51 Weeks

Last week I spent a glorious week of diving and enjoying life. The week consisted of diving eating and sleeping (in that order). Everything was right with the world.

I was not ready for the return to the real world.

It has been a week back at work and I still cannot get back into the regular routine. I feel an emptiness and find my mind drifting back to the carefree days diving and laying in the sun during the surface intervals.

The diagnosis: a bad case of post-vacations blues.

Usually I find it easy to get back into work and the routine of life. For some reason, on this vacation, I almost feel like I left a part of my heart in the ocean. I know this will sound odd - but I feel a similar emptiness to when I got dumped by my previous girl friend.

A thought occurred to me today. Taking one week off to do what I live for seems like I have to endure 51 weeks of tedium for one week of bliss. Not only that, but I spend about 200 hours a year doing a part-time job just to pay for my SCUBA trips. Every minute of that is worth it for the sublime bliss of descending over the wall in the crystal clear water Roatan.

Only 50 weeks to go...

Diving the Spiegel Grove

Recently, I had the privilege to dive the Spiegel Grove. The wreck is located approximately 6 miles from Key Largo. We were fortunate to dive on the wreck 4 times during the week that we were in Key Largo. We did not plan to dive on the wreck so many times, but the alternate (the Duane) was not safe to dive in the opinion of the boat captain (due to strong currents on the day).

At first I was disappointed that we did not get to dive the Duane, but after diving the Spiegel Grove 4 times, I realized that we had so much to see that 4 dives were barely enough to just do one lap around the top deck of the ship. Because I take lots of photos, we tended to stay in one area longer and tried to take in as much as possible. On each dive we covered approximately a quarter of the ship. I would recommend that if you want to cover the ship from stem to stern then 4 dives would be the minimum. We did not do any deep dives (deeper than 100feet), or do any penetration dives. There are issues with both types of diving, that would have affected our photo taking activities.

I guess I was not really prepared for how large the ship is. I had read that the ship was large, and people told me that the ship was large, but actually diving the wreck, one gets to take in the expanse of the ship firsthand. The most impressive to me were the size of the cranes, and the gigantic dock in the stern of the ship.

The Spiegel Grove should be on any diver's to-do list. Highly recommended.

Shark Tourism

Shark tourism seems to be gaining popularity all the time. I think it might have something to do with people having a sense of adventure and wanting to meet face to face with the apex predator of the ocean. An article in the Daily Telegraph in the UK mentions that approximately 50,000 people visit Gansbaai South Africa to participate in some form of shark tourism. The article does not make it clear how many of the 50,000 actually go out on cage dives, but there is no doubt that the impact on the local economy of Gansbaai is huge.

Every year about 50,000 people travel to Gansbaai for a close encounter with the area's great whites, drawn in by the presence of a huge colony of Cape fur seals, and each day boats set out to sea to give tourists a closer look. Dangling bags of "chum" - usually mashed fish - a scent trail is created, and pieces of tuna on a line are used to draw the sharks towards divers in a cage on the side of the boat. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/09/wsharks109.xml)

The article's focus is that there is fear among locals that the chumming to attract the great whites could cause the animals to start associating humans with their natural food (tuna in this case). As far as I know there has not been any scientific evidence that chumming might influence the sharks to associate humans with a food choice. However, it is my opinion that it is truly a sad reflection on our society we would play this dangerous game with an endangered species.

Lets say for example that there is some truth in the idea that the chumming could condition the great whites to start associating humans with food. And lets say that humans (as is claimed by most experts) do not "taste" well to great whites (in other words, great whites do not like how humans taste). The problem is still that sharks will take bites out of humans to be sure that nothing has changed.

I don't know if it is fair to make this comparison, but as most know, there is a bit of a parallel with the behavior of the apex predator of the bush - the lion. Lions do not typically see humans as part of their food, but once a lion has crossed the line and attacked and perhaps killed a human they then learn a new behavior that humans are a food source. These lions are most often killed because of their "man hunting" behavior.

I know that I am speculating a lot in this post. The hypothetical question that I am posing is what if cage diving and chumming causes some great whites to change their behavior and start attacking humans on a larger scale? I think that the natural reaction from humans will probably be to hunt the great whites out of existence.

I have done my share of diving with sharks (not great whites). It is my opinion that it is best to observe marine animals in their natural environment. If that means waiting a little longer for an awesome photograph then so be it.

Go free little turtle

One of the unexpected highlights of my visit to Roatan last September occurred while staying at The Reef House Resort. The owner , Larry, participates in a program to rehabilitate injured turtles. Injured turtles are nursed back to health in a rock pool adjacent to the resort. The rock pool is quite large. So large in fact that I was able to conduct confined water training in the pool on a previous visit.

Larry told me that the turtles are often accidentally caught by fishermen. The turtles are tagged and when they are judged to be healthy enough are released back into the ocean. Larry invited me to be part of a trip to release two turtles and it was the first time that I had the honor to be part of something like this.

We gently loaded the two turtles into tubs with water, got them on the boat and headed south - way away from the regular spots where people dive. My job was to get into the water ahead of the turtles and capture the moment of release. The picture at the top is the moment after the first turtle was released. I was surprised by how fast he moved.

The second turtle was smaller and moved a little slower and I was able to follow him for about 10 minutes or so. In the photo below you can see the tag on the bottom of the right front fin.




If you are interesting in helping the Turtle Awareness Program (TAPS) that these turtles benefited from, you can find more information at the TAPS page of the Loma Linda University. Below is a description of the program from the TAPS page

Our TAPS seek to increase awareness and understanding of juvenile hawksbill and green sea turtles in Honduran waters initially by documenting the movements, habitat usage, and migratory onset of a cohort of turtles 'reclaimed' from local area fishermen by tagging then mapping their locations as they move through the water column and across the sea surface.

Navigating Phenom's adventure

My diving buddy who I wrote about a few days ago will be referred to as the Navigating Phenom (NP) just to make things easier. A while ago NP and I were talking about his first open water experience. He had the great fortune to be able to do his certification dives on a very scenic island that has abundant marine life. On the first dive, which is really just a tour, he and the instructor were swimming along admiring the bountiful life around them. Suddenly, the instructor became very excited, pointed very excitedly, and started swimming away from NP. At this point NP was very confused, but followed along and suddenly right there in front of them appeared a huge humpback whale.

NP said he was impressed but did not understand at the time why the instructor was so excited. He told me later that he thought that he would be seeing whales on most dives. Of course, he later realized that he was very fortunate to see a whale at all, not to mention that it was his first open water dive! Talk about beginners luck.

Tomorrow, NP and I will be taking two groups of students through their certification dives for open water certification. The weather should be great and perhaps the visibility too. Unfortunately, we are doing our certification dives in a fresh water environment, so the chances of seeing a humpback whale or any significant marine life are out of the question. Perhaps I should take a toy whale along and produce it when NP least expects it!