New Equipment from Sub Gear

We are pleased to bring some new items from Sub Gear into the shop. This is a smaller company, an offshoot of Scubapro. We have brought in some long sleeve rash guards with some cool tribal graphics on them. The Ladies comes in white and Mens comes in black.

We also have brought in two of their masks. The Sprite has a white skirt and is a very comfortable ladies mask (though some of the male staff think they might try them.) You might recognize the Sub View Mini as the old Scubapro Cool Vu mask. This is also a great mask for any face that is a little smaller and narrower. We were sad to see Scubapro stop carrying this and are glad to have it back as an option.

Mass Migration of Stingrays

Mass Migration of Stingrays
Looking like giant leaves floating in the sea, thousands of Golden Rays are seen here gathering off the coast of Mexico . The spectacular scene was captured as the magnificent creatures made one of their biannual mass migrations to more agreeable waters. Gliding silently beneath the waves, they turned vast areas of blue water to gold off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula . Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer, stumbled across the phenomenon while looking for whale sharks. She said: 'It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.

'It's hard to say exactly how many there were, but in the range of a few thousand'

'We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too. I feel very fortunate I was there in the right place at the right time to experience nature at its best' Measuring up to 7ft (2.1 meters) from wing-tip to wing-tip, Golden rays are also more prosaically known as cow nose rays.

They have long, pointed pectoral fins that separate into two lobes in front of their high-domed heads and give them a cow-like appearance. Despite having poisonous stingers, they are known to be shy and non-threatening when in large schools. The population in the Gulf of Mexico migrates, in schools of as many as 10,000, clockwise from western Florida to the Yucatan .

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Belize Report

Dave took a group of 12 down to Ambergris Caye in Belize last month. They stayed at the very beautiful Ramon's Village Resort. The rooms were thatched covered cabanas and the beach was perfect. The diving was fun and all agreed that the 3 tank dive to the Blue Hole were the best dives of the trip. The divers enjoyed seeing nurse sharks and sting rays on several dives as well as the biggest puffer/porcupine fish anyone had ever seen. A fun mid week side trip was taken to the ruins of Xunantunich. These great ruins are right on the border with Guatemala, in fact you can see into Guatemala from the top of the temple. They also did some un-Belize-able cave tubing as well.

Intro to Technical Diving Clinic

If you are curious to learn more about technical diving then come down to Dive Utah April 14 at 6:30pm for an Intro to Tec Diving Clinic. We will even have a few sets of double tanks for you to try out in the pool!!

Technical diving is scuba diving’s “extreme” sport, taking experienced and qualified divers far deeper than in mainstream recreational diving. Technical diving is marked by significantly more equipment and training requirements to manage the additional hazard this type of diving entails.If you think it's not for you, you are right — it's NOT for you!

Tec diving isn’t for everyone... It is extremely challenging... But for those who hear its challenge call, the DSAT TecRec courses are the answer.

What is Technical Diving? Technical scuba diving is defined as diving other than conventional commercial or research diving that takes divers beyond recreational scuba diving limits. It is further defined as and includes one or more of the following:

-diving beyond 40 metres/130 feet deep

-required stage decompression

-diving in an overhead environment beyond 40 linear metres/130 linear feet of the surface

-accelerated decompression and or the use of variable gas mixtures during the dive.

Because in technical diving the surface is effectively inaccessible in an emergency, tec divers use extensive methodologies and technologies and training to manage the added risks. Even with these, however, tec diving admittedly has more risk, potential hazard and shorter critical error chains than does recreational scuba diving.