// depth · breath · attention
Diving with fear,
not against it.
A blog by Ian Gabaraev, a technical diver who still gets scared. Honest writing about anxiety, breath, decompression, and the small skills that turn panic back into curiosity.
// about
Hi, I'm Ian.
I'm a technical diver who, on the surface, looks like someone who has it figured out — twin sets, deco bottles, the full kit. Underwater, I'm often the most anxious person on the boat.
This blog is the writing I wish I'd had when I was certifying. It's about the parts no instructor really teaches you: panic at depth, breath rate, narcosis, post-dive shakes, and the slow, unglamorous work of becoming a calmer diver.
Start here
All writing →Why I started writing about being scared underwater
An honest opener — the kind of post I wish I'd found before my first deep dive went sideways.
Read this one
Recent
The first time I panicked at 40 metres
Cold, dark, narced, and very far from the surface — a dive log about the moment things went wrong, and what I did to bring myself back.
1 min read →
The breathing drill I do before every dive
A two-minute routine on the boat that has cut my pre-dive anxiety more than any gear upgrade ever did.
1 min read →
Topics
// surface signals
One email when a new piece goes live.
No funnels. No tracking pixels. Just the writing — and the occasional dive log.