New PADI Skills

If you are not a dive professional, you probably did not hear that PADI, one of the world’s biggest dive training organizations, has revamped the open water course.  In fact, you probably wonder why you should care about it, and why I would bother to bring it up in a blog for already certified divers. I have to admit that I was grumbling quite a bit as I read about the added skills, but upon further reflection, I see the value in real world diving, not just for the inexperienced person.  So I’m sharing highlights of these “new” skills, in a two part blog, in the hope that if you, as a diver, are not proficient in them, this will give you something to practice this summer.

The first thing they added was emergency weight drop. In this exercise, the student, while at the surface, drops her weight pockets to experience the increase in positive buoyancy.  It first, I thought this was a complete “duh.” Who doesn’t know that if they drop their weights, even with no air in their BC, they will rapidly become positively buoyant? Well, there is no teacher like experience.  I tried it on a couple of recent students, setting up the scenario: You surface out of air, help is not near, and you are exhausted, feeling panic rise.  I instructed, in that situation, that their best course of action would be to drop your weights. I reminded them that we talked about this extensively in the classroom and they of course understood that they would instantly be bobbing much higher in the water after this. To my surprise, after they dropped their weights they commented in surprise, “Boy I had no idea this would make that big of a difference”.  I believe that this exercise made an impression that will stay with those divers and will better cement the option of dropping weights in an emergency. They are less likely to be victims because they did not avail themselves of this simple solution for buoyancy.

Another additional skill is responding to a loose cylinder.  Again, I thought all divers will undoubtedly have this happen to them or their dive buddy at some point in their diving careers, but this is something a diver can figure out on his own.  However, the pointers that an experienced instructor can give students on how to remedy this situation, as well as actually doing it underwater, can go a long way towards instilling confidence in the divers’ own readiness to dive away from the careful eye of the instructor.  The only thing I wish they would have thought of, would be adding the sign language used to communicate the problem and solution.  I plan to add that to my course, though.

Lastly for this blog, I will share the air supply awareness skill.  Students are required to know their air pressure, without looking at their gauges, within 200psi when the instructor asks them. How many divers think they can do that?  Have you ever been surprised at the amount of air you have in your tank? The point of this skill, obviously is to ingrain a habit in the diver of looking at their gauges and being constantly aware of where they at with their air. It is often the case that once a diver is certified, he becomes lax, knowing that he will not have to “do tricks” for anyone.  This is where it can get dangerous. The diver starts having fun, looking here and there at all the life around them, enjoying the freedom of the underwater environment, until suddenly he remembers his gauges and he may find himself low on air and far from his exit point. Hopefully, this new batch of divers will have developed a healthy habit of monitoring their air closely and they can enjoy all the things the underwater world has to offer without lapsing into carelessness.  It is in ever diver’s interest that the sport maintains its exceptional safety record.

Next week I will share a few more additions to the PADI open water program, and hopefully, even if you are an experienced diver I can draw attention to a few skills you have forgotten about, or will find reason to work on.

P.S. Don’t forget to check the web calendar and make plans to join Team Manta this summer!

2014 Summer Adventures

Well blog readers, with the help of several Team Manta members, we have come up with some exciting events for the summer.  In addition to our usual trips to Haigh Quarry and Pearl Lake, this year we are planning some new adventures.

First, we plan to team up with the Nature Conservancy and UW La Crosse professor Tim Gerber to help remove Eurasian Milfoil from Lake Lulu in Mukwonago.  Anyone who fishes or lives on inland lakes has heard of Eurasian milfoil and is familiar with the threat this invasive species poses to our greatest natural resource.   From a purely self-serving view point, it is in the interest of all divers to do our part to help in the removal of these plants.  In addition, we, as divers, are uniquely skilled to do this kind of work. If you are interested in joining this effort, plan to join us June 14 at Lake Lulu.  We will be given an informal, onsite orientation to the problem and our role in the solution.  We will then hit the water and do our part for the environment.  Manta Divers will supply tanks and air, but prior registration is required.  Check out the video here.

For those of you who don’t have the time (or funds) for a week long tropical dive vacation should consider a Team Manta road trip as a way to get in a bunch of dives and enjoy the dive lifestyle.  This year’s road trip in to southern IL to Mermet Springs. This dive location is a 8.5 acre spring-fed lake, with depths ranging from 15-120ft.  Features include a Boeing 727 airplane from the movie U.S. Marshals, a 45,000lb.coal car, a submarine, Ford pickup truck, Bruce the shark and Cherokee and Cessna airplanes. We plan to start our adventure Friday morning, July 18, driving to Vienna, IL.  As with many adventures, the journey is as fun as the destination, so get ready for a fun drive and many laughs as we caravan south. We will dive Mermet Springs the 19^th and 20^th and head home on the 21^st.  Check out the video here.

Finally, we will be exploring two of Lake Michigan’s famous wrecks, the Dredge No. 6 and the Prins Willem.  The Prins Willem, a 258ft Dutch freighter, sunk in Oct. 1954 off the coast of Milwaukee. The top of the wreck lies in 45 ft. of water, and the very bottom is at 85ft. The Dredge, a large crane barge, capsized in high winds on May 23, 1956.  The wreck is at 30ft at the top and 70ft at the bottom. Both of these wrecks are doable, even for newer divers, as long as cold water is not an issue. Advanced open water students can count these as their deep, wreck, and boat dives.  Manta Divers has reserved the catamaran, Mai Tai Saturday, August 2.  Spots are very limited so sign up as soon as possible.

The entire schedule will be posted on the shop website soon, so get your calendars ready and plan to join us for fun and diving.

The Six Highlights of the 2014 Trip to Curacao

As many of you know, Team Manta recently returned from Curacao, an island just north of Venezuela. Here are 6 highlights, in no particular order, of this trip.

Number One: The Diving

Duh, that was the point of the trip, but what I liked about the diving this time is that most of the dives were relatively shallow.  This positively affected the dives in different ways. With the sky’s overcast many of the days, the sun obviously did not penetrate the water as deeply as it does on clear days. Staying shallow allowed us to better see the corals and their true colors. Every diver knows that shallower dives mean longer dives. Even for divers with less than optimal air consumption rates were able to squeeze an hour out of most of the dives. Finally, our newer divers were neither a limiting factor to the group, nor were they left out of the dives everyone else was doing. 

Number Two: New Divers

Speaking of new divers, we brought back four new Team Manta members this trip.  Any of you who have taken a class from me knows that I highly recommend that new divers immediately sign up for one of our week long dive trips as a way to really cement their skills. (Not to mention how much fun they will have!) This trip, we had four people completing their open water dives. In some cases, if I fail to convince students that they need to dive locally with the group, I certify students and they go on their way and I never know if they continued to dive or if they remained at the skill level of a newly certified diver. On this trip I had the opportunity to guide my students through their four open water dives, and then to see them assert more independence, diving with me as a dive buddy, feeling relaxed and comfortable. Eventually, they became comfortable diving with another certified diver as their dive buddy. I am proud of them and know they will continue to dive and enjoy it.

Number Three: The Lionfish Hunt

Our dive operation, Ocean Encounters, has their own answer to the lionfish problem on their reefs.  They spear lionfish on different reefs in rotation.  They count, measure and sex the catch for statistics and submit that information to research on the issue.  The divers on this dive acted as spotters, banging on their tanks when they found a lionfish, and pointing it out for the dive masters, who then speared the invader and put it into a collection tube.  After the dive, we were shown how to filet the fish safely and were given a certificate for a free lionfish meal at the Iguana Café and they were delicious!  I am proud to say that we dispatched ninety lionfish on that dive.  Sadly, there seems to be an endless supply of them throughout the Caribbean.

Number Four: The Night Dive

Night diving is a must on any dive trip.  This one was a real delight.  All the divers were able to stay spread apart so all of us could see things without being finned in the head. There was plenty for all of us to see, too.  Lobsters strutted boldly along the corals.  Hunting octopuses, seemingly undisturbed by our lights, performed their color and shape changing tricks for us.  Tiny red shrimps peeked out from formations.  We hired a videographer from Turtle and Ray Productions to document the dive.  You can see this here.

Number Five: The Ostrich Farm

If you go to Curacao, be sure to make time to venture out to the Ostrich Farm.  This is a unique operation is which nothing is wasted.  The ostrich meat is sold to restaurants, eggs used in baking and breakfasts. Crocodiles ate the waste from the butchering.  Goats ate the weeds out of the aloe fields. The pigs ate the scraps from the restaurant. It was really impressive. We took a guided tour and learned a lot about the animals, and even got to feed them. 

Number Six: The Restaurants

Mike and I ate in a lot, but when we ventured out, it was memorable.  Augusto’s, located adjacent to Lions Dive, where we were staying and Ocean Encounters, the dive operation, was a convenient spot to get a quick and relatively inexpensive lunch. They served good burgers, veggie or chicken sandwiches and pasta.  Our traveling companions talked us out of our culinary comfort zones, convincing us to try Indian food at Bollywood restaurant.  Unsure what all the dishes were, we had our friends, Sean and Karen Bellinger order several dishes to share.  This was a good way to experience a new cuisine and each dish was wonderful! If you are into Argentinian style beef, try El Gaucho, a nice restaurant the overlooks Willemstad. Don’t count on Argentinian beef, though.  The beef served is US Black Angus.  Finally, do not miss Zambezi at the Ostrich farm.  They will even transport you to and from the restaurant, so you can feel free to try their special cocktails or imbibe a wonderful South African wine with dinner.  Everything they make is great, and of course the ostrich steaks are fresh! Oh, and dessert! Yum.

If you want more information about our trip, check these videos and the trip report on our website.

The Tale of Tater: End of the Year

Now that the year has wound down it's time for me to reflect on the past year of diving.  It was a great year for me going all the way back to January.   One of the top highlights that come to mind last January was seeing several Bull Sharks while diving in Playa Del Carmen.  I particularly remember trying to follow one as best I could in the fairly decent current to get pictures.  What made it memorable was watching as he slowly turned and started a pass in my direction, at which point I decided to not to keep swimming towards it.  Not really scared but thinking OK, that's close enough!  I'll just go with the current now.  

The next giant thrill for me was going to Cayman Brac with Team Manta in late March.  I can't really say enough about that trip.  The food, view, climate, boats etc. were all amazing.  Visibility was fantastic!  Three dives a day and each one had some great photo ops, a creature not seen before and fantastic color and scenery.

Those trips in January and March/April gave me something to look forward to through the long dry winter.  They also carried me on into spring when the Manta Summer Schedule kicked in.  Early trips to Pearl Lake to get back in the water are always good.  

Then it was off to Ohio for the Manta Trip to Gilboa Quarry. 

                                                          

Then there was the dive marathon at Lake Wazee ending with a Night dive.  Another trip to Three Lakes Wisconsin and Finding the mysterious Ghost Anchor of Butternut Lake.   I could go on and on since I was able to get in 62 dives this year.  Nearly all of them were very good in some way. 

I reached some milestones along the way including my Night Diver Specialty, my 100th dive, Master Scuba Diver card, and completed my open water requirements to become a PADI Divemaster.  

After all that diving and those trips, there was one more thing that stood out to me this year.  New friends and new dive buddies.  My regular dive buddy Josh.O  and I always have a good time and dive well together but this year was a bit of a good news/bad news situation.  The bad news was that this year he had a bit of trouble finding time to dive whereas I dove double what I did last year.  The good news was that meant lots of new dive buddies.  In some cases I dove with people I had never met before the day of the dive.  In other cases, people I met with Manta on other dive outings became my dive buddy on a subsequent dive.  In some cases, students or recently certified divers were with me.  http://www.mantadiveshop.com/certified-divers-2013.htm  I won't mention you all by name, but I wrote this blog to THANK YOU for diving with me.  Of course a big thank you goes out to Mike and Lisa for making it all possible.  I had a blast and it was a pleasure meeting, hanging out and diving with you!  I can’t wait for next year!!   If by some chance you are reading this and haven’t been on a Manta Dive Outing come and join in next year!

Before I sign off, I want to toss out a teaser for a future blog.  So after all that fun and all those dives how do you keep track of it all?  Of course with your log book, but pen and paper??  C’mon man that’s so 1990’s!!  Time to geek out with some dive log software.  Next time I will do a review of a couple of products that I have been playing with.  Got to find some way to get through a 3-4 month surface interval!!

Later

Tater

PS  If you are interested in joining Manta Divers on the trip or want to put in some input, stop by the shop on 8 February 2014 at 3 pm for the yearly planning meeting. 

Wait, they found what?

They what? They found a second Stonehenge in 40 ft. of water in Lake Michigan?  That’s what Mark Holley a professor of underwater Archaeology  at Northwestern Michigan College thinks he found in Lake Michigan’s Traverse Bay. In 2007 archeologists were using special sonar to look for a series of pre-civil war boats that were sunk in the area.  They found the boats as well as a pier, an old buggy and some junk cars.  The archeologists something more  interesting than they bargained for  on the bottom. They found a series of  upright stones arranged in a Stonehenge-like manner. The sonar also picked up a number of other rock patterns including a large rock that appears to have  prehistoric carving of a mastodon on it. Divers were sent down to investigate and photograph.

The boulder with the carving is  3 .5 to 4 ft. high and 5 ft. long.  Photos show a surface with numerous fissures, some may be natural while others are of human origin.  Viewed together,  they look like the outlines of a mastodon-like back, hump ,head ,trunk, tusk, ear and legs.  “We couldn’t believe what we were looking at” Said Greg MacMaster, president of the underwater preserve council. Specialists that have been shown pictures of the  boulder  with the markings want more evidence before they confirm that its an ancient petroglyph. The experts want to actually see it, unfortunately experts in petroglyphs generally don’t dive so that’s a bit of a problem.  If this is real it could be as much as 10000 years old. It could prove that both humans and mastodons roamed the upper Midwest  at that time.  Maybe we need to get petroglyph experts into a dive class and the take them on a road trip to dive the boulder with the carving. What’s next pyramids in Lake Winnebago?

Has This Ever Happened To You?

Has it ever happened to you? You tell someone that you’re a SCUBA diver and the next thing they ask is “Where is your favorite dive spot?” This happens to me all the time. There are other variations like,  “Where’s the best wreck dive or the best shark dive or the best corral?” If you’ve only been to one dive destination, the answer is easy but if you’ve dived many places, it gets difficult to identify the best.  Best is also an opinion with a lot of variables. 

For example, if you asked me what wreck dive is my favorite, I don’t know how I would choose. Would I say is my favorite it would be the Tibbets in Cayman Brac? Or is it the C-58 in Cancun or Hilma Hooker in Bonaire or the remains and anchor from ship that broke up in the 1600’s in Bonaire. There are a lot of wrecks that come to mind but it’s almost impossible to say that one was the best or a favorite because they all have so much to see. I’ve dived these wrecks numerous times and each time I see something I missed on a previous dive.

There isn’t favorite or best place for sharks, coral, turtles or rays either, since the creatures you see on a dive is completely up to chance.  I’ve done organized shark diving in Roatan where they fed chum to the sharks. Amazing as that was, I find that it is particularly thrilling to see sharks by chance, just cruising through the reef.  I have been lucky enough to see magnificent sharks of many varieties in the Hawaiian Islands and in just about all the islands I’ve been to in the Caribbean, without having to lure them in. Diving with a shark anywhere is experience that I never get tired of.

Coral and sponges can vary in character from one island to another. Cayman Brac used to have the biggest Stag Horn coral that I ever saw until the hurricane took most of it out, but is still has some of the biggest barrel sponges I’ve seen. The Brain corals seem to be the biggest in the Bay Islands of Honduras, and they are enhanced with a riot of colorful sponges and tunicates. Whatever the reason that the coral varies from Island to Island it’s a reason to dive all the Islands. So many islands, so little time. 

There is such diversity of life in the ocean you can dive the same island over and over and always see something new each time. So when people ask me where the best place to SCUBA dive is I answer “under water”.

The Six Highlights of the 2013 Diving Season

Here are the six highlights of the 2013 diving season

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!

Number 3: Ohio Trout!  

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.

Number 4: Lake Wazee

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!