Number 1: Bonaire
Dived our brains out and loved it! In January, we returned to one of my favorite spots, Bonaire. Though we did several boat dives that allowed us to explore the more remote reefs, we saved plenty of time to experience what Bonaire is known: for their shore diving. Shore diving can be challenging in terms of dive planning since divers must prepare for an entry and exit in what can be high surf, but the trade-off is the freedom of diving on your schedule where you want to dive. It also affords the chance to take photos without having to worry about holding anyone up. As long as your dive buddy is in agreement, you can go as fast or slow as you want.
Number 2: Cayman Brac
One of the few dive destinations where the diving was almost overshadowed by the fantastic food! Team Manta spent a week on the island of Cayman Brac in April, 2013. We negotiated an exceptional deal with three dives per day and all the gourmet food we could eat three times a day! We visited some of the best loved sites around the Brac, such as Preacher’s Barge, Tarpon Reef and of course the MV Keith Tibbetts. We also took a jaunt over to Little Cayman and did two dives in the famed Bloody Bay marine park. As always, the group was comprised of divers of all experience levels, looking for fun and laughs underwater!
We thought we would try something new and dive in some other states’ quarries. Our caravan travelled to the Toledo area in Ohio and dived the Whitestar and Gilboa quarries. At Whitestar, we met some people from area diveshops who were amazed that we would travel so far to dive their quarries. Apparently, not many dive shops are as into road trips as Manta Divers is. Divers can test their navigation skills on one of the many “scuba trails” mapped out at Whitestar, or just explore and discover by serendipity. Gilboa was one of the clearest diving quarries I have been in. I stood on the entry deck and could see the training platform at 20 ft, a sunken car and the tail piece of the Grumman Gulfstream airplane! It was so easy to find all the items of interest since the water is so clear! The most remarkable thing though was the sheer numbers of fish! The trout literally swarmed you when you went to the bus. This is apparently a favorite spot to feed the fish. We had a lot of laughs and enjoyed cooking out on site.
We enjoyed Wazee on a beautiful weekend in which the lake was nearly deserted. The water was clear as could be and we were able to squeeze in a couple of night dives
Number 5: Northern WI
Mook’s blown tire adventure, finding the ghost anchor: In August, we travelled to Northern Wisconsin to dive Butternut Lake. Our mission was to locate the Ghost Anchor” If you’ve not been following the blogs and tip reports, you don’t know about Mike’s obsession with finding this anchor that a couple of divers had spotted on previous dive trips, but had eluded rediscovery, but I get ahead of myself! We loaded up headed for the north woods in a caravan. The journey there, alas, was not destined to be a smooth one. Round about Oshkosh, we heard what sounded like an explosion. Mike glanced at his rear view mirror in time to see pieces of tire and our trailer fender fly off into the air. Pulling over, we saw that we had a blowout. This whole team jumped into action, helping Mike to put on the spare, but we were bummed out that this would delay the progress of our journey. However, in true team Manta fashion, we made the best of it and had the tires changed at the Fleet Farm in Grand Chute. If you are unfamiliar, this is a giant store, often referred to as the “Man Mall,” so we had fun shopping around as we waited. Soon we were on our way. The diving was great and we had fun exploring the more remote parts of the lake from our rented pontoon boat. We even took a sunset cruise around Butternut lake. The highlight, of course was finding the “Ghost Anchor.” That accomplished, we plan to find the “Popeye Anchor” this year. This is reported to be in another part of the lake, so we will have more fun searching and diving!
Number 6: Certifying students Lots of classes , Rescuedivers, Divemasters, using FFM to teach
Of course, we had a busy year teaching numerous classes for divers of all levels. As a new part of my teaching, I added the full face mask to my open water repertoire. With me in the Full face mask, and the students with comms on their masks, I am able to talk to the student for better coaching and explaining. This makes it easier to make sure the student knows what to do and understands any corrections given. Other teaching highlights included Tater (a.k.a. Scott Duban) earning his Divemaster certification, (We are looking forward to his valuable assistance with classed this coming year.) and Sarah Barrett, who took Advanced open water and Rescue diver from us, going on to an instructor training course in FL. We look forward to relating her stories to you in future blogs.
Join us on at the shop Feb. 8 at 3pm for our summer 2014
planning meeting. Don’t get left
out of the fun!
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