FOR decades, Earth's highest peaks have beckoned climbers with their siren songs. Some stand on summits triumphant; others end up human iceblocks. Many cannot explain the urge to haul themselves to the roof of the world, and laugh off their exploits with a vague 'because it was there'.
Now, a similar mentality seems to have gripped the collective psyche of a growing section of the diving world. Where most were previously content to potter around reefs blowing bubbles at lurid-hued fish, now it is a race to see how low you can go.
Technical diving is the new buzzword for those who like to get down. Its adherents risk decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis and other more rare but equally nasty side-effects in their quest to boldly go where no man - and few fish - have gone before.
Detractors say it is bad for the sport's image - the metier of macho maniacs who are doing their best to make manifest the alternative explanation for the acronym SCUBA - Sometimes Come Up Barely Alive. Supporters say the only accidents happen to people who do not bother to do the training, and claim far more recreational divers die than do 'techies'.
The death of Sir Run Run Shaw's granddaughter, Shaw Soo-ling, and her Dutch friend Philip Lemette, off the Anambas Islands in Indonesia in June has heightened the debate in Asia. The pair died after diving to 80 metres, twice the limit to which recreational divers using normal air are supposed to descend.
IT was later revealed that Shaw and her sister, Soo-wai, had signed up for a technical diving course a month earlier - but never got beyond the first theory lesson. Soo-wai survived the dive, but has refused to speak of the ordeal.