"The Third Dive" RSJ instructor writes a book investigating the death of Rob Stewart

Robert Osborne, a contract lecturer at the Ryerson School of Journalism, has finished a book that investigated the death of Rob Stewart, a documentary filmmaker. 

The book, called “The Third Dive: An Investigation Into the Death of Rob Stewart,” (external link)  came out on Oct. 6. 

Osborne said “The Third Dive” originated from a documentary he did for CBC, “The Third Dive: The Death of Rob Stewart.” (external link)  This documentary came from a combination of Osborne’s interest in technical diving, one of his hobbies, and journalism, his profession. 

“When Rob Stewart died back in January 2017, I looked at all of the spin or what seemed to be spin around the story,” he said. “And from a technical diver’s perspective, I thought this seems to be ridiculous. The claims that are being made don’t make sense.” 

Osborne started to poke away at Stewart’s death. The more he looked, the more obvious it became there were huge parts of the story needing to be investigated. He went with an idea to CBC, and they gave him the green light. 

The documentary aired in December 2018. He received a phone call from Rocky Mountain Books a little while after. 

Having seen the documentary, the publishers wanted to know if Osborne was interested in taking the story further by writing a book. 

He said writing the book was easy and difficult. The easy part was the huge amount of research he had already done for the documentary. The difficult part was keeping up to date with the court cases and reports being completed. 

Reports suggested Stewart was encouraged to perform the dive he died on by Peter Sotis, a diving instructor. Osborne said he did not think Sotis had to encourage Stewart to do this dive. Stewart was an experienced diver with plenty of technical certifications. 

Stewart was a driven person who wanted to catch captivating shots. He took risks with the shots he would gather. 

He started working with Brock Cahill, his sidekick, to plan a series of dangerous dives off the Florida Keys about one year before they met Sotis. Osborne said he believed Stewart was capable of making these decisions. 

Osborne interviewed Sotis. This interview was one of the few Sotis did. Osborne said it was important to include his voice to provide a full perspective for the book. 

This book has taught the documentary maker that there is never a bottom to a story. He did plenty of research for his book, and he believes he could have gone deeper. 

Despite the fatal final dive, Osborne said Stewart left a huge legacy. 

“I am a huge admirer of his legacy,” he said. “He had a presence that drew attention to him all the time in a good way. And he used that in a good way.”