Advanced Class or Ice Dive?

So the football season is over and you are sitting around over the weekend thinking about what to do. I have the perfect answer for you whether you like it hot or cold! Next weekend, Dive Utah will go extreme! We have extreme warm with an Advanced Open Water class at the Crater and we have extreme cold with an ice dive at Scofield Reservoir. If you are interested in either, give us a call and we can get you diving next weekend!

Greetings from Bonaire

The Internet is great. I am posting from my patio at Buddy Dive Resort on Bonaire. I need to all my work from here! We got here last Saturday. We are doing 1-2 boat dives a day and then heading off in our rental trucks for shore dives as well! The shore entries have been a little harder then expected. There really aren't many "beach" dives, you are walking in over broken coral and over rocks so it can be tricky. We dove on the "Hilma Hooker" this morning, it is a very large wreck at about 80 feet. We did a night dive last night just in front of the resort. Buddy Dive is set up perfectly for divers. The night dives are really easy plus you have a lot of light from the resort. We meet up with Charlie the tarpon. Tarpon are long, silver, sport fish. One hangs out and waits for divers to show him fish and follows you around hunting each night. The weather was been ok. We have had bits of rain every day, surprising for a desert island in the dry season but it clears up fast. Tune in for more updates as the week progresses......

New Cameras and Upcoming Dive Alongs

We finally got our new camera line in. Intova makes some very affordable cameras/housing packages. We have the ICC-600 which is a 6 mgpxl camera in a housing that retails for $190. They also have a strobe package you can add and get the whole thing for under $450.

We have also added our next 2 dive alongs to the calendar. We will be going up north to Tremonton to dive the Camper World hotsprings on February 21 and then out to Blue Lake for an Easter Egg Hunt on March 21. We'll see you there!!

Roatan Anyone?

For years we had heard that the place to stay on Roatan was Anthony's Key Resort. We finally got their almost 2 years ago and had a great time. For the full details read my review on the Dive Utah page http://www.diveutah.com/toys/dreaming.html We had so much fun, we went back the next year since we got the same package but for a few hundred less. Well that continues this year as we head south once again. We still have a few spots left for April 4-11. Join in what is becoming a yearly tradition as we visit Roatan again at Anthony's Key Resort.

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.