Wilma tourists still stranded; Cozumel severely damaged

While tourists have finally been evacuated from Cozumel, thousands of others are stranded in Cancun waiting to come home.

Wilma severely battered the Yucatan last week leaving behind destruction above and below the surface. Tourists are sleeping on hotel lawns in Merida and Cancun residents, despite police presence, are manning improvised barricades to protect their neighborhoods from looters. Tourists began standing in line at the

Hurricane Emily swept through in July leaving minimal damage, sparing Cozumel's coveted reefs. Wilma apparently was not so benevolent according to the Environment Department.

Tourists now flood the gutted Cancun airport waiting in line for hours for a plane ticket back home.
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Deep sea giant seen alive off Japanese coast

Had I pulled my head out of the darkroom long enough I may have noticed this a month ago, but it was too cool not to post about it. In September 2004, a giant squid estimating 25 ft. in length was photographed 2,950 feet beneath the North Pacific Ocean. The photos were taken as Architeuthis enveloped the baited line "in a ball of tentacles." The squid was found feeding at depths where no light penetrates even during the day.

The photos were taken with automated cameras. While they aren't up close and personal, it's pretty fantastic to see such a creature so large and alive.



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Global warming threatening East Africa's coral reefs

Global warming threatening East Africa's coral reefs
Rising sea surface temperatures caused by global warming could kill off Africa's coral reefs.

Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO) researcher Dr David Obura said there was 70 to 75 percent "catastrophic mortality" among shallow-water coral reefs during the El Niño in 1997-98.

East Africa's tourist industry depends on the region's rich reefs as they attract scuba divers.
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RE: reasons to sink

Wade wrote in to Scuba Gypsy:

"You have posted way too many articles on your blog for me to catch up. I'm trying though. Tell me the reason for sinking an airplane in a body of water. Is it to make like a waterpark for the sea creatures? I'm sure there is some reason. Maybe it's just the regular body of water would be just too boring scuba people."

Waterpark for sea creatures would be cool...my childish imagination is running a little wild....but wait...no I am thinking of sea monsters and they don't really exist....

To answer your question, as far as scuba parks are concerned, since most don't have aquatic creatures (Athens Scuba Park is a former clay quarry) then sinking DART busses, jets, Clint Eastwood's party barge, and other pieces of machinery just give us something to look at and do some underwater exploring.


In the big deep blue sea however, these submersible items serve as artificial reefs. Many states in the US have artificial reef programs. Florida and Texas have various artificial reef programs where decommissioned ships and oil rigs are submerged to become new homes for sea life.

Here are a few:

Spiegel Grove, Key Largo Florida
Tenneco Towers, Ft. Lauderdale
Snapper, Texas Flower Gardens

So when are you getting certified Wade?

Sand pit may become Texas' next SCUBA park

Two years ago the skull of a 38,000 year-old woolly mammoth was unearthed in Vernor Material and Equipment's sand pit in Clute, TX. Now with the pit near retirement the company hopes to transform it into a scuba park. The 35-foot pit plans to submerge machinery like jet airplanes to become home to largemouth bass, Asian clams, and channel catfish.

This could be great for landlocked Texas divers in a couple of years if the pit owners can achieve decent visibility. I don't know much about Mammoth Lake and whether the pit already has fish or not, but I know breeding aquatic life isn't easy. The owners of Athens Scuba Park has tried to raise catfish, but hasn't suceeded as of yet. Probably because of the intense care it takes to raise the little creatures (I recall someone telling me the owner had to feed them by hand? Interesting.).


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Aquatic Living

Forget Architecture Digest in the future, Aquatictecture might be where it’s at. By the end of this year, Underwater Vehicles, Inc. of Vancouver, B.C. will launch the Trilobis 65. Part houseboat, part submersible, this four level vessel will extend 10 feet above as well as 10 feet below the surface. Along with a bridge, living and sleeping quarters, the Trilobis also sports an underwater observation bulb offering an unobstructed, 360 degree view of it’s passengers underwater surroundings.

Special marinas are also being planned allowing colonies to dock together into “water-based villages”.

The floating homes starting price?

$4 million

If the Trilobis isn't to your liking there's the Jellyfish Habitat and the Neptus 60 Cliff Habitat. Very Star-Trekkie for those who need to be one with the water.

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Sharks switching from tuna to humans?

A South Australian marine biologists said a decline in the shark's natural prey could be cause for the rise in attacks.

Dr. Scoresby Shepherd studies shark attacks in Australia and California. According to Shepherd, attacks that used to happen once every 30-40 years are now occurring once a year.

This is all fine, and it makes sense....but I wonder if he has looked at other factors in attacks that can be attributed to human behavior. Any thoughts?

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Parents settle drowned diver case three years later

Almost three years after scuba diver Mollie Yaley's death, her parents settled a lawsuit with the ambulance company that treated her.

Yaley, a 26-year-old dive master, drowned off the coast of Monterey June 30, 2002. Yaley's paernts said she died because the paramedics responding to her were using heroin and acted negligently. The parents also said the paramedics stopped CPR too early.

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Bill's Blog

So I am a scuba geek and my boyfriend is a poker geek (and I mean a BIG ONE)...I am learning to play poker (and I am not too bad) and he is learning to dive. We always wonder how to merge the two passions with our own.....do we take the table, chips, and cards underwater? Here's an interesting blog from a man who seems to have succeeded in bringing the two together. OK OK.....so it's pretty much a poker blog, but he does have an interesting set of photo galleries from several adventures of his own. Aside from interesting photos, Pauly from Tao of Poker has named Bill the "Jacques Cousteau of poker bloggers". So if you are also looking for the best of both worlds...check it out.

Pumpkin carving....becoming a great underwater past time?

I always feel great when I notice other scuba geeks out there like me looking for any reason to get underwater. Blue Dolphin in Dallas has treasure hunts and even a monopoly game to stir up some deep camaraderie....this morning I got an email from my friends at Deep Blue Adventures in San Antonio about their annual underwater pumpkin carving contest. This has to take some skill. I am definitely the type of person you want to keep away from sharp objects...but this does intrigue me.

If competing with Deep Blue divers have a choice to compete individually or with a team-mate. Drawing on or precutting of pumpkins is not allowed and pumpkin are inspected before contestants enter the water. Divers provide their own pumpkins and cutting tools and have 45 minutes to dive and carve.

Texas isn't the only one with fun and games. Just noticed a post on Divester that they are doing this in New York and Minnesota.

May the best pumpkin win!

If anyone has any photos from these events, please send them to Scuba Gypsy.

Tales from a divemaster candidate (Part 1)

More challenging than I could have ever imagined, my journey toward becoming a scuba instructor opens my eyes with each class I observe. As a former high school teacher, I feel confident about the teaching end of being a scuba instructor. If anything, scuba diving is rekindling my love for the teaching profession.....my classroom, my office will be open and wide....filled with water, fins, tanks, dive logs, and regulators instead of desks, dry erase or chalk boards, and books. With each observation I learn something new, experience a different perspective under water....part of the evolution possibly of becoming a scuba instructor.

Today I evolved a little more.

During my previous visit to Athens Scuba Park to work with a class I tagged along with Reneé, a Scuba Source Divemaster. She showed me the Athens set up routine and showed me how to run and tie the guide ropes for the OW student’s check-out dive. Today, for the first time I was on my own. The rope was tied off at the initial platform where students do their OW skills so I did a surface swim to the next buoy which marked the sunken DART bus approximately ten feet below. I began to submerge when I realized my tank had come completely out of my BCD. Great. I surface and yell out to Mike what had happened.

“Fix it!” he replied.

OK, I thought. I totally suck at this whole tighten your gear up in the water thing.

“Oh, but be careful because you are weighted.”

Uh huh. No room for babies here. (Even though I was resisting the urge to cry)

So I began the task. Inflated my BC and crawled out of it. With a reel of rope in one hand I began to feel around the bottom of my BC to see if this might be an easy fix. No such luck. I needed the other hand. I had a line of rope floating in the water and I couldn’t rest the reel on top of the inflated BC because as I would slightly drift, the reel would fall off creating more problems. So I stuck the rope reel between my knees. Now, I can tread water like a champ, but imagine only being able to tread water by only circulating the lower part of your legs.......remember I have ten pounds of weight around me. (It is definitely time for an integrated BCD.)

Getting the tread part down, I place the regulator in my mouth and head under the BC to start fixing the unruly tank. After a few minutes, it was back in place.

Cool.

Feeling quite proud of myself, I get my gear back on only to realize that my regulator hose is now coming over the top of my head.

Damn it.

So now I have this treading with half my legs down pat, I go through the whole thing again this time turning the tank to make sure it is in the proper position. Only then do I discover that the plastic piece on my BC which helps hold the tank in place is missing. Hmmm....... yes.....time for a new BC. I tighten the strap until I am sure this tank isn’t going anywhere and then submerge to complete the initial task.

As I followed the guide rope back to the platform, my mind was racing. Only then, during that challenging moment, had I realized the true importance of having a dive buddy....and a good one at that. More importantly, for the first time I began to realize that as an instructor with a student, that the student really isn’t a dive buddy...he/she isn't even certified yet, so essentially you are alone. As an instructor, you are required to be skilled enough to handle loose tanks and the like on your own.

A lesson worth learning somewhat the hard way.

The other side of the dive

After trying to shuffle around work and scuba trips, my training as a dive master began a little over a month ago with observing my boyfriend's Discover Scuba session. For the first time, I wasn't the participant and it wasn't all about me and my diving. Because Dan got the hang of everything, Mike went beyond DS, into mask clearing and on to basics about buoyancy. While not all of my observation hours will be so up close and personal, I discovered how beneficial it was to have a relationship with the student as well as the instructor. In the pool observing, I was able to see how Mike from The Scuba Source demonstrated the skills and how Dan executed them, but I had the opportunity to discuss the lesson from a student's perspective. In the car, Dan and I discussed his first scuba experience. I was beaming with pride and by the time my car had turned the corner I was ready to book him on the next trip to Cozumel.....that was the moment I learned something from the student.

Basically, I have the ability to scare people from scuba.....that's what he told me....not in those exact words, but apparently I get so excited about diving that I get too technical. He was right. Thinking back to his beginning scuba questions my talk was filled with decompression limits, air consumption, safety stops, and surface intervals. Little did I know I lost him the moment my talk hit the water. A good instructor, an instructor who wants their student to enjoy the learning process, not only teaches the skills and anticipates problems, but helps the student discover the subject a little on their own.

Typical mistake from a beginning teacher.....as a former high school teacher I should know better....I appreciated the lesson.

Fake (PADI) ID's for sale in Thailand

Need a fake passport, driver's license or document? Head to Thailand. Apparently they are selling fake PADI C-Card's as well.

Very scary.

A few months ago when I was completing my rescue course, I witnessed a "diver" who was recently certified in Hawaii bomb all of her skills in a refresher course. There was no way this lady was actually certified. She knew zero about her gear, she couldn't get it on in the water (she had back issues) and when she attempted to submerge she sunk like a rock (after long attempts of buoyancy talks).I would even be surprised if she even took a course. I was furious with the operation who gave her the C-card in the first place. Not only were they placing this woman in danger, but those who dove with her. After this article on CDNN, I am wondering if she too just bought her C-Card.

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Shark attacks diver in Bahamas

Thirty-five year old Nixon Pierre remains hospitalized after a shark attacked him earlier this week.

Pierre and 36-year-old Oliver Russell were fishing and diving for conch a mile north of Grand Cay when the attack happened.

Diving in 20ft. of water, Pierre was attacked by "a large shark" which bit him on the right side of his face.

The diver's condition is serious but not life threatening.

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Australian crocs take a bite

Last Saturday, a British snorkeler was eaten by a 13ft. crocodile in Austalia's Northern Territory. Now another man is believed to have been killed by a crocodile in the same area making it the second fatal croc attack this week.

The 56-year-old man was diving with a friend on the Cobourg Peninsula. His diving buddy reported him missing early Thursday.

Common in rivers and along the northern Austalia coast, saltwater crocodiles have been responsible for a dozen deaths in Australia in the past 20 years.

Last August a man died when he was dragged from his fishing boat by a crocodile in northern Queensland. It is believed that the crocodile responsible for that attack has already been destroyed.

Here are some other articles on past crocodile bites:
December 2003(Australia)
October 2002(Australia)
January 2000(Malawi, Africa)