January Specialty of the Month Dive

We will be headed up to the Crater on January 17 from 12-2pm for the January dive. The specialty of the month for January is Nitrox. When we increase the level of oxygen in the air we are breathing while diving, we can get longer bottom times since we are not absorbing as much nitrogen. Many people report having more energy after diving nitrox. The down side is that we have to limit our deoth to about 100 feet bu that won't matter much at the Crater. You can get free nitrox for 1 dive if you RSVP on our Facebook page-Dive Utah Bottom Dwellers.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=31030479519

See you there!!!

A Dive at The Crater

I had a class set up for the Crater on Saturday and Sunday. Naturally, winter decided to finally show up. The weather service predicted doom and gloom for the whole weekend. With that in mind, I cancelled Saturday's class from 4-6pm but kept Sunday at 10am. Of course, Saturday afternoon the roads were fine and Sunday morning they weren't. Oh well....

So we got everyone up there Sunday morning and the Crater was busy. There were 2 groups there from another local dive shop. Apparently they came with more people then they had planned. I can't say anything about that since we do that all the time. Make a reservation for 5 and show up with anywhere from 2-8 people. We try to keep the numbers close since that helps the Crater have a better idea of who is doing what. Since some of our guys were late, the other groups were in the water and diving by the time we go set up on the dock. This is good since you don't want EVERYONE under at the same time. If you take turns and stagger your dives, more people can get in and it works better for everyone. The biggest part of that involves taking turns on the platform or the PVC pipe-square. After watching the other groups from the surface, it looked like all they were done and making their dives so we started down the ropes to the pipe. As soon as we go there, I could see a group below up starting to ascend back up the ropes. Naturally they weren't looking up about to run into us so I got my group to move over and hover while they came up. Only problem was once they got to the pipe, I saw the instructor give the sign for a safety stop. And they were not moving or giving us back any of the pipe. I guess that's what happens when they have more people then you do!

Once we got reorganized and diving, it was actually really nice. The vis was great, the water was warm and everyone did great a great job on staying together and buoyancy. We ended the dive and spent some time on the surface. I was hoping the other groups would notice that we were up and they would go down so that we could have a turn on the platform before our time was up. Nope, nothing doing. They took their time and didn't move off either. Finally we had to go down and share some of the pipe. The instructor gave me a look like "Who are you and what are you doing on my pipe?" but we only took a small part of it and time was running short.

All in all it was a great class on a cold day. It helps out on a busy day when all instructors realize they need to share and try not to "hog" the pipe or the platform.

Mask Issues

Last Thursday I had a class in the pool for their second night. That means mask removal and replacement will be the fun skill of the night. I knew we were destined for trouble because I wasn't able to practise mask clearing as much as I would have liked the first night. The pool heater was acting up and the temp was down a few degrees and I had cold students shivering before we were even half way through with the night. They were able to clear but there were a few issues I would have like to have worked on.

The water was still chilly this night but I put wetsuits on everyone just to be safe and to make sure we could spend all the time we needed in the water. There were 2 students with issues on the mask. One student could blow through her nose and tilt her head back but was always getting water back into her mask and inhaling it through her nose while her head was back. I couldn't get her to stop inhaling while her head was up. FYI-when you tilt your head back, it opens up the back of your throat and make it easy for water to slide down your nose and coughing and sputtering ensues. After a few tries it FINALLY hit me to swap out masks. This is the situation that cries out for a purge mask. You clear it by blowing out through the nose while your head is in the down position. Since there was no tilting up, she didn't have the reflex to inhale through her nose and the problem was solved.

The second student had his mask so tight that every time he tried to start blowing out, the mask would suction up to his face and he couldn't break the seal. He was a younger diver and I think a little nervous about getting water up the nose. This was easier to solve. You need to start blowing earlier when you are looking down and then continue that as you look up and release the bottom of the skirt of the mask. For some reason everyone can breathe out through the nose easily when you look down. When he did that he broke the seal earlier and didn't get the suction cup action.

These are a few tricks to try if you have issues clearing your mask.

Christmas Specials!!

Aeris-Deals on the Atmos AI and Manta computers-TOO GOOD TO PRINT! That’s right, they won’t let us advertise them but call or stop by and we’ll give you the dirt!! (Aeris deals are only until December 8)

Scubapro Zero Prime-Buy any Scubapro first and second stage and BCD with Air 2 and receive a FREE Aladin Prime Wrist Computer!

Shaka Shoes and Sandals-The most comfortable footwear your feet will ever feel!! Brand new styles in stock-20% off!!

Travel Essentials- Super absorbent micro-fiber towels (easy and light weight for packing), travel wallets, stowable carry-on bags and TSA approved locks-all travel products from McNett-15 % off!!

Freestyle and St. Moritz Watches-Every diver needs to know his bottom time, these waterproof watches are perfect! 15% OFF

ALL PADI PRODUCTS-2009 prices are here but we are waiting until January 1 to use them!

PADI ERDP-ML-The Electronic Dive Planner-throw your tables away and use the dive table calculator! The new version can plan multi-level dives as well!! 15% OFF

Mask, Snorkel and Fin Packages-Take an extra 5% off these already great deals!

Intova Underwater Cameras-Check out the latest in underwater cameras. Intova offers a 6 mega pixel digital camera with housing for under $200! Add a strobe, filter, bag and sync cord for under $500. This is a great way to get into underwater photography without breaking the bank!

Seabase Fun Dive

We had our Specialty of the Month dive last Saturday out at Seabase. I hadn't been out there in about a year so it was time to go see the nurse sharks again. I know they get worried when I don't visit.

We had about 8 divers out with us for the Underwater Navigation Specialty/Fun Dives. We got out there about 9am. I have to apologize to Joe who for some reason thought we were meeting at 7am!! When you consider he lives past Park City, that meant he was up at 5:30 to get there in time. At least he got to know the staff out there really well. I was surprised to see a semi-full parking lot all ready. That usually means not so great vis. A group from Wyoming was there working on certification and a group of scouts had camped out there the night before. We decided to dive the "Abyss" first since there was no one in there and the vis is usually a bit better.

Not so much on this morning! As soon as you dropped down about 5 feet, it got really dark and by 10 feet, it was almost black. I saw a light below me that made it look like the whole thing got more clear but it was just the light on the side. You could barely see someone next to it. I ran into Courtney there and we signalled to head up. Within 5 minutes we all surfaced and determined that we were done with the Abyss. Interesting, slightly scary note-Dave (another instructor) and his buddy got tangled in some wire right out in the middle of the thing that would not allow them to go up or down. Imagine having to deal with that in no vis.

So we headed to the main pool, "White Rocks Bay". The other group had wrapped up so we had it to ourselves. The vis was a little better, maybe 3 feet but it was colder. The Abyss was in the 70's, this was in the 60's. I had loaned my hood out but happily borrowed another. Our main point on this dive was playing Blackjack. Courtney has some waterproof, non-floating playing cards so we dealt some 21. After we had each taken a turn dealing through the deck, Dustin was our big winner.

After that we headed around to show everyone the "sights." We checked out the boat (still there) and then headed through the tunnel to look for fish. The enclosed bay wasn't much better. We saw a few fish swimming around but no sharks. After 30 minutes, we were ready to head home and get ready for BYU-Utah that afternoon.

I'm a little bummed I didn't get my yearly dose of Seabase-Nurse Shark. I probably won't be back for another year, I hope they don't too worried until then!!

Join us next month for Search and Recovery at Blue Lake at December 13!

Horizon Trip-Saturday

THIS IS THE LAST OF A SERIES OF 3 POSTS. TO READ THEM IN ORDER START WITH HORIZON TRIP-THURSDAY, THEN READ FRIDAY THEN THIS ONE


Saturday-Nov. 15-8:50am-Pyramid Palisades-San Clemente Island-Last night was a good night for bugs. I think all told we bagged about 8 more. The pups hung around the whole time we were there. We got the okay for San Clemente and anchored there in the middle of the night. The Captain gave us the option for a reverse night dive. If you wanted to dive to make a dive at dawn, the crew would wake you up at 5am. Naturally I passed. After getting up at a decent hour and having breakfast, we made our next dive. I dropped down with Doyle and Kent. There was a sandy bottom about 60’ deep with the kelp rising off a rock ledge that sloped upwards. The ledge was littered with small openings, overhangs and swim throughs. As we approached the kelp, there were a few thousand small fish swimming at the edge of the kelp. We dropped down to the sand and checked out a small opening that lead up to a small swim through. When I saw that I couldn’t fit through, I turned around and there was Doyle ready to take my picture framed by the rocks. As he was taking it, I noticed a lanyard hanging from the camera. Thinking it was his main one I swam up to tell him to put it on. Once I was close enough, I saw that it was attached to the red filter on the lens. Now here is where it gets fun. He thought I was taking the camera to take his picture. Once I saw that the lanyard was an extra, I turned and starting swimming up into the kelp. Doyle, thinking I wanted his camera, had taken it off and thought that I had it. Imagine his surprise when he gets into position turns around and doesn’t see me! He was thinking, that little turd just swam off with my camera! (That is an exact quote.)

So off I go into the kelp having a good old dive. It was very thick in places and with the surge moving the kelp back and forth in the sun light, it was quite a sight. I wondered down a crevice that turned into swim through. It was a bit murky, maybe someone had already been there. At the end I meet a few divers looking for lobsters. I had seen a few but they were all shorts. Once I got to the end and turned to come back up a bit, I got a little reverse block. I think it was nature’s way to tell me to stop. So I stopped, held on to some kelp and let it pass. While hanging there I found two tiny Spanish Shawls. They are nudibranchs, kind of like a slug, maybe 1 inch long and bright blue with orange mantle (hair-like growths along the length of the body). To top it off there is a scallop right between them. Really cool!!

The rest of the dive is spent wandering the kelp and I head back out the way I came in stopping to watch the school of blacksmiths and senoritas I saw on the way in. About 15 minutes after I got back, Doyle pops his head in and says, “Where’s my camera?” I’m like, what are you talking about? He says-I gave it to you, I say-No you didn’t! Turns out he thought when I swam up to him to look at the lanyard I was going to take his camera and take his picture. He handed it off without me seeing it, goes into the kelp to pose, turns around and says, where’d Dave go with my camera? As it was floating to the surface, Jeff saw it but it was going up too fast. He swims up to Doyle and give him the sign for “You camera is floating up there.” Doyle thinks yea, I don’t know where Dave is going with it. Fast forward back to the boat. We tell the captain and he send the chase boat out to look. Doyle says we have two chases on finding it, slim and none. Naturally the boat returns with no luck. I’m thinking great, I’m out for 2 cameras on 1 trip. Imagine everyone’s surprise as the Horizon ups anchor and moves and what do we drifting in the big, blue ocean but Doyle’s camera!!

11:45pm-Little Flower-Best dive of the trip! I was a little leery with my ears but I wanted to make one more dive. I jump in with Doyle and Kent and they promptly scatter. We have a sloping bottom, with a mini wall and a kelp forest on top of it. I approach the kelp and just sit still for awhile and watch the fish. There are always tons around the outside. I see a calico bass swim down and brush his side against the bottom, swim up and do it again and again about 5 times. I guess he has a little itch. After a minute of that I swim into the kelp just a few feet and hunker down to watch whatever might happen. Here is what I saw-
-about 100 little blue banded gobies. They are about 1 inch long and are bright blue and orange and sit on rocks.
-4 lobsters sitting in a hole. The biggest is in the back. As I sit there, they venture out a bit but then head back it.
-2 juvenile garibaldi, the young ones have bright blue spots on them. One of them has just about lost its spots and just a tinge of blue remains on the tips of the fins.
-a female sheephead keeps swimming up and checking me out.
-about 20 smaller blacksmiths

It is amazing what happens when you just stay put. All the fish get a little closer and you really feel part of what’s going on. After 10 minutes I am starting to get chilly so I pick up and head out a little further in the kelp to the edge of the wall. It drops off to about 70 feet. Divemasters always tell you if you hang out and wait you never know what will come swimming by. Sure enough they are right. I’m not there 2 minutes when out of the blue comes Butch. He proceeds to tell me in sign language how there was a huge fish back there with really big teeth, that it attacked him, that he had to take his knife out and defend himself and that while it was a very close thing, he prevailed and now the seas are safe for the rest of us. Thanks Butch, appreciate that. Once he passed by I saw a school of halfmoon in the top of the kelp. I slowly swam up into them and hung around them for a bit. My dive was about 30 minutes long and I think I saw more on that dive then any other on this trip.

Bugs were plentiful

1:45pm-Headed back to San Diego-We had lunch and the pool was open one last time at the same site. This time I headed closer in shore to poke around there. I did the same thing as last dive-just site there and observe. I saw 2 female sheephead that would stare at each other with their mouths wide open not more then an inch apart. I took a poll and here are some of the answers that were suggested-
-“It’s a contest to see which female has the biggest mouth.”
-“It’s just women talking, what do you expect.”
Sheephead can change sex from male to female or vice versa-“One is saying I’m about to change sex and I want to know if you’ll date me afterwards.”
Most likely it is a dominance thing. I got up close to a rock to check it out and saw toNs of small anemones. In a crack I saw a tiny little cleaner shrimp and a small starfish. It is funny, once you stop moving and look intently at something, other fish come up like m kids and say I want to see. The watcher becomes the watched and they want to know just what is so interesting. On the way back to the boat I saw a good size leopard shark just cruising along the kelp.

9:14pm-Vagabond Hotel-San Diego-What a great trip. Looking back and rereading this, one thing I should have mentioned more was how great the weather was. People think November is getting cold but this was great. We couldn’t have asked for better. During the 6 hour ride back to port, we had flat seas the whole way. Some dolphins came over and played in our bow wake at one point. They were so close, I keep hear them clicking and talking to each other. Once it got dark and we were closer to the harbor I could hear sea lions barking from the darkness. They must have been sitting on a buoy.

We had great diving conditions and saw some incredible things. The highlight was definitely the sea lions. I hadn’t been on the Horizon in over 2 years, I had forgotten how much of a fun trip this was. I talked to Ken from the Ogden shop and we are not sure if we want to do a July and a Lobster trip next year. Have a preference? Let me know and we’ll see you down here next year!

Horizon Trip-Friday

Sunrise at Santa Barbara

Friday-Nov. 14-11:45am-East of the Sea Lion Rookery-Santa Barbara Island-What a difference a few hours can make. Let me bring you up to speed. We left Catalina last night for Santa Barbara. We awoke to calm seas and a beautiful morning. . The Captain moved the boat around to a site on the west end of the island. We were exposed to the swell from the northeast but I didn’t think too much of it, I was ready to go dive. Kent and I hit the water and headed down. The site had a plateau about 40’deep with a wall heading down from there. The wall was just gorgeous, covered in small anemones and star fish. The water was noticeable colder, about 58* down from 63* at Catalina yesterday. We headed along the wall until I looked out in to the blue and noticed something hanging in the water column above us and just out in the blue. From where we were it looked like a ray. As we swam closer I could see a long tail that looked more like a shark. It was an angel shark. They are really weird looking, ½ shark and ½ ray, and usually hanging around in the sand so it was strange to see him in the blue. It was hard to tell just how big it was since it was floating in blue water and there was no reference for size. We headed back to the wall and came up a gulley and then the fun started. Those of you who have dove with me in the past know that I can get reverse blocks from time to time. A reverse block occurs when you ascend and your ears can’t re-equalize. Basically you get the spins, get real dizzy and depending on how long it takes to clear, you feel real crappy. So I got a reverse block and spent the rest of the dive dealing with an upset stomach. Once we got up and back on the boat, I didn’t feel any better since we were just rocking and rolling due to the swell. I just sat down near the bow feeling miserable and wondering why I ever came on this trip. With an upset stomach and a blocked ear, I was ready to go home. We finally pulled up the anchor and worked our way around island.

As the seas calmed and I warmed up, a wonderful thing happened, my stomach got better, my ear cleared and I suddenly enjoyed life again. Once we got to the next site, the sea lions arrived! We were right next to the large rookery. This is what we came to Santa Barbara for. We had seen a few on the surface and one or two underwater but now we had a pack of about 25 pups swimming right up next the boat. Now I had a decision to make. I knew my ear was not going to like it but with my stomach feeling better and the sun shining, I felt like a new man (You know the best part about feeling bad is how good you feel once it passes). I just had to jump in and see if the pups were going to hang around with us. I suited up and hit the water and sure enough, there they were. Watching sea lions underwater is the coolest thing ever. They are so quick and graceful, they can stop on a dime, turn 180* and dart to the surface in a second. I have swum with seals and sea lions a few times but never for this long and never with this many. It was well worth it, even if my ears plugged again on the way up and the spins came back even worse then the last dive. Luckily my ears cleared quickly and I felt fine by the time I got back to the boat. Everyone enjoyed this dive, even the guys who sat this one out. The pups kept coming back to the boat to check us out. One even climbed on the swim step and hung out for bit and another climbed into the chase boat. We also finally had some luck with lobsters as Martin (one of the Divemasters) got 4 including 1 monster and my buddy from the night dive had a big one as well. Broccoli and cheese soup and a grilled cheese sandwich made for a great lunch and since my ears tell me I am done for the day, a nap might be in order.

4:45pm-Just a bit further east then earlier in the day-We made a second dive just down from the last one. Sea lions aplenty again. After that, the captain wanted to see if the swell and current had died down on the other side of the island. Since it had not, we came back to the same area as before and made the last dive of the afternoon. We will eat dinner here (Tri-tip BBQ) and make the night dive as well. Since the sea lions are still around it will interesting to see if they will come out for the night dive. Twice I have had seals dive with me at night to use my light to help them hunt for fish. They stay with you the whole time, just in front of your light. If the Navy will let us, we will move back to San Clemente tonight so we can dive longer tomorrow before heading back to San Diego. The Navy owns the island and closes it down for training exercises some times as they storm the beaches or whatever they do. When that happens you need to keep a certain distance away. I have had that happen once before but they only closed the northern end so we had to dive just one side. Since San Clemente is closer to San Diego that means more diving. If we have to stay away and dive Catalina, then it will take longer to get back and we will stop diving earlier. Of course if my ear doesn’t feel better, then it won’t really matter will it?

Horizon Trip-Thursday

Wednesday-November 12, 2008-11:00pm-San Diego Harbor-We made it. After an uneventful flight and uneventful cab ride, we made it to H&M Landing to board the boat. Kent and I were the last people to get to there. Guys starting arriving at 3pm, they let you on the boat at 8pm and we showed up at 9:30pm. We only have 14 people on this trip. On trips past we average twice that. That means a lot of room on the boat. The crew took out the dividers on some of the bunks which means you have twice the space. Captain Greg gave us the safety briefing, Chef Mark gave us the galley briefing and we were off. It takes about an hour to clear the harbor and hang a right to head northwest towards the Channel Islands. Captain Greg said that the navy has closed San Clemente Island until Saturday so we are headed farther north to Santa Barbara Island for our first day, then Catalina on Friday and finish up at San Clemente on Saturday. The weather report calls for sun and calm so it should be a great trip.

Thursday-Nov. 13-8:00am-2 miles southeast of the isthmus of Catalina-I hate the first night in a new bed, especially one that is tossing and turning. Down in the bunk room, it is pretty dark so you can’t tell what is going on in the real world. I tossed and turned for awhile and came up at 7:30 to a gloriously sunny morning. Catalina is off to our right and the cut of Two Harbors is clearly visible. Breakfast with eggs, potatoes and sausage and we are off and running. About 1 ½ hours more to Santa Barbara and the diving begins!!

Pre-dive briefing

11am-Johnson Rocks-west end of Catalina Island-So about 20 minutes after the last post, the captain got on the loud speaker to say that because of the swell we were encountering we were bagging Santa Barbara in favor of Catalina. Santa Barbara is a smaller island and with the swell coming from the direction it was coming from, I guess most of the island would be too rough to dive. 20 minutes later we came around the western tip of Catalina to the leeward side and anchored at Johnson Rock. We suited up and prepared to dive. When I hit the water I first helped a boy, Chad, who was diving with his dad and brother. He was having trouble getting down. One of the biggest problems people find, especially with cold water diving, is that they feel they need more and more weight. Remember that neoprene is made up of lots of small air pockets and as you descend, they will compress and you will become less buoyant. Dump all your air, relax so you are not breathing that hard and then fin your hands so you go down a little. Once you are under, flip over and kick yourself down further. Once you are down about 15-20 feet, the air in your suit will compress and you should be able to stay down. Now keep in mind on the way back up that if you are not letting air out of your BCD at 30 and then 20 feet, once you hit 15 feet, the air in your suit is expanding and you will pop up like a cork.

So once he got down, I found Joerg and we started swimming. I looked down at my camera to turn everything on. Imagine my surprise when I saw the camera housing was half filled with water!! I had checked the o-ring and let it sit in the rinse tank for awhile. Everything seemed fine. Coming up as I checked out the housing I could see part of the o-ring pinched out. I climbed out, rinsed off the housing, took the camera out and rinsed that as well. The Horizon keeps a hairdryer for just such an emergency. I dried it out for awhile, I can’t tell if anything happened or not. I guess we’ll wait and see. I am hopeful. Back in October I soaked a camera in Zions and after thinking it was toast (and buying a new one) turned out it worked just fine a few weeks later. So much for the much anticipated “taking lots of pictures” part of the trip.
Lunch was a deli-spread and we are moving to the next site.

Like this will do any good!

2:10pm-Starlight-We moved a little further east and made the next dive. I buddied up with Kent and we had a good dive. The visibility wasn’t as good as earlier, about 30 feet max. There was lot of surge especially as you got shallower. Right under the boat was sand and not a lot to see. We headed in a bit and got into some good kelp and boulders with lots of life. I saw a small school of bait fish and saw a larger school of California Barracuda right on the edge of the kelp. We cruised around shallow and then headed back towards the boat. Just to the right of the boat, we came into some more kelp and boulders. Saw the first lobsters of the trip in here. There was a crevice with about 7-8 shorts just hanging out. It was an okay site but I’m glad we are going to move for the next dive. Due to the conditions on this end, the captain wants to move farther east towards Two Harbors. Some of my favorite dives are up that way-Bird Rock, Crane Point and Sea Fan Grotto. I might have to try and pull some rank to see what if can dive up there.

Catalina

4:50pm-YellowTail Point-I swear, sometimes I think every boat has its own name for the same site. We are just east of the old quarry. I have dove this area probably 15 times under 5 different names. Sea Fan Grotto mergers into Rock Quarry, which merges into Crane Point, which merges into the Shack, which merges into Yellowtail Point. What’s in a dive site name? A site by any other would look as good? I digress. Great dive. Started off with Doyle, Joerg, Butch and Kent. Sandy bottom under the boat at around 40’ and slopes up into kelp and boulders. Nice visibility. Most dives I am leading people so when I get to follow someone it is a bit of a novelty. Doyle was leading and I could just ignore everything and focus on the dive. The first thing I noticed was the purple covering on almost all the rocks. I have no idea what it is but it looks so pretty when you shine your light on it to really bring out the color. There are a lot of purple urchins in all the cracks. As I checked out some closer and peered my light deeper into the crack I saw an octopus. They are the coolest creatures. I can count on 1 hand the number of times I have seen one so this is a highlight. It is pretty deep in the hole and not moving around much but his eye is right there. (I imagine he is thinking, Dude-turn off your light!) I look around to show him to someone else but Joerg is the only one close to me and he doesn’t hear me yelling for him. As I leave the octopus, I see a scallop tucked in the next crack over. Naturally I brush some water at him to make him close up. That’s just what I do. I proceed to follow behind everyone else as we go up and down through the kelp. We came across one huge boulder, most likely 20 feet high and over 100 feet around. There are numerous cracks running through it and the biggest one is teeming with shorts and the big ones are hiding down deep inside. The Captain caught one on the last dive that was barely legal size. He is the only one to get one so far.
We are going to have dinner and make our night dive. We can do 2 night dives since that is when lobsters come out more. We will see how we do tonight.

8:20pm-Same Location -After a wonderful dinner of Chicken Tacos (chicken was BBQ’d on a grill that hangs off the back of the boat) with lemon cake for dessert, a few of us suited up for a night dive. I buddied up with Chad’s dad. Since he was hunting lobster and I was just site seeing, I told him to lead and I would follow. Like the last dive it was fun to just tag along. There is almost a full moon tonight so you could really see a lot without even using your light. That is one of my favorite things to do on a night dive, turn off my light and play Navy Stealth Diver. It is amazing just how much you can see once your eyes get used to the dark. A little light from the surface can go a long way. There are 3 great night dives that come to mind that were made in the dark (pun intended). 2 were in California. The first was at the Casino Point Marine Park on Catalina. There are some lights from the Casino that you could see clear as a bell. The second was on my first trip on the Horizon about 5 years ago. I was doing Butch’s Advanced class and the boat was backed up right next to a kelp forest. There was a very definitive line between the kelp and the sand. We swam back and forth along the kelp line weaving in and out using the lights from the boat as our guide. The 3rd one was in warm water in Curacao. We stayed at Captain Don’s. They have a very good house reef and put out about 50 tanks at the end of the day so you can dive any time you want during the night. They made navigation really easy. The laid a thick rope from the edge of the dock, out over the flats to the wall and then down the wall to 80’. Once you hit the rope you could find your back. Across the flats and to the edge of the wall, it was almost bright as day from all the lights from the resort. Since it was so easy and there was a lot to see on the wall, I think we did 3-4 night dives that week. There was a resident green moray that lived right next to the rope at the top of the wall. He was there day and at night, never more then 10 feet from the rope.

We didn’t see anything too exciting on this dive. Captain Greg said he had seen a lot of lobsters up in the shallows around 15’ so that is where we spent most of the dive. My buddy caught a few lobsters but they were all shorts. The captain also said he was going to check with a few sources and hopefully head to Santa Barbara tonight.

Camera Bag and California

We just got in another goodie from Akona. They make some great bags and now we have their Deluxe Camera Roller Carry On. This is for the folks who want to take really good care of their underwater housings and cameras. It is also the ultimate carry on bag. Naturally it has wheels and a retractable handle. There is a sleeve that slips on to the back to carry your lap top while you are running to make your connection. Once on the plane, the sleeve slips out and the front of the bag zips off into a back pack to carry your wallet, phone, ipod etc. You stow the rest of the bag in the overhead and keep your back pack and lap top with you for easy access.

The bag is cushioned and has velcro dividers that can be moved or removed to allow you to configure it however you need. The cushion/divider part can be removed and you could use it as a regular bag. It is on the larger size for a carry-on but it does still meet the size guidelines. Basically you need to turn it sideways to have it fit as opposed to just sliding in.

The bag lists for $300 but if you come in and tell me you want one before the end of the year and say you saw it here, I will give you 20% off!!

We have a dive trip heading out to Southern California tomorrow night for 3 day on the Horizon. If I can get a phone signal on the boat, I plan to make some live updates so check back Thursday, Friday and Saturday to see what you are missing!!

NEW TOYS!!

You will see a lot of these posts to let you know when the latest and greatest toys come in. Here are the latest-

Akona Snorkel Kit-$75-This is a very basic snorkel kit that includes a pretty good mask, ok snorkel and bag and a pair of fins. The fins are basically glorified snorkeling fins so don't try to wear them if you are planning to dive in cooler water. Warm water might even be a stretch. Basically this is a small step up from the Costco stuff you sometimes see. Still, it is a good package for kids or the casual snorkeler rather then renting stuff. (Other people's faces and mouths--ehh-gross!) It comes in blue and the fins run 2 sizes- small and regular.

Freestyle Watches-$55-Every diver needs a watch and these are the original water watches. I had a Shark watch spending the summers as a kid at the Jersey Shore. Well the 80's are back with some great fun colors.

Shaka Shoes-$24-$48-Get your Shaka on straight from Hawaii! These are the most comfortable flip flops you will ever wear. We have had them in the shop before and the new ones are even better with Shark Tooth Grip on the bottom. (Sounds scary) New this year are the Cabanas. Maybe you have seen this style at REI or other sporting goods stores. They are super comfy and made from 100% recyclable resources. Comfy and green-how about that?

Welcome

Welcome to the blog. Part of the ongoing effort to keep up to date, we present the day to day happenings at Dive Utah. Tune in for information on new products, new trips, new classes and a behind the scenes look at Dive Utah.