Mark Ellyatt

Mark Ellyatt is a British technical diver and instructor. He teaches technical diving all over the world, including Egypt, Lebanon and Greece.

World records

Mark Ellyatt held the record for the world's deepest dive reaching 313m in 2003 35 miles off the coast of Phuket, Thailand after a dive lasting 7 hours, beating John Bennett's previous 308m record.^[1][2] - Ellyatt's dive computer reading from the dive was made available.^[3]

In 2003, during a previous extreme deep diving attempt Ellyatt suffered extreme isobaric counterdiffusion (ICD) during decompression, and only survived the dive by virtue of being helped by his support divers.^[4] ICD is a common malady in extreme deep diving, and nearly claimed the life of John Bennett in his world record setting deep dive. Pascal Bernabe and Don Shirley also suffered extremely serious ICD during the dive which killed Dave Shaw.

HMS Victoria

He also discovered the wreck of the battleship HMS Victoria in Lebanon in 2004, sitting in 150m off of Tripoli. The wreck sits on its end, rising up from the seabed - described as being its 'own underwater tombstone'.^[5]

Ocean Gladiator

Mark Ellyat has written about his early diving experiences and later record attempts in his book Ocean Gladiator, published in 2005.^[6]

References