Dive Utah in the Deseret News on Thursday!!

Check out the Deseret News on Thursday December 17. There will be an article about us. (Hopefully not in the obituary!)

Egypt and Red Sea

These are a collection of updates from the Dive Utah Facebook group-

After an 8 hour layover in London where we saw the best of the sights from the Big Bus Tour, we landed in Cairo. 2 hours of sleep later we flew south to Abu Simbel to see the temple there and back to Asswan to board our cruise ship down the Nile. We stopped at few temples/ruins along the way and got off this morning in Luxor. It's a bit different then the one in Vegas. No big light. We went to the Valley of Kings but couldn't take any pictures. Queen Hatsheput's Temple and the Colossi of Memnon rounded out the day. Had some great pizza for dinner. Amazing how a little thing like comfort food can make all the difference. The next morning we saw the huge temple in Luxor and then Karnak before heading back to Cairo.

The traffic in Cairo is as crazy as people said it would be. 2 lanes painted on the road but 3 lanes of traffic!! Add some scooters, motorcycles, bikes and donkey carts and it is amazing that we haven't seen any accidents. We went out to the pyramids. I was afraid it might be anti-climatic but it was amazing. The only bummer is the way over-aggressive vendors. We rounded out our Cairo stay with the big museum, the Citadel and the Ali mosque then flew out to the Red Sea for the live aboard.

So we fly from Cairo down to the coast and then took a shuttle about 1 hour farther south to Safaga get on the Emperor Elite, our floating home for the next week. After a briefing we had supper and went to bed, ready for the diving to start. We dove the next morning with 2 easy dives around Safaga then headed out to sea for a 10 hour run to the Brothers Islands. We had a ton of wind all week. Luckily going south, the wind was at our backs so the ride wasn't too rough. We spent 2 days diving Big and Little Brothers Islands. These are tiny specks of rocks, barely big enough to call an island. They are out in the middle of the Red Sea so you really feel isolated. It was an adventure. We had a lot of currents so most dives were drift dives using the zodiacs to take you or pick you or both. With some 5-8' seas, that was an adventure in itself (see the Discussion about Toughest Dives Ever). The diving was awesome. Mostly walls and a few wrecks. Everything was covered in soft corals. Since we did mostly deep, long dives, we only did 3 a day. The usual profile was a max depth between 100-120 then gradually shallow with a max bottom time of 50-70 minutes. Since most of the bigger 100cf tanks were already taken I was dying trying to stretch longer bottom times from my air, especially considering the depth. They pumped 30% nitrox so you could do the depth and make repetitive deep dives. After 2 days here we took another 6 hour ride south to Daedalus Reef. Not even an island but a reef with a lighthouse on top. We were hoping for hammerheads but instead spent time just staring into the blue. I hate it when nature doesn't adjust to our schedules! After a day here, we were not looking forward to an 18 hour ride into the wind to get back towards Safaga. Luckily we were able to change plans and head into Port Galeb instead (just a 6 hour ride) and dive closer to shore the last day. We took a 3 hour shuttle ride back to the airport but it sure beat another 12 hours of rough seas!! The best dive was at Big Brother on the wreck of the Numidia. It ran into the island over 100 years ago and is still partially intact. It is COMPLETELY covered in soft corals and schooling fish. The vis was over 100' and the dive was fantastic, definitely makes my top 5 of all time!!

Reef Fest 2009!

Our friends at The Wasatch Marine Aquarium Society are hosting Moutain West Reef Fest 2009 on November 7. This is a great way to come out and learn everything you ever wanted to know about aquariums. Visit www.mountainwestreeffest.com for more info.

Dive Seminars

On Tuesday October 20 there are 2 seminars that you attend and learn more about diving.

Dive Utah-Odgen will be hosting a Drysuit Seminar presented by OS System Drysuits. This is the perfect chance to learn more about drysuits and even demo one in the pool. RSVP with Greg with your ht/wt at 801-394-8842.

If you live in Utah County (or want to make a drive), you can attend a Dive Safe Seminar at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center Northwest Plaza Auditorium.

Upon conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:
Recognize situations when it is appropriate to contact Divers Alert Network when medical information is needed during • SCUBA diving.
Identify the best way to counsel patients regarding womens’ health issues such as PMS, decompression illness risk, • birthcontrol pills and diving, pregnancy, and breastfeeding.
Define nitrogen narcosis and discuss several ways of testing for this while diving. •
Discuss the history and physiologic uses of NITROX. •
State the meaning of 32EAN. •
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of NITROX. •
Discuss the following dive "clocks": Oxygen toxicity (CNS and Pulmonary), decompression (nitrogen elimination), hypoxia • (PO2 <= 0.16ATA), and carbon dioxide (PCO2 >= 3%).
Identify risks for breathing •

This will be conducted by Eugene Worth, MD, the Medical Director of the Department of Hyperbaric Medcine, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center

There is no fee to attend this conference but registration is required. To register go online at www.intermountainphysician.org/cme/divesafe2009.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest

It’s that time of year again!! Time for Dive Utah’s Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest at Blue Lake October 17.

We will be diving at Blue Lake, a hot spring feed lake near Wendover. The water temperature will be in the mid 70’s and visibility 10-20 feet. Check out the metal sculptures throughout the lake, warm up next to one of the hot-pots or watch the fish that gather around the platforms!

We will meet at the lake at 10am. You’ll get your pumpkin, clean it out and head for the water. Carve your best, funniest or scariest design but remember, you must use a dive knife. Judging will take place at 1pm.

CALL AHEAD TO SIGN UP SO WE KNOW HOW MANY PUMPKINS TO GET.

For more information or to sign up, please see a staff member or call 277-3483.

Still Spots left for Egypt-Dive Only Option?

Dive Utah still has some spots left for our Egypt/Red Sea Trip in November. We also have spots for just the diving. If you were only interested in the dive portion, it would be a week less and only about $2000. Call Dave at the shop if you are interested. 801-277-3483.

Sand Hollow Dive Along

We had our Annual Treasure Hunt/Clean Up/BBQ down at Sand Hollow this year. Sand Hollow is a reservoir outside of Hurricane near St George. We had heard good things about it but since it is a 4 hour drive we had never made it. Well, everything we had heard was true.

The water was warm, the vis was great and it was a good time.

We got down there late Friday and the the first you notice is the heat, is was still hot at 9pm! The forecast was for a high around 105* We rolled out of camp around 9am and went over to the lake to start setting up and sneak in a dive. The dive area is located to the right of the boat ramp in a buoyed off area where no boats can come. The dive area extends out to some rock islands about 100 yards off shore. The water is a short walk down from the parking area. You can enter from a relatively sandy area. We were on the look out for a platform, a VW bus, a buoyancy course and an airplane. We found the platform right away (the fact that there is a buoy on it might have helped), From there we left on a heading of 60* for about 100 feet and ran into some pipes that you can swim through. We headed up a canyon and found more of the buoyancy course. Rings and hula-hoops you can swim through that are anchored to the bottom. On the right hand side, top of the canyon we found a concrete block with a rope attached. This lead us to the VW bus. Some of the doors are off so you can swim inside if you are careful. At this point I needed to head back so I missed the plane.

I have heard conflicting reports on the location of the plane. There is a larger island directly off shore and if you drop down on more of the left hand side you should see it on the bottom at about 40'.

The visibility was great. When we got in it was 30 feet. By the end of the day with about 70 divers in pretty much the same area, it was still 15'+. People who had dove earlier in the week said it was 40'+ when no one else was around and there were less boats in the water. The water temp was in the high 70's. There was a thermocline around 40 feet. There were plenty of fish including some good size small mouth bass.

The BBQ/Dive Along was great. We got about 3 big garbage bags full of junk from the lake. People dove all day and had a great time. We had a lot of stuff to give away from our manufacturers. We placed 30 numbered golf balls out in the lake ( about 7 are unaccounted for) and between the garbage and the golf balls almost everyone went home with a prize.