diving experiences. He doesn't hold back, his passion for the sport is infectious and his emotions so near the surface [sic] that it is quite moving.Anyone with even a mild interest in diving, be it free diving, snorkelling, scuba or whatever, should read this. The imagery of the author's own dives and his fascinating research into others is brilliantly conveyed. And to be honest I would recommend it to almost anyone else too. It's a fine read.

Having recently begun the path to open water certification, I was keen to find some literature on diving, that was rather less commercialised than the PADI manual!!By chance, I discovered a colleague of mine was also an avid scuba diver and as it turns out a friend of the author, as such he recommended this book to me.And what a rewarding read it is, this is a fantastic portrayal of the history of diving with Tim's own personal diving tales intertwined throughout.Some of which really illustrate the contrasts of the sport, be it a perilous dive in the channel in strong currents, poor vis and rough sea with a nervous buddy thrown into the mix, to the endless visibility of the tropicsThe historical side of the book is fascinating, full of excellent interviews with many legends of the sport who laid the path to scuba diving as it stands today!I don't want to describe too much of the content for risk of spoiling anything, however I suggest anyone with an interest in diving should really give this a read!

I read this book quite a few years ago and re read it recently. It is still awe inspiring and motivating beyond belief.My life as a SCUBA diver has been quite a remarkable experience from day one, doing a try dive in Crete, to now being a seasoned dive professional running two dive centres in land locked City in the midlands of the UK .Woohoo!This book educates divers, reminds divers, inspires divers and contibutes to producing and elment of educated divers for all the right reasonsTim Ecott is accurate, insightful, humorous, craftsmanlike and clever at letting the reader figure out what is amazing about diving in the liquid world and what 'Neutral Buoyancy' gives to a new diver or seasoned professional

The overview I read suggested this was a book of personal experiences of diving.In fact it's a rather uneasy mix of personal experiences and diving history.Where it works well is in the recounting of the personal experiences. Ecott does a good job of putting the pleasures of diving in many different environments and locations (And some of the fears too) into words, but then 40 pages will pass as he recounts the story of how early divers used diving bells and, frankly, this is a bit dull and done much better elsewhere (Cousteau's book for example!).The book ALMOST felt like one of those Clarkson-esque collection of short, but rather good newspaper columns, but linked by rather turgid, worthy explanation of diving history.If you haven't read any other diving books, you might find the history stuff interesting and this was saved from being a disappointment for me by the personal experiences, but if you've read other books, get this cheap from Marketplace and skip the history stuff, would be my advice.

Yeah ok , it does start off a bit slow but stick with it because it just gets better and better as you go. The history of diving becomes more fascinating as you read so for the ones that gave up after the first few pages, its your loss. Tim Scott describes diving in a way that you can only fully understand if you go diving.

Neutral Bouyancy, is somewhat different to waht i had expected from reading various reviews and the book jacket, and thankfully it exceeded my expectations. The book is a history of diving interspersed with personal accounts and anecdotes, which balances nicely.Being an avid diver i have often wondered about some of the early pioneers and evolution of the apparatus which is used, and this books answered a lot of my questions and filled ina lot of gaps.It was interesting to read about Jaques Costeau, James Bond and other subliminal influences to my own diving ambitions.Ecoot travels and dives inthe four corners of the earth, to research his book, and his passion shines through on every page.a must read for british divers.

an introduction to history, development of aqua lung and travel destinations for sports divers not too long. I wished when finishing that he had written more. The rest of his books are not about diving, I wish he would write more about diving.

Really excellent book. Well written and informative. Lots of interesting historical information about diving and those key to it's continued propularity.