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Rebuilding Greece's Dive Industry: An Interview with Avgerinos Vrazopoulos

Avgerinos Vrazopoulos at Boot expo exhibiting with ScubaHellas.com - the portal covering Greece's dive operators and locations

Greek diving is back on the menu. X-RAY MAG’s Peter Symes asks Avgerinos Vrazopoulos, the director of Scuba Hellas—the Greek diving marketing group—for insights into the development of new dive locations and trip packages for international divers.

What exactly is meant by "Rebreather Friendly"?

“Rebreather Friendly” dive centres—what exactly does this mean? With emerging technologies becoming more mainstream in the diving world these days, more and more people are making investments in rebreathers. Everyone knows the advantages of these pieces of kit—extended dive time capabilities, reduced gas usage, quieter and less obtrusive to the aquatic world, etc. But are dive operators thinking along the same lines?

Air-Liquide_Rosemary-E-Lunn_Roz-Lunn_X-Ray-Mag_XRay-Magazine_scuba-diving-news_Apeks-Aqua-Lung
“Air Liquide has a strong historical attachment to the business, but it’s not core,” Liberum analyst Adam Collins told Bloomberg at the time when Aqua Lung was put up for sale. “There is no strategic rationale in being part of the business.” Air Liquide is one of the largest global suppliers of gases to big industrial installations, like refineries, as well as to hospitals and patients.

AquaLung Sold To Private Equity Firm

It was the year that Air Liquide, along with Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan founded 'La Spirotechnique'. This company conceived, designed and manufactured a range of scuba diving equipment, including some of the first commercially available regulators. Their first modern 'Aqua-Lung' or regulator was the CG45.

Analysis and Reflection as Learning Tools

In my time, I have been head coach and assistant coach to pro, semi-pro and national league rugby teams as well as the Irish women's team. I have been a sports psychologist and an advisor on performance and setting performance environments in rugby, golf, motorcycle racing, rally driving and many other professional and Olympic sports. I am now a technical diving instructor as well. Why the mini-CV?

Wrong Teacher, Wrong Habits

Learning skills from some instructors might be a waste of time. Skills are the foundation of safe and enjoyable diving and the building blocks of all diving certifications. The comment here is not that learning skills is a waste of time, but that if you learn them from the wrong instructor, you may have to re-learn them completely for the skills to be of any use.

Removal of large shark species by fishers may lead to explosions in smaller shark species

Sharks influence fish communities at coral reefs

The research team from University of Western Australia arrived at this conclusion after a study involving two coral reefs. At one of the reefs (Scott Reef), shark hunters had been legally permitted to hunt sharks while the other reef (Rowley Shoals) was situated in a marine protected area.