The First Year

Editorial – July / August 1996 issue of The Decom Stop

Who is “The Decom Stop” ?.

Let’s just say the whole idea was started by two scuba instructors who did not know better. One was a Certified Public Accountant (still is actually) in a previous life who got bored with managing other people’s taxes. Yep, like a true diver, she’d rather be diving! The other is in a technical field but fancies himself a creative sort who likes to take pictures while diving and fiddling about on a PC.

Anyway, to keep a long story short, and lives personal, somehow the idea of starting a “truly local dive mag” came up during one of our diving escapades. The idea was allowed to germinate all of two minutes and was conceptualized in five minutes after that and went into serious planning for about six months. So, what we now have is the story on an ex-CPA trying to fulfill her ambition of being a permanent beach bum by becoming the manager of a young and struggling dive mag. and sidelining as a free lance scuba instructor. As for the technical type, he’s still taking pictures and fiddling a bit more on his PC nowadays.

Now, the whys’...

Why “the Decom Stop”?

Why not have something with words like “Scuba”, “Diving” or “Diver” in it? boring! Here’s how the name came about: A decompression stop (Decom stop) is done to overcome the effects of pressure on our bodies when we dive. So that we may live to dive another day. For us, Dive trips have always been akin to a Decom stop. Something to relieve the pressures of daily existence (for a while at least), so that you may live to work another day (not a very comforting thought isit?). And in- between dive trips? There is “The Decom Stop”, hopefully, to keep you going till your next dive trip. How’s that for an explanation?

Why free?

Because “the best things in life are free”? Not good enough? How’s this then? We started out with the belief that the industry should support this magazine for the benefit of all divers out there. If “The Decom Stop” can make all of you more active divers, the industry, as a whole, benefits. Our stand, from day one, has been that “The Decom Stop” will be distributed through our dive shops and remain free to all divers. The day the industry stops supporting us is the day we call it quits. We are glad to say that, to date, we have got enough support to keep us going (just barely!).

But we have also been getting numerous requests for subscriptions. From the next issue on, we will be accepting subscriptions to “The Decom Stop”. But it cannot come free. We will have to charge a nominal sum to cover admin. and postage. Sorry, the postal service does not believe that “the best things in life are free”’.

Why recycled TCF paper?

We were advised numerous times before we started, and even now, to use normal paper. It’s cheaper and your printcomes out a lot better we were told. Be environmentally conscious when you can afford it we were further told. We have been using recycled paper from the day we started because we wanted to start out right. We simply felt that it is not a matter of caring for the environment when we can afford it. It’s more a matter of whether we can afford not to care for the environment.

And finally, the what...

What do we hope to achieve?

This is areal toughie! But here goes... Firstly, what has diving to offer or “what do you look for in diving?” Some books tell you it's adventure you are after, others say it’s discovery, some just think it is an attitude and little else! Well, we believe that it is all that and more! We don’t know how else to say it other than it offers “The Experience”. A final experience that is made from a mosaic of different experiences.

And what those experiences are depends on you. It can be anything... An escape from reality into an unreal world (some choose to think of it as unreality into reality!)... adventure... discovery... interaction... achievement... camaraderie... weightlessness... freedom.. etc. etc. And with all this is the responsibility to protect the sea from damage by human ignorance.

No other sport is as multi faceted. No other sport offers as much depth and. breath, so much so that there are as many perspectives of diving as there are divers. We just hope to offer all these perspectives and possibilities to you through our issues, so that you may see a side of the seas or diving you have not seen before. Another piece in the mosaic which will hopefully broaden your diving horizons.

I hope curiosities have been satisfied. Now back to this issue. In line with this experience thing, this issue is dedicated to the experience of diving. And experiences aplenty there are in this issue...

• Share the experience of the instructors and participants at the scuba tryouts for the disabled. The instructors involved felt they received more than they gave. They learnt something of others and of themselves that day.

• An experience it was for the divers at the latest underwater cleanup. The experience was working out of their comfort zone and having done it.

• Wanting an experience can become an obsession. William Tan was obsessed for a manta experience, hear the lengths he went to for it. I suppose that long hard journey was what made the final encounter all the more memorable.

Talking about obsessions, I nearly allowed mine for hammerheads to ruin a very good trip to Layang-Layang. This is the danger of thinking that “The Experience” is only one experience. It was after allowing the other experiences to fill out the mosaic that I finally realized a great trip was had.

Diving and the experience can never be separated. As we are at our one year mark, all we can say is that producing this magazine has been an experience too, coming into contact with so many people who share the same passion. And through their contributions and encouragement, these very same people have helped us come a long way. For them, Thank you will never be enough.

Where do we go from here? It’s hard to say. “The Decom Stop” started as a by divers for divers kind of mag. We suppose as long as there are experiences to be shared, as long as there are those out there who dive with a passion, there is still a place for this mag. So, it looks like...

We still have a long way to go...

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