Tom Mount – a tribute to a tech diving legend

Remembering a technical diving pioneer and looking at the impact he had on the British tech diving scene

By Rosemary E Lunn

The end of an era. A living legend has gone. American cave diving pioneer and educator Tom Mount died on Wednesday 19 January 2022. He was aged 82. Tom introduced thousands of divers to a new world of adventure and possibilities – technical diving. He founded IANTD (International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers) the world’s first dedicated technical diving training organisation with Dick Rutkowski in 1991. Before IANTD, mixed gas diving was limited to military and commercial divers.

Let me set the scene. It’s the late 1990s and nitrox was taking off in a big way in the UK, I attended the Duikvaker – the Dutch Dive Show – and was taken aback. I was shocked that there was absolutely nothing in the whole show about EANx (Enriched Air Nitrox). No nitrox courses, no nitrox regulators, no nitrox stickers. No one was talking about it. It was as though it didn’t exist.

This was the first time that I really noticed that the UK was leading tech diving. The second time was when I was appointed to organise Rebreather Forum 3. I was surprised to see that the USA was about 10 years behind what was happening in the UK.

Why am I saying all this? Well without trying to sound arrogant, the Brits have always been at the vanguard of technical diving. We explore. We have great inventors, engineers and manufacturers who are curious and innovative. We have rebreather inventors (Stuart Clough, Kevin Gurr, Peter Readey, Dave Thompson), rebreather innovator (Martin Parker) and rebreather manufacturers (AP Diving, Divex). AP Diving manufactured the world’s first recreational close circuit rebreather! Then there’s Analox, Apeks, Custom Divers, Fourth Element, O’Three, Otter, Vandagraph and Weezle. 

We were garage mixing in the early to mid-90s. At the time most UK dive centres and shops did not blend mixed gas. Instead, some divers would partial pressure blend their own gas. The process was known as garage mixing because invariably this was where the process took place. There were only a handful of specialist dive centres, such as Aqualogistics in Stockport, Deep Blue Diving in Congleton and Dorset Diving Services in Poole who did mixed gases.

Why am I writing about this now? Tom’s passing has made me think about the global impact he had made on technical diving and the Brits in particular.

A number of key UK educators who embraced technical diving went to Florida to get educated by the great man himself. These include Vikki Batten, Richard Bull, Kevin Gurr, Martin Robson, Phil Short, Richie Stevenson, Paul Toomer and the late Rob Palmer. (It’s worth noting that a number of these people did or now do sit on the IANTD Board of Advisors).

Whether you realise it or not, Tom’s fingerprints are all over your technical training and courses. Take a look at those educators again. Until recently Vikki Batten was Director, Rebreather Technologies for PADI. She was a major contributor to PADI’s rebreather programme. Paul Toomer was headhunted to join SSI, and he helped write the tech program there before he left and bought into RAID, where he also helped design the tech program. Kevin Gurr wrote a lot of IANTD materials and taught many divers who are now tech instructors. Phil Short is IANTD UK’s Training Director.

Tom’s work and influence are everywhere. In the UK it started with Richard Bull, Kevin Gurr and the late Rob Palmer.

Richard Bull ran Current State Diving in Bristol. In more recent years he has worked as a marine safety coordinator for the underwater filming on big television productions such as Blue Planet.

Richard was also a pioneer of technical diving. He recalls Tom formalising one of the first Trimix courses in 1991: ‘At the time there was no TDI (Technical Diving International) and IAND (International Association of Nitrox Divers) had not yet become IANTD. Few European divers had heard of technical diving and even the ‘Devil Gas’ nitrox had yet to contaminate UK diving vocabulary.

‘Some of us had been garage gas mixers for a long time, but with virtually no formal training in mixing or using gases. Every bit of information was like gold dust, and it was Florida that was the source of all knowledge.

‘In 1992 Rob Palmer and I set off across the Atlantic to see how the Americans taught what we had discovered through experience. I knew I was going to learn a lot, but I thought I already knew a thing or two about diving. I was definitely not prepared for my attitudes and philosophies to be shaken stirred and rearranged beyond all recognition. It’s a bit of a surprise when you have been doing it for more than 20 years.

‘We arrived in Miami, hired a car and checked into our luxury accommodation – Tom Mount’s floor! Tom was about to start a Trimix course. Rob and I followed the course from the early stages in Tom’s pool to dives on Florida wrecks. It’s all familiar stuff these days.

‘Tom’s knowledge and experience were quite overwhelming but what enthused me was Tom’s psychological approach. “If you are in trouble – can you get out of it? Believe you can! Believe you can’t! Either way, you’re right!” was typical.

‘On our return, we formed, with Kevin Gurr, the European Association of Technical Divers, which became IAND then IANTD. Those few weeks in 1992 changed my diving life. Tom Mount has affected, for the good, everyone’s diving life! What a man!’

IANTD was the logical step for everyone in the beginning. It certainly was THE agency to train with in the 90s/early 2000s in the UK if you wanted to dive tech. Kevin Gurr, who held the franchise at the time, tightly controlled who became a trimix instructor, and this ensured that the quality and standards of the instructors were kept high. At one point there were only four IANTD trimix instructors in the UK, three of whom had trained with Tom Mount: Kevin Gurr, Phil Short, Richie Stevenson, and Fraser Purdon.

It may seem hard to comprehend now, especially for younger divers, but we didn’t have the internet, smartphones and search engines at our fingertips. Books and magazines – such as 990 and aquaCORPS – were invaluable and avidly devoured. Tom was a prolific writer and some of his texts are seminal. He wrote books, manuals, courses and student workbooks, in the main collaborating with others to create strong, relevant publications and materials.

This was clearly demonstrated in a conversation I had with one of my former instructors, ex-Royal Navy Clearance Diver Stuart Douglas. He told me: ‘After training with Kevin Gurr I started teaching tech diving in the mid to late 90s. Resource wise, there was not much around at the time, and I used Tom’s books as the Bible when I was developing student training, ie kit configuration. I liked the IANTD philosophy of looking at this aspect of diving holistically.’

So what did Tom do that was so radically different? One aspect was to bring in the fact that technical diving is not only physical, it has a mental aspect too. Tom popularised this concept.

Tom had a lifelong interest in martial arts in which he was highly qualified. He was probably the first man to take the mental training from martial arts and apply it to technical diving.

He married visualisation with diving. This is where you sit quietly before a dive, and think about the entire dive. You mentally walk through it step by step, action by action. You start with how you are going to build your set. In your mind’s eye, you run the process for analysing and labelling your gas. You go through donning your suit and equipment. You then mentally go through the process of your checks, how you get into the water, your descent, your dive. You think about every action you are about to do. How you unclip your reel, how you will unfurl your D-SMB, how you will deploy your delayed surface marker buoy.

This may sound a bit nuts, but it has merit. It actually works and it has prevented many problems both topside and underwater. I often use this when I am preparing for a dive, especially when I have been out of the water a while.

Tech diving has been dominated by men for years, and there are quite a few egos and lots of testosterone still swishing about. This has been changing for the better, and there is now a more positive split of male/female divers.

Tom was different, and I notice this the first time I met him. Yes, he was certainly a ladies man – he enjoyed the company of women. But I also know from personal experience he was exceptionally supportive of our diving. And I’m not the only one to remark on this.

Four noted Women Divers Hall of Fame members all wrote confirming this when they heard Tom had died.

Tom Mount encouraged me when I dreamed of being a deep shipwreck explorer.’ Laura James, cinematographer

Tom encouraged me to go beyond what I thought I was capable of. He was always rooting for me.’ Robin MacFadden Parish, OUWSS Rolex Scholarship Society

Tom Mount inspired and mentored so many, and his influence has been carried through several generations of trainees. I am thankful to have shared a little bit of time while learning from him.’ Dr Dawn Kernagis, researcher

Tom Mount never failed to check on my progress and send positive messages and remarks on my posts and discoveries.’ Cristina Zenato, explorer and educator

Though I unfortunately never dived or trained with Tom, he always assisted and encouraged my work. I first met him at DEMA in 1999 when I showed him a new magazine that I was writing for called Dive Girl. I’d just bought a copy of his Encyclopaedia of Diving from the IANTD stand, and blushed furiously when I asked if he would sign it for me. He kindly took the time to write a message and sign it. From that day, when I needed help, I could pick up the phone and ask. He took me seriously. Answered my questions without condescension. I always found Tom dedicated and modest.

Tom came and spoke at the international tech events I co-founded, established and organised – EUROTEK, TEKDiveUSA and Rebreather Forum 3. In 2016 Tom was presented with the EUROTEK Lifetime Achievement Award. The nominees that year included Jill Heinerth, Jarrod Jablonski, Casey McKinlay and Martin Parker.

Tom was unable to travel to the conference, so I broke the rule that the winners never knew they won until their name was read out on stage at the Gala Award Dinner. I rang Tom and told him he’d won, and could he please film an acceptance speech.

Tom and I kept in contact, regularly meeting at the USA dive shows. When Dr Richard Vann died in 2020, I reached out to Tom for a comment. He acknowledged that as divers, no matter what level we are, we are all still learning. Tom emailed me the following: ‘I first met Dick Vann at Rebreather Forum 3 in 2012. Funnily enough, I was referencing him in a talk just the other day. Dick had made the point about “we don’t know all the answers”. If he was saying this with all his knowledge, then no one has all the answers. This illustrates what a humble man he was. He was willing to share his wealth of knowledge with anyone. He also knew that we are all still learning.’The same was true for Tom.

One of his final wishes is that his ashes are to be scattered in the cave at Little River in Florida. I wondered why, and then I read a post by Captain Jim Wyatt on a forum. He recalled diving this site with Tom in the mid-70s. It said: ‘In those days it was okay to camp out at Little River as Tom knew and was friends with the owner of the land surrounding the spring. One of my most vivid memories of camping there with Tom was when he shot and killed a rattlesnake, skinned it and cooked it over a charcoal fire.

‘Tom Mount certainly was a colourful character, who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. A diving colossus who continued to surprise. He lived life to the full – it wasn’t that long ago that I bumped into him in Ginnie Springs car park, after we’d both surfaced from a cave dive. Tom Mount, you sure are going to be missed.’