Gifts for the Scuba Diver Who Has Been Somewhere Most People Will Only See in a Documentary

Scuba divers have access to a world that is genuinely inaccessible to most people, and they know it. The reef at depth, the wall dropping away into blue-black, the fish that swim past with no particular concern for the large air-breathing mammal hovering nearby — these are experiences that produce a specific kind of perspective shift, the feeling of having been somewhere that operates by completely different rules. They plan trips around dive sites. They log dives the way other people log miles. They have strong opinions about visibility and water temperature and the particular thrill of a drift dive. They invest in their gear because their gear is the thing standing between them and the environment, and the environment is the point. The gift for them is something that improves the time underwater, or helps them get more of it.