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Archive for August, 2009
It is the beginning of whale shark season in the Seychelles, the sugar-sand string of islands in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. For the next few months, travelers and researchers alike will watch the gentle giants as they make their way through the waters of the idyllic island nation. A few years ago I had the opportunity to swim with these beauties in the Seychelles. The creatures amazed me, as did the profoundly odd way in which some humans reacted to them. Therefore, I propose the following things NOT to do when you see a whale shark:
Do not make like a plankton – I once heard a fellow diver complaining that he was afraid of being eaten by an enormous whale shark. I’m not sure if he would have fit in the shark’s mouth, but I do know the shark would not have wanted him in there. Whale sharks are filter feeders, passing large volumes of water through their gills and straining out the tastiest that float about. If you are not a planktonic tasty, then remove sacrificial shark feedings from your list of “to do’s” when meeting a whale shark.
Do not break out your saddle – There is something about the ocean that turns some divers into fondlers. Though on land they seem to be able to keep their hands to themselves, once submerged they inexplicably want to touch everything. A whale shark is not a pony. It does not want to be grabbed and ridden. Even more importantly, touching all manner of sea life is usually detrimental to the item being fondled, as it frequently messes up their external chemistry and introduces disease. If you must touch something, go find the dog that belongs to the scuba shop and give it a good scratch. (Then wash your hands…Scruffy absolutely has fleas.)
Do not announce you have seen better ones in an aquarium – There are places in the world where you can see whale sharks in captivity, for example in the Osaka Aquarium and the Georgia Aquarium. I myself have dove with the whale sharks in the Georgia Aquarium and enjoyed the experience immensely. But nothing can compare to seeing them in the wild, where their appearance during your dive is never guaranteed and their behavior is not dictated by the tank walls. (cue the Born Free movie theme here…)
Do not deploy your fishing gear – Unbelievable as it sounds, there are some people, especially in Asia, who see a whale shark and think…lunch. I have read that the shark has the consistency and taste of tofu. So, why not eat tofu, and leave the poor fishie alone? The tofu has got to be easier to catch than the shark anyway.
The "Best Job in the World" should involve some R&R
When Australia launched their “Best Job In the World” contest, I entered right away. Imagine not only being a scuba-diving, beach-blogging island caretaker for six months, but actually getting paid to do it. Sadly, I was passed over in favor of a crazy, blond Brit who, admittedly, seems to be enjoying every second of his experience.
Actually, the job seems to be a lot more active than I thought it would be. A quick review of his blog indicates a lot less loafing and a lot more visiting, island hopping and promotion than I expected. I envisioned myself honing my underwater photography and hammock sleeping skills, but this guy seems to be embracing every plane, train, catamaran and kangaroo on the north shore of the continent in an effort to promote as many square inches of sand as possible in a six-month period. His latest posts sound like he might need a vacation from his vacation.
In an effort to revitalize the excitement around the tourism campaign, Australian tourism officials just announced that they are looking for four more folks to join the Brit. These guys won’t get paid, but will receive an all-expense paid trip to the Whitsunday Islands for the rest of the year – in exchange for more blogging and promotion. Keep in mind there are a lot of Whitsunday islands to cover (50-75 depending on how large a bump of sand has to be to count as an island), so the sleepy and the directionally-challenged need not apply. It’s a dirty (best) job, but somebody’s got to do it.
Some day I am going to buy a nice boat and sail away from it all. Granted, it will probably be a used row boat and my arms will tire before I even leave the harbor, but hey – I can dream. In the meantime I ogle other’s boats every chance I get, particularly when I am diving off the back.
In keeping my eye out for the best yacht I will never own, I was surprised to read about the latest in yacht design, the seventy-six meter long “Oculus” which looks less like a traditional boating vehicle and more like an…orca. A $95 million orca, to be exact. Yes, for that tidy sum you and 11 of your closest friends can ride the killer whale across the sea, or launch your helicopter off the top. If the ocean around you is not enough, you can go for a dip in its indoor swimming pool or just relax with any other of its indulgent onboard amenities. I’m pretty sure you will have no trouble with pirates, who will assume you are either from outer space or are the visual remnants of hallucinations from the prior night’s drinking binge. One downside: you will scare the heck out of seals everywhere you go.
Though we are coming out of a recession these babies are apparently flying off the shelves. Get one while you can!
The Bond movie Thunderball was on late night TV yesterday. It’s got all the makings of a great Bond film: bad guys, women, nuclear warheads, women, extortion, women, and best of all lots of scuba diving. The flick is from 1965, when diving was much rarer and inaccessible than it is today, making the scuba scenes even more important to the success of the movie. But even today the movie industry uses scuba diving as a way to add action and skimpy bathing suits to spice up the screen. A few examples:
Sean Connery, Thunderball – 1960’s James Bond heads to The Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads. This film is chock full of kitschy scuba diving content including archaic dive gear and shots of sharks that were probably somebody’s pet. If you want to live out your Bond fantasies, you can still dive the Thunderball wreck in the Bahamas.
Hank Azaria, Along Came Polly - This movie was awful, except for a entertaining guest appearance by Hank Azaria as Claude, the smarmy French scuba diving teacher (you can shut it off after his scene is over.) If you have ever dove in a French-influenced place such as French Polynesia you can relate to the speedo-wearing, galoise-smoking, soap-deficient French divemasters out there who pray to the God Cousteau before they go to bed each night.
Jessica Alba, Into the Blue – Lots of diving, lots of skimpy bathing suits. Scuba sex still sells.
Owen Wilson & Bill Murray, Life Aquatic – This is an odd movie: either you love it or you hate it (we here at scuba-dive.org love it’s quirky, offbeat style.) It’s underwater-themed plot enables plenty of diving scenes and sea life shots. Wilson and Murray aren’t exactly sx symbols with scuba gear, but they hold their own.
Woody Harleson, After The Sunset – Jewel theft, the Bahamas, and lots of diving. What more could you want? Brings new meaning to Paradise Island.
Pierce Brosnan, Tomorrow Never Dies– 1990’s James Bond throws on the scuba gear yet again. This time the plot, surprising, includes: bad guys, women, nuclear warheads, women, and extortion. This gear is much more high-tech then last time, and is used more to compliment the plot rather than carry it along. To her credit Michelle Yeoh, the headstrong female lead, doesn’t just flop around helplessly in her gear. Rather, she makes diving look easy.
CubaGooding Jr, Men of Honor– Gooding plays Carl Brashear, the first African American US Navy Diver. The movie is intense, but you get enough insight into the origins of dive gear to really appreciate the gear you use now, no matter how many times your mask floods.
Sponge Bob, Square Pants – Don’t hate us for throwing this in. He lives under the Pacific Ocean in the town of “Bikini Bottom” for clam’s sake. He has to use scuba gear at some point. Did you know this is the most watched cable television show right now? Think of all of the kids (and, sadly adults) that think starfish talk.
At a party last night I was trying to explain the finer points of underwater communications to a non-diver. Though I found the conversation stimulating, I’m pretty sure I did a bad job, since I left the party phone-numberless. I’ve revised my thoughts into the highlights below.
Highlights of Underwater Communication
Signal: one hand, fist clenched, thumb pointing up
Meaning: I want to surface now because I am: tired, hungry, low on air, bored, needing a margarita, or I just don’t like diving with you anymore.
Signal: hand held flat, palm down, making a sawing motion across the neck
Meaning: I’m out of air. Unless I sprout gills I’ll be dead soon.
Signal: hand held flat, fingers pointing up on the top of the head like a shark fin
Meaning: A shark fin. Rest of shark attached. Swim fast.
Signal: hand held flat, palm touching mouth
Meaning: I am low on air. I am about to rip your air regulator out of your mouth so I can use it. Or, you can pass it to me. Your choice.
Signal: index and middle finger touching the mask, then pointing outwards at an object
Meaning: There is something very interesting that you must see. Ha, ha, I saw it first.
There comes a time in every diver’s life when your usual dive buddy (wife, husband, partner in crime, lifelong friend, annoying neighbor, twin, etc.) is not able to make the trip, but you are determined to dive anyway. Not to be deterred from the lure of the sea, you boldly climb on the dive boat and start scrutinizing the other divers to see who is going to be your assigned buddy for the day. Sometimes it works out, and a new dive buddy/lifelong friend is made. But, more often then not, you get saddled with The Worst Dive Buddy, the butt of jokes and the basis of buddy comparison for all dives in the future. A few of the unfortunate buddy options:
ADOS Buddy – Attention Deficit…Ooooh Shiny. ADOS Buddy can’t seem to focus on anything for more than a second, making task completion and stimulating conversation impossible. You are the last pair to descend because he forgot his weight belt and has to climb back on the boat to get it. Underwater, curious things continuously pull his attention and his body in the polar opposite direction from you and the rest of the dive group. Before the boat pulls back to the dock he will ask you at least four times “What was the name of that reef that we just visited?” It is okay if you lose your temper with him – he won’t remember you tomorrow.
Scuba Steve Buddy – Scuba Steve knows it all (just look at the endless list of ScubaSteve Twitter sites). What starts out as some interesting ocean factoids on your ride to the reef quickly turns into an overwhelming dissertation about the mating habits of the humuhumunukunukuapuaa fish. He corrects the divemaster during the dive briefing, and wants to point out to you every bit of obscure fish sh*t he encounters during the dive. Note: you can usually tell Scuba Steve Buddy before he even opens his mouth: he’s the one with the enormous trapper-keeper dive log and seven sharpened pencils for recording the details.
I Love Scuba Buddy – This man is moved by the scuba spirit. You can appreciate his enthusiasm, but your hand starts to sting from all the high-5’s he keeps giving you. He claps at the end of the dive briefing. Fascinating underwater finds like seaweed and sand cause him to grab your arm and gesticulate excitedly. Warning: this man will whoop with joy and celebration the moment he breaks the surface at the end of the dive. Do not be alarmed – this is normal behavior for I Love Scuba Buddy, and not nitrogen narcosis.
Clueless Buddy – Has this person ever gone diving before? Clueless Buddy has no idea how to set up their gear, how to function on a dive boat, and even looks like he put on his swimsuit backwards. His weight belt is on the bench seat, he washed his soapy mask in the camera bucket, and he is gazing off into the sunset while a whole line of divers waits behind him to giant stride off the swim platform. Underwater, his hand gestures look like Kabuki Theater and he wants to fondle every living thing in the sea. Fortunately, the fire coral teaches him a lesson before you have to.
No more plastic bags for me!
Historically, Mexico City has been a great place to get a cheeky case of asthma from the pollution or find out just how much your relatives love you by the amount of ransom they are willing to pay your abductors. Now there’s actually something to love about the place: a ban on non- biodegradable plastic bags. As of this past Wednesday it is illegal to give out these landfill and ocean cloggers in Mexico City, which joins other places that already have limits or bans, such as China, Tanzania, and cities in India Australia, Italy, South Africa, Ireland and Taiwan. According to the United Nations Environment Program, plastic bags are the greatest contributor to litter in the oceans and account for the yearly deaths of tens of thousands of turtles that ingest the bags (thinking they are a tasty jellyfish snack.) It’s a good step in the right environmental direction from a surprising source.
An embarassing photographic moment when we realized this was actually 2 sea creatures...
Announcing our Best Dive Stories Contest!
Send us your most unique critter sightings, your funniest moments, the most embarassing thing you’ve seen (or done!) on a dive boat – in short your BEST DIVE STORY!
1st place winner will receive: a Canon G10 w/ Housing with a Sea & Sea YS17 Strobe
The best of the entries will be posted here on the scuba-dive.org blog. Contest ends November 1, 2009. Entries will be judged by the writers and editors at scuba-dive.org.
Thanks to CNN for recently noting that the Mexican cenotes are the place to be. Here’s author and periodic scuba-dive.org contributor MB on the caves that divers have enjoyed for years.
Divers are always looking for the next big adventure. Somewhere in history a diver decided that scuba diving in the Mexican oceans lost its luster. He packed up his gear, hiked through the jungle, and jumped into a cenote to up the adrenaline factor. Some people are just never satisfied.
The Yucatan peninsula, the part of Mexico where Cancun is located, abounds with cenotes. Several famous cave systems call this area home, including Ox Bel Ha, the longest underground river and cave system in the world. Many cave explorers believe the cave systems are actually all linked, though only a few connection points have been found. Year after year cave divers find new pathways and pieces to this mysterious underwater world.
The dive company we hired took us to Dos Ojos, or two eyes, named for two openings in the cavern wall that appear as if they are watching the divers inside the cave. Ronnie, our divemaster for the day, picked us up in a 4×4 and drove out to the cenote site in the middle of the jungle. We arrived early in the morning, which enabled us to avoid the crowds. Later in the day snorkeler groups would show up to float on the top of the open cenote, blocking the light and stirring up sediment.
The cenote appeared as an open slash of water on the jungle floor. The water clarity reflected the sunlight, making the pool glow an unearthly turquoise that disappeared under a large cave overhang at one end. We carried our gear the short way from the dirt parking lot to the pool edge. Fortunately the water line was near the pool edge, requiring only a giant stride to enter the pool. Some cenotes have high, steep sides that necessitate the use of rope lines and rappelling to reach the water surface. My lack of coordination would have prevented me from successfully executing that Spider Man maneuver.
Standing in my thirty-plus pounds of gear at the lip of a flooded underwater cavern made my heart pump fast. I wanted to jump in and, at the same time, run back to the jeep and drive away. I was excited yet terrified of the unknown before me. I took a giant step into the pool, and the turquoise swallowed me.
I could see over two hundred feet in every direction, unheard of in the open ocean. Boulders lined the cenote bottom, with an occasional stalagmite sticking straight up, created from years of limestone deposits dripped from the ceiling before the cavern roof collapsed and filled with water. The grey and black rock shadows stood in stark relief to the glowing turquoise water around them. The sight took my breath away, yet conveyed a sense of eerie calm.
After ensuring our group successfully made it to the bottom, Ronnie led us to the cavern end where a large, dark opening stood. My heart beat, which I had fought to calm after entering the water, raced again at the thought of entering the black hole. As anyone who has ever watched a Star Trek episode can attest, nothing good ever happens to a person who enters a black hole. There is usually an intergalactic funeral service before the next commercial runs.
With great trepidation yet determination, I followed Ronnie through the hole. I knew I would sorely regret it later if I did not complete the dive. After just a few moments my eyes adjusted to the ambient light shining from the cavern we left and from a few small holes in the ceiling in the new cavern we entered. An almost completely intact roof overhead indicated that we swam in a true cave. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling, the result of more limestone deposits dripping over the years before the cave flooded. It was Jurassic Park meets Finding Nemo.
Parts of the cave ceiling resembled flat mirrors, like liquid metal floating at the surface. After getting Ronnie’s attention I pointed to the phenomenon and made a clear sign: “What in the world is that?” He led us slowly upwards to the reflection and indicated we should put one hand above our heads as we ascended in order to avoid bumping into anything sharp.
Like magic, my hand pierced the liquid metal reflection and entered…air. I continued to ascend with our group and surfaced above the water line but still inside the cave. Surprisingly, five feet or more of room stretched between the water and the ceiling. Ronnie took out his regulator and motioned for us to do the same.
“Here is the reason so many divers can enjoy the cenotes,” he said. “Air pockets like this exist throughout the cave system. And, the water is so clear that the light from the skylights reflects off of every surface, lighting our way without the use of torches. “
We descended back into the water of the cave to tour the room, exploring the unique geological formation collage that decorated the cavern. The strange underwater world attracted my attention so much that I forgot my camera in my pocket. I pulled it out towards the end of the dive and captured a few rock and diver silhouettes against the blue. The impressive panorama provided opportunities for pictures that made even my meager photography skills look good.
We returned to the main cavern back through the opening in the wall, once menacing, now enchanted since I knew what lay beyond. The turquoise glow grew brighter as the sun rose overhead, hitting the pool directly. I looked up towards the surface and saw…a rear end. The end had dangling feet, a neon orange inflation vest and several other similar ends bobbing around it.
A snorkeler group had entered the water, providing us with an underbelly view of natural wonders we did not care to see. We returned to the surface and loaded up the jeep before too many more people arrived. The solitary quiet had added to the formation’s beauty, and I preferred to remember it that way.
”If only I could make money at scuba diving, then I could do it all the time!”
Divers across the globe lament time and time again as they pack up their gear to return home at the end of their dive trips. Actually, many jobs involve scuba beyond the obvious occupations: dive shop owner (too costly), dive instructor (too many mask flood drills), and dive master (too many foolish people in the sea). A few positions to consider:
Federal stimulus dollar recipient – An opportunity to recoup the tax dollars you “donated” to the economy! The Northwest Marine Conservation Initiative received $4.6 million in stimulus funds to recover most of the nets on the bottom of Puget Sound, and is using the funds to hire divers to remove the ensnaring debris. Make money, scuba dive and save the environment, all at the same time. Next you can conquer world hunger…
“Whatever you do, don’t push the red button” Tester – Thousands of new scuba gear products come out each year (hopefully) well tested by their manufacturer. Become a product tester and reap the rewards of free scuba stuff! Note: demand actual currency compensation for any product testing that involves neon neoprene or gear that combusts upon incorrect button selection.
Aquarium Marriage Proposal Delivery Person – You know those viral YouTube videos shot in aquariums where a scuba diver swims up to a couple at the tank window with a “Will you marry me?” sign? Yes, that can be you (holding the sign I mean, I can’t guarantee someone wants to marry you). Other scuba responsibilities include cleaning the fake rock and avoiding being eaten by the agitated hammerhead recently introduced to the tank.
GI Joe/Jane Diver – Fulfill your James Bond fantasies (tux and martinis not included) by doing underwater surveillance for the military. Job may include the opportunity to use the latest in scuba technology (fun) and the opportunity to clear mines (not so fun). Combine your hobbies for a blast of excitement!