JOHN BENNETT - YD GROUP DONATION

[daz]

Following the sad loss of John Bennett on the 15th March it has been suggested by the Admins of YD that maybe a group contribution from YD would be in order.

Please can anyone who is interested in Donating to the fund for John's wife Gabby and children Joshua and Katie please PM me for details.

Once all donations are collected I will arrange a single transfer, thus incurring just a single transfer fee (I will cover the costs of the transfer, so Gabby and the children will receive all of the money donated).

The money will be transferred early to mid May.

John achieved much in his life and his love and passion for scuba diving was immediately apparent to all those who were fortunate to have met him.  Unfortunately due to his contribution scuba,  John was uninsured.

Darren

[daz]

For more information on John and his remarkable achievements I include the following links.

See the link below for a report on John's fantastic achievment of a dive  to 300m on open circuit.

John's 300m Open circuit scuba dive

Further Information about John.

Born in Portsmouth in 1959, John started his career as a member of the British Parachute Regiment. After finishing his military career, he travelled extensively and ended up doing his Open Water course in Cairns, Australia. Dive travels eventually brought him to the Philippines in 1994. Technical diving just started, and he joined Capt’n Greggs Dive School.

Over the following years, he built himself an unrivalled reputation for his revolutionary training methods. But John wanted to see how deep he could safely dive. In 1998, he broke the record for the deepest un-tethered ocean dive in Asia to 123 meters. In 1999, he went to break the record for the deepest ocean dive in tandem with his friend and co-worker of Capt’n Greggs Bruce “Chuck” Driver, both returning safely from 200 meters. On 5th June 2000, he pushed the limit deeper: 254 meters / 833 feet, but already then his ultimate goal was to dive past 300 meter / 1000 feet.

In July 2000, he joined the dive team at Atlantis Dive Resort in Puerto Galera, and started the now very successful Atlantis Tech.

On November 6th 2001, after many months of preparation and training with his support team, John returned from a dive to 308 meters / 1010 feet. The dive was successfully recorded in the Guinness book of records, and John was the subject of a documentary filmed by National Geographic “Into the Deep”. His support team consisted of friends and students he had trained personally over the years, and most of whom had also taken part in the previous record-breaking dives.

John left the Philippines to relocate with his family to Port Douglas, but kept his interest in Atlantis Tech.

He was featured in numerous British, Australian and Asian diving magazines. He has also been guest speaker at the British Dive Show in London, DEMA in the United States, ADEC in Singapore and OZTEK in Australia, and was present at the Dive Expo in Sydney in September 2003.

An avid fitness fanatic, when he was not diving, or training, John liked to spend time with his wife Gabby and their two children, Joshua and Katie.