First, a bit of history. In about 1994 a fellow diver showed myself and a few others the internet. At that time, there were very, very few websites and all were very basic. Some of the earliest ones were rudimentary sales sites where you had to email to order something.

Either late in 1994 or early 1995 I decided to get internet access and an email address. I used OzEmail which had only come into being really that year. Of course access was by a very slow modem and the land-based telephone line. Even at work at that time, (working for a relatively large NSW Government department), we did not have internet access or email addresses.

In 1995 when researching an overseas trip and looking for dive operations in Ireland, I could only find a list of names of dive shops and phone numbers, with the occasional email address.

At this time I was writing a lot of articles for DIVE Dive Log Australasia and had everyone stored on my laptop. In the first part of 1996 I decided I would set up a website dedicated (primarily) to scuba diving in Sydney and NSW. Early June 1996 I had a minor operation and I decided that during the two weeks I was convalescing I would create the website.

I purchased some website development software as well as photoshop type software so I could manipulate scanned photographs for the site.

I had already mapped out the website and while I was recovering, I started importing the Word documents into the website software and setting up menus and links. By the end of the two weeks I had created the website on my laptop but it was not yet live.

When I went back to work, I used a work scanner to start scanning photos (after hours of course). Due to the nature of the extremely limited space I had for the website and the slowness of the modems, the photos we saved in very small sizes, only 300 pixels wide or high and about 10 kb in size maximum. I also scanned all my drawings of dive sites and marks to find the boat dive sites.

In July 1996 I linked all the diagrams and photos into the website and made it live. There were probably about 40 to 50 pages, all individual dive sites. I think the address was www.ozemail.com.au/~diving.

As far as I knew, at that time it was certainly the only scuba diving related dive site in Australia and one of only a few in the whole world. In the years that followed I expanded the website and did two major upgrades to the software running the site. The current one has basically been the same now for about 20 years I think. However, with the advances in technology from dial up modems to TSL to broadband, the site has evolved with larger and better photographs for most of the pages.

To those who say its design is a bit old fashioned and needs another upgrade, well, there are now over 1120 separate pages and tens of thousands of photos. It is mostly about scuba diving, but I expanded it to include many pages about my sailing and four wheel driving adventures.

I believe that it is still the largest non-forum website about scuba diving in the world and almost certainly the longest running site. I still add to it every week, with updates to individual pages and new pages when I dive a new site or shipwreck.

Finally, I estimate that it has probably cost me the equivalent of $10,000 over the years to run the website, with not one cent ever offered to assist by the scuba diving industry.

The only assistance I ever received from the dive industry was from Barry Andrewartha at DIVE Log and Jerry Witkowski at Dive Adventures who provided some free overseas dive trips which I subsequently turned into pages about those places. I have been assisted by many people who read my pages (mostly on shipwrecks) and sent me more information or photos which I added to those pages. Some of this information would have been lost forever without my site.

Anyway, that's enough about the history. For those who regularly use my website, I hope that it has been of use to you and continues to be of use. I have put in place procedures so that the website will continue even after I pass away (not that I have any intention of that happening anytime in the next 20 years!).

Enjoy!