By Gregg Stanton and contributors

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January 05, 2017

Diving with disabilities.

The human body evolved on land in an air environment. Venturing below the surface of the water renders that human body somewhat disabled under the best conditions. The obvious challenges, our inability to breath water, the consequences of an 800 times denser water environment (over air), and the on/off gassing of our tissues while underwater make ALL divers disabled.
Add the challenges of an aging creature that accumulates physical limitations with each year, and yes, at some point, every human will reach a threshold preventing further submersion underwater. It is a matter of time.
Humans are drawn to spending time underwater. There, we can escape the many challenges of gravity – we can fly! Often we can escape the stifling terrestrial heat for a cooler water respite. Below 60 feet depth, nitrogen narcosis is an attractive distraction for many. Adventure is a dominant theme for many divers. With 95 percent of the earth’s surface located underwater, exploration of a very different world underwater excites many, encouraging them to learn how to dive. Subsurface spearfishing, photography, archeology (nautical, forts, early man, just to name a few), and reef structures attract millions of divers around the world.
The adventure begins for most with dive training, where a person starts over on the basics of life. Most everything changes. Walking is replaced by fin propulsion. Vision is distorted, breathing is altered to promote better gas absorption and elimination, balance becomes buoyancy, vertical to horizontal stance, breathing technology is required, and a new set of hazardous aquatic animals must be understood. Fortunately there are many terrestrial analogs (dogs for sharks). Consider the previous training on land now repeated for submergence. It’s actually fun!
The air/water interface becomes a problematic interface for all divers as we adjust from one world to another. Every time I go diving, I must first safely enter the water, then acclimatize to the temperature, buoyancy, light distortions, change in pressure, breathing requirements, and orientation. Every time I exit the water I must do the same thing.
The water to land exit is often challenging, what with waves, ladders, beaches and heavy equipment. Vasodilatation changes blood flow, gravity (balance) replaces buoyancy, bright light distorts vision, vertigo challenges walking, and a rocking boat does not help.
I recently attended a one-day presentation about handicap accessibility held at Wakulla Springs State Park. As I listened to presenters, I felt I had been working in this field my entire career.
One person said we will all become disabled as age overcomes us. But I was especially pleased to hear one young man in a wheelchair talk about what diving meant to him, a sense of freedom from his terrestrial disability. His next goal is a Dive Master certification. His intended career is Biomedical Engineering. I consider rebreathers (a form of scuba technology) as a recent biomedical engineering success. But really, Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) is a biomedical engineering success that began in 1942 to assist underwater disabled humans better access to the subsurface environment.
For more information contact the Handicapped Scuba Association at http://www.hsascuba.com.

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January 12, 2017

The Longnose Spider Crab.

Travis brought a new crab back to the shop, which he caught under Rudloe’s dock at Panacea yesterday. I recognized it as a Libinia species, but needed to look it up to find the species details. It turns out there are two species locally: the portly spider crab L. emarginated and the longnose spider crab L. dubia. The former has nine spines along the shell’s margin, the latter has only six. Both adorn their shells with local algae and grasses as a camouflage against predators. It is strange that two such closely matched species live in close proximity from New England’s coastal waters around the Keys and all the way over to the Texas coastline. Surveys of both species were collectively made off the New Jersey coastline around Little Egg Inlet in 1999, to reveal size differences and gender differences when collected together by a trawler’s net. Winter collections suggested these two crab species migrate offshore in colder times.
There is no commercial interest in these crabs, so little interest or harvest pressure exists.
I know these species by direct springtime observation off Dog Island and surrounding shoals. I found males on the prowl walking against the prevailing current following an unseen trail, which eventually led to sand buried females. The New Jersey study commented on the disproportionate number of males collected as indicative of females hunkering down under the reach of their collecting nets. I suggested the females were releasing a pheromone or scent that attracted downstream actively seeking males. I mostly found the portly spider crab in my observations.
Here, in winter, we find a longnose spider crab, not off shore but inshore and under a dock. Our specimen is small, perhaps a juvenile, perhaps growing out to adulthood under the better protective circumstances of a dock. Longnose spider crabs are often found living inside the bells of our local cannonball jellyfish, Stomolophus meleagris. It is thought they gain access as pelagic juveniles when the jellyfish happens to drift near the seabed or possibly the crab metamorphosis from planktonic larvae directly inside the bell. Apart from a free ride for our crab, this symbiotic relationship may gain protection from predators.
The longnose spider crab is a scavenger. In sea grass meadows where it is often found, it eats the seaweeds and other encrusting epiphites. It is eaten by predatory fish such as the pinfish (Lagodon rhomboides), the young gag grouper ( Mycteroperca microlepis) and the oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau). Since we have none of these predators in our aquariums, and providing detritus is easy in an aquarium, growing this young male out to adulthood before release should not be a problem. Aquariums provide a wealth of educational opportunities that we all enjoy.

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January 19, 2017

Lost Boat.

We were discussing staffing our 26 foot boat last week, when someone suggested leaving no one at the surface.
I shuddered, recalling once, when I was immortal (age 20), doing just that. Wisdom, I am told, is the product of surviving our foolish mistakes. I was encouraged to retell my story here.
We were only a few miles offshore where the wind blew towards shore off the Hawaiian Islands. Since there were only two of us available to dive that day, we thought nothing of the proposed dive, since we knew to never dive alone.
The site included a lava tube overhang where we were to later discover a number of un-described Dedridritic corals, but not this day. We followed our protocol, first securing the anchor from the surface and then again as we passed it by enroot to the ledge. All seemed in order. During the dive, the wind shifted to offshore.
The disbelief, almost betrayal I felt upon exiting the ledge was palpable. We surfaced to find no boat and a freshening offshore wind. Swimming against these conditions to reach shore would be very difficult.
To my surprise, my partner inflated his vest and drifted away with little comment. I immediately dropped back down to the sea floor and ditched my tank followed by a free ascent back to the surface. With fins, mask and my snorkel, I began a chase offshore, determined to find and recover my boat.
Impetuous perhaps, but I cared very little for the options.
Fortunately, I was young and in good shape as it took me well over an hour (I did not think to look at the watch). I used the crawl stoke, looking out to sea when each wave crested my location.
My next stop, I kept telling myself, was Japan.
I was pleased there was plenty of daylight left, and the water was a deep and clear blue at that point probably several thousand feet. Finally, a large sea swell lifted me so high, I could see well into the distance. There, bobbing in the afternoon sun was my very small and lonely boat, but a sight for sore eyes.
I made right for it and soon saw the anchor hanging below, straight down into the blue. My body’s adrenaline powerfully propelled my fin kicks such that I almost catapulted into the boat, I took me a few minutes to compose myself when I remembered my dive buddy, out there somewhere drifting away from the island.
It was suddenly going to better!
I pulled and stowed the useless anchor, and cranked up my old 25 hp engine.
Fortunately the Hawaiian Islands are high enough to see from great distances, so I retraced my swim and as expected came up on my buddy. He was singing to himself. Boy, he was glad to see me show up!
After I pulled him from the water and stowed his equipment, I returned to the dive site and re-anchored.
Leaving the engine running and him at the helm, I free-dove down 50 feet to recover my diving equipment.
The trip back to the dock was uneventful but quiet as we both contemplated our respective mortality.
He never went diving with me again, which I could understand.
But I felt it was a great day!

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January 26, 2017

The Life of a Mangrove Snapper Trematode.

Two decades ago, during the summer, you would find me cruising the Florida Keys aboard the S/V Olapa, from Key Biscayne to west of the Dry Tortugas.
Aboard this 46 foot yawl with me were FSU students interested in conducting underwater research, including survey, on a wide range of marine species. Our annual survey, the core of the research effort, was on the Gray or Mangrove Snapper. While we began the annual survey looking for the prevalence of a cancerous tumor called Neurofibromatosis, other health issues of this population were discovered.
We began the survey at Fowey Rocks and progressed west along the reef crest, stopping about every 8 nautical miles, until sunset. We would pull in behind the reef crest, to find calmer water for a more peaceful rest. The survey would end west of the Dry Tortugas, three to four weeks later.
Fish health was based upon the size of the tumors until students began describing increased observations of slower snapper with a loss of pigment and an abundance of spots. Samples taken one year were sent to a taxonomic lab and identified as a trematode flatworm living just below the skin of the fish.
The following year more attention was paid to the behavior of these stressed parasitized fish. The more spots they had, the less pigment they displayed, sometimes looking somewhat washed out. They were more likely to be captured by predators while underwater. But, during our work in the Dry Tortugas, we witnessed defining predation that changed the topic.
The pelicans were very tame to our surveying divers off the fort. As we swam between pilings around the Fort Jefferson, pelicans would swim above us and dart down, picking out these spotted snapper and capture (swallow) them. Ahha!
The term Digenean means a parasite with intermittent stages found in different hosts. With almost no exceptions, digeneans have a vertebrate definitive host and a mollusk first intermediate host. Additional hosts may be involved.
The name “digenea” refers to the alternation of generations between sexually-reproducing adult and asexually reproducing larval stages.
Our pelicans (and other sea birds) were the definitive hosts where the adult parasite lives and reproducess in the gut of the bird. The bird’s parasites eventually release eggs that hatch into swimming larvae in the open water.
This larva seeks out the local snails found in the south Florida grass beds and enters the snail (how, we do not know).
Gray Snapper are nocturnal predators where they spread out individually at night and search for grass bed snails and crabs.
No, we do not know which snail species are involved at this time.
Over time, the parasites accumulate in the snapper until they affect the performance of the fish host.
The eroding performance of the snapper attracts the definitive host (the pelican) that consumes the snapper and all of its parasites to perpetuate the cycle again.
How cool is that?
Next time you eat a Gray Snapper, look at the skin more closely. Cooking does kill the parasite.

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February 2, 2017

Scuba air delivery system is like owning a car.

By Travis Kersting

If you fire up the internet and Google how many cars the average American will own in their lifetime you should find various figures between six and 12 with an average car life expectancy of about 10-11 years. These cars are used daily and we have long argued that they are a piece of life support equipment so they must also be well maintained. These maintenance fees average a little over 5 cents per mile or nearly $775 per year. That doesn’t include the running costs like fuel, insurance, loan payments, etc.
A scuba air delivery system, commonly called a “regulator” is not unlike a car. There is an up-front investment, annual or biannual maintenance, and it is also life support equipment. Divers may choose to insure their equipment, like their car, and they will have running costs for each use such as breathing gas.
That being said, there is one thing drastically different between regulators and automobiles. Most divers buy one and only one in their lifetime. Many manufacturers over the years have offered excellent “lifetime warranties” on their air delivery systems and they also offered free service parts if you complied with the manufacturer recommended service interval, something that can save you thousands of dollars over the life of the system. Unfortunately most companies have stopped supporting their customer with these warranties.
Regardless of the reasoning we are seeing that there is a life expectancy of the regulators so customers may need to treat their regulator much like their car. A few vintage (defined as out of production more than 10 years) models may be serviceable and usable but it certainly isn’t the norm. The lifespan of your regulator will be similar to the lifespan of your car, with few exceptions.
I spent four days last week, along with Eric, down in Fort Lauderdale covering the servicing procedures for Scubapro brand equipment. We covered their most common and basic regulators, everything in the current catalog, and their vintage equipment. Scubapro has provided the annual service kits for most everything in the last 2-3 decades but many non-standard parts are running out of stock. They have offered some options to help out those divers with these regulators, an option you may want to inquire about before dive season.
Regulators, like cars, have progressed a lot in the past few years. Computer controlled manufacturing processes, better testing equipment, and learning from the mistakes of the past have helped to groom a new regulator that performs better in every way. They breath excellent during inhalation and exhalation, are lighter weight with better corrosion resistance, and function even in harsh environments. This was driven home over and over when they suggested we stop using the sales terms like balanced v.s. unbalanced or diaphragm v.s. piston. All their regulators well exceed minimum performance standards down to 165 feet in 27 degree salt water, well outside the range of most of our customers.
If you have a regulator that is more than a decade old, is expensive to service, where parts may or may not be available, or one that breathes poorly, I would encourage you to look into these newer options. You could get something better looking, better performing, with better customer support.

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February 9, 2017

The free boat.

I have had a boat of my own since I was 14. My first was a wooden Klong boat I purchased for 12 Baht (about $6) that resembled a dugout canoe, and sank immediately. Not to be deterred, my cousin and I pulled it out and began caulking the hull with cotton and Beetle Nut, using a chisel and hammer to squeeze the reddish goop between boards. We launched again and it floated! But the local Krung Ka Sem community in Bangkok, Thailand were greatly entertained for months as we went up and down the waterways, mostly flipped upside down.
While growing up through college in Hawaii for the next decade, I trained up using dinghies, and at 19-foot sail vessel available through the Air Force social services. My family bought us kids a Sailfish, a large surfboard-like, 10-foot deck with a single sail. After we wore it out, bees moved in to the drain holes in the stern. Clearing them out while saving the honey before passing the boat on to my girlfriend’s brother was one of those life altering experiences, never to be forgotten.
Once in college, my next boat was a 15-foot runabout powered by a 25 hp engine off Hawaii, which cost me $200, complete with a trailer. I formed a HUI, a social unit where several non-related people shared the operational and repair costs of a facility. That’s the boat I almost lost when the anchor slipped on a dive. But when we left Hawaii, everything was sold.
As soon as my new wife and I settled in Florida, we purchased a 21-foot sailboat kit and built our international vessel. I sailed it to the Bahamas and lived aboard during one summer collecting data for my thesis at FSU. Yes, we were still immortal. While on a project in the Keys I found a 19-foot Mako hull in a boneyard, paid a few hundred bucks and rebuilt it with a used 100 hp outboard. During the early ‘80s, you could find me off Shell Point pulling boats in under the banner of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 13! But that ended when I loaned the boat to the FSU Anthropology Department for the search for the Fowey in Biscayne Bay. They managed to sink it and return it, never to run again.
I wanted a bigger sailboat. I began building a replica of the Spray, a 40-foot remarkable boat circumnavigated by Joshua Slocomb. With the strong back frame built in my back yard, my wife announced we needed a proper house as we were about to have a family. I shifted my energy to building the underground house, but the strong back rotted and eventually collapsed.
I realized there are those who build boats and there are those who sail boats. I was the latter, so with my 8-year-old son, we went in search for my dream boat. It became a 46 foot Yawl that we found in Dayton. We wrestled it away for $36,000 (a story of its own).
Last year, a friend who had once worked on the Yawl, acquired a 26 Mako with a 235 hp Evinrude engine and found it too big and expensive for his needs. He gave it to me! How cool is that? It took me a while, and five new tires, to finally get it to a shop for a tune it up, and to find the engine had two bad cylinders. It’s free, right, so off to Mike’s Marine for a replacement engine installed.
Several months later, the aluminum fuel tank came out after cutting the deck out. Multiple holes were discovered, nothing to repair, only to replace. As we dug deeper, the bulkheads were found rotten as well! But we are not deterred!
I’m now headed off to Tennessee soon to get a replacement 150 gallon plastic fuel tank. In the meantime, the bulkheads are out and being replaced.
Lesson learned: No matter how much experience you have, there is no such thing as a FREE BOAT!

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February 16, 2017

Start of our Season.

Our diving “season” is defined by how soon customers start ramping up for diving and when school starts in the fall.
From early September, our customer counts drop from around 20 paying customers to around two per day. Since only half of the customers purchase anything, we can suggest we have around 40 people in our store on a given summer day.
During September, that number drops depressingly low. We devote our winter extra time to inventory restructure, infrastructure improvements and taking time off. Sometimes, there is a small spike in December for obvious reasons.
For example, this winter we took on a major new line, Scubapro, spent time on staff training, built twin salt water aquariums and moved/expanded the classroom to the back to make room for a new regulator and BC repair facility up front.
On the average, we see April 1 as the typical start of our season, since that is when our Gag Grouper season begins locally.
Of the past seven years, only one summer season truly began in early March, with an early summer weather pattern. We were caught off guard then.
Of course our store must stock and be ready for this start-up to meet customer requirements. And that year, we were not.
Most major vendors expect orders to be shipped out at least a month in advance of availability on the store floor. They, too, are caught off guard when a season begins early.
Back orders abound. Sometimes they are not available until summer’s end.
We are currently experiencing another warm winter, which is reflected in a warmer ocean.
Last week divers reported the ocean floor to be at 60 degrees – while on the surface, a toasty 75 degrees.
This weather is consistent with predictions of an above average warming trend in the deep southeast leading into the summer.
Many argue that we had so few cold days this season, that we missed the winter season altogether. Weather records are again breaking. I cannot imagine what the summer peak ocean temperatures will bring and how this will play out on passing hurricanes this season.
We are also witnessing an earlier interest on the part of the diving community for offshore diving and its commensurate preparations for the summer ocean season.
I have held back on purchasing the summer inventory as little revenue came in during our winter doldrums.
But I must step up the investments to meet anticipated demand.
As they say in our industry, you can’t sell what you do not have!

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February 23, 2017

The Pits.

By Travis Kersting

When you purchase a car you can order it in a wide variety of colors to suit your individual tastes but one of those colors is not bare metal.
That is unless you got a Delorean which, of course, was stainless steel and is no longer produced. Automotive paint is often baked on and provides reasonably good protection, to the metal below, for the environment the automobile is used in.
Scuba divers also have options in the color or finish of their diving cylinders. Aluminum cylinders come painted or in natural, brushed, and shot peened finishes. Steel cylinders are either paint over raw steel, paint over a thin galvanized coating, or hot dip galvanized. The paint can often times be as much of a corrosion promoter as a corrosion preventer and is not baked on as the heat can alter the strength of the metal.
Numerous types of paint have been used through the years and all seem to end up looking pretty bad if used regularly, not rinsed properly, or if just left to sit. Once the paint is scratched, it allows salt water to react with the metal and start the corrosion process. The paint has, in some cases, absorbed the salt water which isn’t removed adequately during rinsing and then expedites corrosion even more.
Recently, we had some aluminum cylinders media-blasted to remove badly blistering paint. Ordinary sand blasting can remove metal so the blasters may use metal shot, crushed walnut, soda, glass beads, or other media specified by the cylinder manufactures. They also reduce the air pressure behind the media to minimize the potential for damaging the cylinders. The media blasting is so gentle it can’t even remove stickers so I had to take those off ahead of time.
Strangely enough, when buying aluminum scuba cylinders, the best option is bare metal.
Aluminum develops a natural oxide layer, produced during manufacturing, that is hard to compete with and is smooth to promote effective rinsing after your diving adventure. The shot peened finish is nice but doesn’t lend well to applying stickers and the brushed finish is so shiny it’s almost too pretty to use. These naturally oxidized cylinders may not be pretty and they won’t be color coordinated with your other equipment but they should outlast all the other options.
Of the cylinders sent out for media blasting four cylinders were found to have condemnable pitting that went unnoticed prior to sending them off. Each cylinder manufacturing company has engineering specifications for the minimum wall thickness of a cylinder and they establish pit depth and quantity limits for inspectors to follow. Often it is subjective as to what may or may not be condemnable so we have a variety of tools for measuring and quantifying cylinder damage and corrosion.
To reduce subjectivity we will likely be investing in new technology to further advance our inspection capabilities this year.
I’d prefer not to make a judgment call or to estimate what may be safe so we have accumulated nearly every type of inspection tool available as well as designing some custom tools to meet specialized needs.

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March 02, 2017

The Future in Diving.

During my tenure at Florida State University, I taught courses every semester for many decades.
Once we became aware that to have a quality academic diving program, we needed a quality basic training program, I put a lot of time and resources into such a course.
Within a few years of its introduction, we noticed our science diving courses became very productive, as did the enrollment of the basic training.
We taught thousands of students across decades in the PEN 1136 Introduction of Compressed Gas Diving, as a stepping stone for Diving Scientist of the future.
It took 16 weeks of two hour lectures and two hour pool sessions per week, plus a weekend of diving to get an optional certification card.
With 32 hours of pool training, a person can get very proficient with buoyancy control, stamina, life support equipment, and emergency management underwater.
Lectures became detailed presentation about diving history, physics, physiology, environment, marine life, decompression management, equipment and new breathing gases.
Advanced topics were later added when I taught the class at Tallahassee Community College in a similar class called Introduction to Professional Diving.
They included surface supplied diving, rebreathers, Hyperbarics, and Underwater Crime Scene Investigations.
The last class was always called the Future of Diving. Over four decades, many of my subtopics of this lecture needed to be updated.
Early on we predicted improved breathing gasses, now the norm in diving called Nitrox.
That crime scene investigations underwater could effectively be accomplished, recovering court-acceptable evidence.
I introduced to my class the idea that rebreathers would become the normal technology for technical diving, and it has.
I grew up thinking living underwater would expand, but this has not yet happened.
I did live underwater on several occasions, but today, there are few opportunities to do so.
I would provide my students with four futuristic opportunities suggested on the internet and ask the student for the one that was false.
Few could pick it out.
Can you without looking on the internet?
One was rebreathing your own exhaust breath.
One was breathing a liquid (as in the Abyss movie).
One was injecting a liquid into your body that would wash out excess nitrogen dramatically reducing decompression stress.
And one was Vitamin O used to increase oxygen in the body’s tissues.
All but one is currently in development.
One is a scam.
You decide, then look them up. You will be amazed!
Our underwater realm has a bright future.

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March 09, 2017

Lionfish Trapping

A new approach to capturing the ever-increasing population of the invasive Lionfish has been developed by Dr. Steve Gittings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Previously, this poisonous spined fish was captured best by spearfishing techniques. As their size increased in local populations, so did their food value, now selling at between $4 and $5 a pound.
Intensive diving and greater fish resident depths also brought greater risk of injury, encouraging an alternative, perhaps safer, collection technology.
The break through came from behavioral observations of the Lionfish, specifically their preference to aggregate near reef-like structures, and artificial reefs. A device that provides such a structure is deployed with a surrounding retractable net that captures the targeted Lionfish.
The net size allows non-resident baitfish and faster moving fish to escape when the net is withdrawn for harvest.
Challenges abound, from building the trap to deploying them to and anchoring them at the bottom, to recovering them intact without the loos of the target fish on ascent. Daily catch rate data showed an average of eight fish per collection when placed near shipwrecks.
Much of what is currently described is prototypic, and offered as a collaboration with fishermen interested in improving future Lionfish catch rates.
The plans for these traps are available at www.sanctuaries.noaa.gove/lionfish. Download the instructions near the top of the page.
Before deploying these traps, you must obtain authorizations for the use of these devices in federal waters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic at:
NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office Sustainable Fisheries Division
263 13th Ave., South
St. Petersburg FL 33701
The phone is (727) 824-5305.

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March 16, 2017

You want to become a dive instructor.

We have recently had a surge of interest for people to become a dive instructor. As a course director for a national training organization, I get asked about this often. Certification to become an instructor in diving is not like becoming a basic diver. The best way I can describe the process is as a mentoring program. You love diving and you want to share that discovery. And better yet, why not get paid to teach your passion?
This training begins after you become a certified diver, and find your passion to share your discovery of an alien world just off the beach.
We advise against the zero to hero approach as teaching a topic suggests you have experience from which you rely upon to teach from. From your basic certification, we recommend continuing education and experience through advance diving classes and then specialty diving classes such as Nitrox, wreck, deep, naturalist, rescue, limited visibility, photography, boating, cavern (limited overhead), first aid (oxygen, CPR, physical injuries, diving medicine), and within all of this formal training, at least 50 dives (we prefer 100). The effort culminates with your passing the Master Diver Certification exam.
The average depth in recreational diving is 60 feet and the average dive time is 60 minutes. Most people will make two dives a day. Add this up and you can see under ideal circumstances this will take you 25 to 50 days just in physical diving, and probably a lot more. Most of us start diving on weekends reaching our Master Diver goal in two to four years, depending on the level of passion you carry. My program at FSU years ago, encountered many passionate students with only four years before graduation, so we offered alternatives to double up.
The Leadership Program begins with Assistant Instructor (20 dives required), where the candidate works closely with a Certified Dive Instructor while he/she works with their classes. Depending on the instructor, this may include assisting in pool training, proficiency training with struggling students and adding extra supervisory eyes during checkout dives. An optional certification is starting as a Skin Diving Instructor, which upon completion, allows you to actually teach the skin diving portion of your mentor’s basic certification class.
I recommend, after passing Assistant Instructor requirements, serving as an AI for a period of three months or 6 courses before moving on to mentored Dive Master training (60 dives required). Here you take on more responsibility as the dive supervisor of diving (classes, checkout dives, dive projects, and more). Dive Masters, once certified, require carrying professional insurance. Certified Dive Masters are required on commercial dive boats by the U.S. Coast Guard. Once you reach this level, preferably with proficiency and after six months of experience, you apply to be mentored by an agency Authorized Instructor Trainer.
For the next three months or more you will be mentored while training students to get their basic certification. When ready, you will be evaluated by other certified Instructor Trainers (supervised by a Course Director) in several categories: water skills, knowledge, and attitude that can take 6 or more months. Each step, AI, DM and Instructor ends with detailed written and in-water exams.
At FSU we began the process with a Dive Locker Technical Internship to insure candidates had a technical competence before investing years of training. They often took the basic certification course concurrently. They would then join the scuba club and spend a few semesters of club diving, or right after the certification dives move into Leadership mentoring for AI an DM.
The whole mentoring process will take a long year or two to complete and rest upon your ability to convince professional dive trainers that you can effectively train their loved ones to dive. Otherwise, you will fail! Pass the training and you can find professional employment opportunities (we are currently looking for a NAUI Instructor), and pursue your passion!

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March 23, 2017

Mimicry Underwater.

To mimic is to copy, to represent yourself as someone or something else. People steal the identity of another person often on our internet, gaining access to resources of another through mimicry.
A few years ago an unidentified person convinced a bank teller through an email, that he or she was me and made off with $21,000.
Earlier this year, and again now, someone duplicated my Facebook page and began soliciting donations on my behalf. Mimicry works – just look around.
Lizards and octopus change their skin pigmentation to mimic their surroundings and visually disappear.
Unsuspecting prey walk or swim right up to them and are easily captured. Predators walk right past them and often miss a meal. Insects are masters at mimicry.
How often do we encounter a walking stick that looks just like the twig to which it is hanging? The coronet fish swims on a reef mimicking soft corals swaying in the current by hanging head down. As it drifts over the reef, this fish picks off unsuspecting small fish.
Stone fish look just like a rock resting on the reef. Others rock back and forth pretending they are a leaf of algae.
Another group of fish has a worm-looking structure they dangle up over their head. It really looks good to eat. Unsuspecting fish dart down to consume what they think is an easy meal, only to become one by this cleaver mimic, also called an angler fish.
Many reef fish rely on small shrimp and fish called cleaners. The cleaners set up a station over a coral head or sea anemone and solicit. The cleaners advertise themselves by whipping their antennae or dart around to attract attention. Passing fish approach and carefully open their mouth to display an interest to be cleaned. As soon as a level of trust is established, the cleaner swims to the fish and begins to remove parasites and loose flesh.
One fish, called Neon gobie, is quite distinctive with its blue, white and yellow striped body color and pattern. Once cleaning is underway, the host exposes areas needing to be cleaned, permitting the shrimp or gobies free access in the gills, mouth, eyes, just about everywhere!
I have spent hours at a cleaning station, waiting for my turn in a queue of other fish. Due to my size, developing a trust is problematic, but possible.
Cleaners eventually climb on me and start tugging at whatever they can find. A shudder usually ends the cleaning activity at which point the cleaner moves back to the protective shelter of the reef structure, and I move away to let the next fish in line to repeat this process.
The Blue-streaked wrasse mimics the other fish cleaners both physically and behaviorally. Once the trust is established however, she turns and feeds on the mucous and other tissues of her host, becoming less of a cleaner and more of a predator.
Males are less likely to participate. Some of these hosts can be very large (like a grouper) and are known to take after the mimic when detected.
Sometimes I wish I could get after the mimics that currently plague me.

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March 30, 2017

Swimming is the first step to diving.

I get this question a lot: How can I get into scuba diving?
The question is often made with a significant other or children within earshot. I am sorely aware that many scuba divers have little or no swimming skills which is a disaster just waiting to happen, when scuba equipment fails.
The last resort in a diving accident is to swim to safety. The first skill you must show me is your comfort at swimming before you can get into my scuba class. For many the swim test is not difficult.
My reply is based upon my own upbringing. When I was 14, my father took us kids south from Bangkok to Bahn Satahip, a small fishing village on the north coast of the Sea of Siam. He could only find a few masks and fins to service four kids, so we all had to share. Otherwise we had no idea what awaited us. With one day to discover the ocean, we were overwhelmed with what we found.
In my day, children were taught to swim less by formal classes and more by exposure to the beach, a pool or a lake while under the watchful eye of an adult.
By age 14, I was a fish with few formal skills. But after 8 hours floating over the reef of Bahn Satahip, my thirst to learn formal swimming and diving skills redirected my life. I am a Marine Biologist. Even with one fin, I could hardly keep up with the stingrays and other large fish that begrudgingly moved out of our way.
Afterwards, my father built a pool in our Bangkok backyard where we could practice swimming until we transferred to Hawaii.
Start swimming lessons early! My recent discussions with members of Swim Schools International (SSI) out of Louisiana, suggested swimming lessons for all ages, babies through adults, to improve health, expand career opportunities and saves lives.
For us as a dive center, swimming lessons expose future scuba divers to the field of diving (once they reach that age) when both groups are trained at the same time, in the same pool.
Early swim lessons develop confidence, healthy exercise habits and parent/child bonding, all of which we seek with scuba training.
I know I bonded very effectively with my father when he joined my scuba class at Pearl Harbor.
I have visited several dive centers that have taken this bold leap of faith and found in the end a desirable opportunity. They created a club environment where swimming lessons and memberships with lifeguards, swimming instructors and other swimming social opportunities evolved concurrently with scuba training.
But they also found the investment for a large pool challenging. SSI has encouraged me to start with a smaller and more affordable temporary pool that can provide the revenue to support building a bigger pool in due time.
We are expanding our staff this summer and, when we can, will offer swim lessons as soon as we can install a smaller temporary pool and associated showers/restrooms.
Wakulla County has no public pool, something we have long needed.
Think of the possibilities.

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April 06, 2017

Improvements.

Two years ago I was fortunate to shift into diving a new paradigm in rebreathers, called the Liberty. I was struck by its complete redundant electronics, helium analyzers, excellent water tolerance and long lasting CO2 scrubbing canister. I figured I’d seen the best available rebreather technology for the next decade and have logged many hours diving this rig. But last month, they sent me more innovations that I will now put to the test.
As you may know, rebreathers breath into bags called counter lungs. To reduce the work of breathing into and out of the bags, they must be mounted as close to your natural lungs as possible. I have used early rigs with these bags mounted on the chest, making breathing in easy but out very difficult. The long popular Kiss rebreather has the bags mounted behind the back, with the opposite effect. Current side mount rebreathers house their bags in a cylinder mounted at the waist, requiring the diver to stay perfectly horizontal or suffer high work of breathing.
The over the shoulder bags of the Megalodon rebreather were nicely balanced but took up a lot of chest real estate (which we were willing to tolerate for the ease of breathing). The Prism 2 brought a pair of bulky over the shoulder bags that strapped around the chest and under the shoulder, a challenge to get in and out of, but they breathed even better.
Now, the Liberty has introduced a similar concept, but strapped behind and over the shoulder. In so doing they also created a problem. Most of the bags also held manual intake and over pressure valves. With the bags tucked out of the way in back, there is little room for these valves. The over pressure valve is still there to drain excess water.
The designers of the Liberty moved all the intake loop valves to the mouth piece. I now have attached to the bail out regulator in my mouth, valves where I can add oxygen, diluent (air or Trimix) and Nitrox makeup gas to my breathing loop at any time. I think I will enjoy these improvements as I move further off shore in our recently rebuilt 26 foot Mako craft this summer.
Each year I witness improvements in rebreather design that remind me of the James Bond movie, where 007 is seen swimming underwater breathing from a small rebreather like device in his mouth, but little else observed. I did read recently of a person who is working on an independent rebreather helmet. Fascinating!

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April 13, 2017

Flag and Safe Diving

Every year about this time, we must refresh safety issues as our diving community adjusts to the new season afloat.
We swim in navigable waters, which in Florida means we often swim with boats passing close by. There is confusion, for example, regarding the distance a boater must avoid a diver-down flag.
Divers (including snorkelers) must display a diver down flag whenever they are in the water. However, this is not required if the area is usually reserved solely for swimming. The flag’s purpose is to warn nearby boaters of the snorkeler’s presence – day or night. The flag must therefore be visible
Boats in motion and divers seldom mix well. A diver-down flag is NOT a race pylon. To avoid unplanned encounters, rules have been established to separate the two. If the swimmer has a mask on, they are considered a diver (including snorkelers). Divers at the surface must stay within 100 feet of their diver-down flag. It is wise to also stay within your 100 foot safety margin underwater in case you must ascend unexpectedly. Passing boaters must remain 300 feet away from divers-down flags in waters other than rivers, inlets and channels (where the distance is 100 feet).
The Florida diver down flag is red with a diagonal white bar beginning at the top of the flag pole running down to the outer tip of the flag. The international white against the pole and blue pendant code Alpha flag is used in international waters. International waters in the Gulf of Mexico begins at 9 miles off shore.
There are several size requirements for the diver-down flag. Those flags towed by the diver are to be displayed above the water on a buoyancy device and be a minimum of 12 by 12 inches. Flags displayed on a vessel or structure are to be 20 by 24 inches.
A boat captain is wise when supporting divers in the water to discuss the dive objectives, post the appropriate diver down flag, and brief the divers to inspect the anchor at the bottom before they venturing off the anchor line prior to entering the water. ALWAYS keep a person aboard familiar with operating the boat’s engine!
Many an unsupervised boat has departed the dive site without anyone aboard.
Wise dive teams train on emergency procedures, such as recovering a victim from the water, administration of life saving oxygen and First Aid/CPR and the use of radios to contact assistance while at sea.
Refresher courses are readily available in our community. Spearfishing teams are increasingly fitting 100 percent onboard oxygen to reduce post dive decompression stress. Be sure to take and drink plenty of water, use sunblock lotion, hats and sun rash guard clothing and monitor the weather.
Practice safe and controlled descents and ascents. Clear your Eustachian tubes at the surface and on every breath during your descent. Breathe continuously during the dive (no skip breathing). Plan to dive upstream from your boat so that when returning you can drift with the current.
Ideally, your exit should be your entry guide: such as the anchor line.
Enjoy the diving; if not, then go home. There is always a better day ahead!

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April 20, 2017

The Dive Boat

I have had a boat since I was 14. And I have used a boat of mine for diving purposes since I was 18. Between those dates, I learned to dive. My dive club back then let me operate their small landing craft (complete with high pressure storage flasks) for several years since I had a more flexible schedule and was willing to be the care taker between diving days. I have learned a thing or two since I have done a thing or two with boats. An older club member once took command away from me, and while returning to the dock (too fast) rammed it under power. Our club boat later sank. When in doubt, slow down.
Run about boats work very well for diving. They can be trailered, which means you own the boat. Any boat that stays in the water, owns you. I have a large sail boat that makes for a decent dive boat, but it is slow, and costs dockage whether you use it or not. Power boats are usually more expensive (in fuel) to operate, but get you to the dive site more quickly, and more importantly, back to the dock more quickly. What makes a boat a good dive boat? Everyone has their favorite opinions.
Redundant power is best but costly. Engine failure is often resolved by SeaTow or Boat US tow service these days, but self-reliance is preferred. The only improvement to a marine radio is having two independent radios. That holds true for the marine battery, the bilge pump and anchor. Over the years I have insisted on some sort of sun protection. I could usually afford a Bimini canvas cover, but I am currently installing a solid “T” top (a pipe or hard tower over the console) with which to hang on to and with extra solar coverage. Solar skin damage, called a deep tan, is cool when you are young, but now, at my age, the sun rash is not so much so. So carry and use lots of sun block cream.
Carry and consume plenty of fluids! During my cruises, I required my students to consume at least a gallon a day. Water for cooling evaporation is critical, but so is blood plasma volume for safer post dive decompression. Add 100 % oxygen on your boat for an accelerated decompression or for emergencies. Always maintain a surface watch, a bubble watcher and emergency supplies (including evacuation plans) should problems arise. Losing your divers while at sea is not cool.
Loose cylinders on a bouncing boat are often an overlooked hazard, easily secured by gunwale clamps or deck logs. Leave nothing unsecured on a boat deck. Secured coolers or deck boxes can be used to store dive equipment and/or ice for food and fish. People can also set on them is calmer seas. I really like the bean bag seat if people need to sit while the sea is bumpy. Always have your PFD close by! Attach required rod holders about the gunwales and “T” top to keep rods and reels from snagging occupants. A vertical stern mounted spear gun rack is a must (if you have them aboard) for the same reason. Don’t forget the fishing license, regulations and measuring sticks. Consider LED flood lights beyond required navigation lights, for unexpected late returns. Monitor your gauges for fuel consumption and engine temperature when above the water and tank pressure gauges and timers/computers when underwater.
Divers step or fall off boats easily but struggle back aboard. Climbing the engine quickly gets old. A well-constructed stern mounted dive ladder is more than just a convenient feature. And don’t forget to deploy your safety dive flag and stern tag line to alert others to your divers underwater (and the fines can be high). I’m sure I left something out.

We hope to see you out there as we take to the sea to dive this summer!

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April 27, 2017

Risk management on and under water.

Risk management is of interest to everyone. Since one of the definitions of safe is something without risk, we naturally seek a safer activity; therefore we seek a reduction of risk. Technical divers use a risk management tool called the three “Oh S—” rule.
This rule recognizes we can seldom effectively manage more than three crises at one time. When, during preparations to dive, we sustain three problems that we impulsively reply to with the curse mentioned above, we abort the dive.
Some might say we are simply not ready for the complexity of the planned day.
I recently attended training at our local USCG Auxiliary Flotilla 12 to learn of another risk management tool. It can be as easily applied to underwater projects as to those on a boat. The Green, Amber, Red program or GAR provides a way for boaters (or divers) to identify risk and a technique to manage it. The program identifies 5 core topics to rate on a scale of 0 (0 risk) to 10 (highest risk) that cumulatively approximates 100. Once added up, a score of 20 or less is considered Green. A score of 40 or less is considered Amber or risky and anything over 50 falls into the Red zone and is considered not safe to continue.
Flotilla personnel are expected to perform a risk assessment using the GAR method before deploying one of their boats. They must heed the numbers they generate before they deploy.
Divers could do the same. The five categories of assessment are as follows: Supervision, Planning, Team Selection, Team Fitness, Environment and Event /Evolution Complexity. I will now apply this to underwater projects.
Supervision: All underwater projects, whether spearfishing, photography or exploring, require a team leader who is responsible to see the mission is met. The leader makes sure everyone is not only trained, but qualified to dive and perform needed tasks. Standards must be followed such as current fishing and boat licenses updated, flags, catch limits and species understood, and diving safety policies must be followed. This may be the responsibility of the boat captain or the dive master or anyone so designated.
Before pulling off the dock, how would your team score the risk of Supervision between 0 (low) and 10 (high)?
Team Selection: Is each team member trained adequately for the specific requirement of the mission? Has someone mastered navigation to get to the dive site or find the shipwreck once underwater? If the cameras require a specialist to keep them working, have you made sure at least one team member knows how to fix them? If you have 100 percent oxygen on board, have you brought a person along who can administer the gas properly? Have you planned for qualified surface support?
Team Fitness: Evaluating mental and physical fitness of each person on your selected team before departure is critical to mission safety. If one member has a cold that may compromise their diving, or someone is worried about a child left at home, alternatives may be necessary. Latent complications often plague projects even with the best of intensions. Be sure your team performs an honest assessment of their fitness before departure.
Environment: Be sure to give fair evaluation to environmental conditions. Developing storms, tides, and their resultant wind and waves create compromised safety to crew, boats and divers underwater. Assess the impact of those and other complications to the success of the mission.

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May 04, 2017

Certification for life.

Travis just handed me a box of new oxygen sensors that expired on the shelf worth over $1,000!
I called the manufacturer to be told everything expires, even on the shelf, except diver certification.
Not really!
Last weekend I took a group to Panama City and dove the Jetties. The refresher diver amongst us bailed out from the dive when the waves exceeded his comfort level. It was rough!
Many things are consumed even when not used. Rubber rots, plastic degenerates and oxygen sensors do become less stable as they generate electrons even in the sealed package. But your dive certification, your knowledge and skills, get “rusty” when you don’t dive (or use them).
I often teach certified divers or people who dive but were never certified (formally trained) to upgrade their skills and new available options that make diving safer, such as Nitrox., than when they were first certified. Our diving community changes about every decade. Are you up to date?
Today, we are moving away from air as a preferred breathing gas because Nitrox reduces decompression stress up to 50 percent at no additional cost over that of breathing air. I used to tell people Nitrox costs a little bit more than air because we must add oxygen to the blend.
Now, the price argument is gone because my cost is almost the same. So today, diver refresher training includes Nitrox certification.
Refresher courses upgrade divers from the days of the horse collar vest (of my day) or the Buoyancy Compensator to the current multi-purposed back wing with integrated weights. Dive computers that were a decade ago wonderful but expensive conveniences, now are requirements for basic training from most agencies. The price for dive computers has come down.
But options have improved. I can now add a heart monitor to my dive computer. They have become small enough to replace my wrist watch, and still monitor my rate of ascent, decompression stress, cylinder pressure, log my dives and share my dive information with others. Many have built in compasses just to name a few options! Each evolution moves us to more efficient life support technology.
Just as your BC and regulator is expected to be rebuilt periodically (annually by some manufacturers), so too should your dive learning and skilling. Obviously, the more you dive, the more you master your dive skills, the more you discuss diving with friends, the better diver you become. I was pleased to upgrade some experienced local spear fishing folks to breath 100% oxygen on their way back to shore to reduce decompression stress. How many of you know why?
What should a refresher course include? It should be tailored to the diver’s needs. Should it include recognition of DCS, benefits of elevated oxygen and oxygen delivery, risk management, CPR, new technical options such as dive computers, new procedures for omitted decompression, a visit to the hyperbaric chamber, pressing the EMS button when a diving emergency happens, Rescue skills, Nitrox? Think of anything else? Such a course could be offered on a weekend or 2.
Safety through Education is NAUI’s motto! When did you last upgrade your knowledge?

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May 11, 2017

Our Slipper Lobster

Last year a customer brought in a small crustacean from a dive, hardly worth eating, and we added it to our newly installed twin 100 gallon aquariums. Most folks cannot see the creature as it looks like a rock. But I recognized and identified it as a Slipper Lobster, as in my youth, I captured the largest ever found in Hawaii. I donated it to the Bishop Museum where it resides to this day.
There are 90 species worldwide of this group of achelate (lacking claws) crustaceans, family (Scyllaridae), more closely related to the Spiny Lobster than the American Lobster (which is found off the northeastern states). This group extends back 100–120 million years in the fossil record. The pronounced feature of this creature is a specialized pair of antennae. The first antennae, or antennules, are held on a long flexible stalk, and are used for sensing the environment. The second antennae are expanded and flattened into large plates that extend horizontally forward from the animal’s head in a shovel arrangement. Common names include shovel-nose lobster, Spanish lobster and slipper lobster.
Their protective armored carapace (almost a shell) and camouflage appearance works well against all but the triggerfish and man. I have often seen their larval form, called the phyllosoma, drift by me riding on the domes of jellyfish. Otherwise, they don’t move much at all. In our area they are seen on or under rock outcroppings blending into the surrounding formations. They are easily captured by hand and are usually a favorite seafood for people.
Figuring out what to feed it was a challenge. Cypress Rudloe of Gulf Specimen Marine Lab suggested bivalves, so we collected what we could find at the base of pier pilings. Since the lobster did not seem to eat any of them, we split the shells open which resulted in a feeding frenzy in the tank and the spotted eel took most of it. We were all worried and were planning to return it to the sea before it starved.
We have yet to identify our small occupant to species. It did clamber out of its shell (molted) recently, leaving behind a perfect but smaller shell of itself, now dried and on display. Molting is a crustacean’s way of growing out of a hard shell.
First, it dehydrates and pulls back from the entire hard exoskeleton, breaking it behind the carapace structure and slowly extricating its delicate inner parts. It then rehydrates and over-expands (grows) to its new dimensions. Any lost appendages may also be reformed. Then it waits until the new exoskeleton hardens. During this time, the creature is very exposed to predation. Ours hid at the top of the aquarium behind the filter pipes.
Once its shell hardened, it took on a nearby oyster and by sheer power, pulled the bivalve open, and fed on it voraciously.
Almost as though it has a new confidence, our slipper lobster now struts about the aquarium as if (s)he owns it. Everything in our aquarium (except the Lionfish) will be returned to the sea once it grows too large for us to properly maintain. But for now, I need to get more bivalves!

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May 18, 2017

After Certification

More than 80 percent of newly certified divers never dive again. I suppose it’s a bucket list thing. It may also be a lack of opportunity. Find opportunity.
Now that we are training new divers again this summer, the next student question I get is where do I go next?
If you lived near more tropical waters like Hawaii, the Caribbean or the Florida Keys, the answer is simple: Just dive!
Most dive opportunities there are right off the beach. Many coastal communities have dive clubs. That not only can point the way, but provide maritime social outlets as well.
Around here, there are more advanced divers who own boats and often seek additional participants occupants since diving is a social event.
Dive clubs are found in Tallahassee. I am most familiar with the Seminole Dive Club out of Florida State University. The Tallahassee Friends Dive Club may also be available on Facebook.
The Wakulla County Dive Club became very specialized to cave diving and may be dormant at this point. Regardless, after certification is complete, new dive students need to work on skills.
This past Monday, I went offshore with folks who were rusty with their diving skills. We reached 60 FSW, made one short dive and returned to the dock by 1 p.m. It was a great day. We had configuration issues, ears that were sluggish to clear, an anchor that slipped, navigation challenges, current fishing regulations not on board, sea sick surface support, all while exceeding the three “oh s—ts” rule.
But we did see a boost in confidence, which made the day worthwhile.
When I lived closer to the Florida Keys, I would load up the truck with whoever was willing and drive down for a weekend of diving. There are more dive shops clustered in the Keys than anywhere in the country.
Be sure to take your certification card and your dive log. Most diving is done from a boat, but there are backwaters and canals that are interesting. Just find any excuse to dive!
Of course we can drive 100 miles to Panama City. Except for the Jetties, most diving is also done from a boat.
Panama City has artificial reefs in abundance, but all require boats to get to them. Schedule a ride on one of them after reviewing the weather and securing a place to stay.
If diving the Jetties one day, also check the tides to align your twin dives to the peak slack of the high tide.
Access to Bimini Bahamas east of Miami has become faster (two hours) and less expensive now that they have a shuttle boat that costs $105 for a day trip. It’s called the Bahamas Fast Ferry.
Check out the dive options once at this small island. You may want to stay for a few days! Dive shops have boats and instructions for shore dives.
Since you are at sea level, there is no waiting to fly challenges before taking your ride back to Miami.
http://gobahamasplus.com/bimini-fast-ferry-service-from-miami-to-bimini-bahamas/

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May 25, 2017

Nudibrach

Yellow striped Blue Nudibranch

I first encountered nudibrachs in Hawaii. This group of mollusks is basically an underwater slug, often very colorful, that carries its gills, or branchial plume, on its back, thus the term nude breathing. They resemble a snail without the shell. Some, like the brilliant Spanish Dancer of Hawaii, can swim in the water column, flexing their back, moving up and down in a pulsing fashion. Otherwise, most are found on the reef looking for sponges, hydroids, anemones, gorgonians (soft corals), even barnacles, and bryozoans. Some species are planktonic, residing in the water column.
These beautiful creatures are found around the world in tropical through temperate waters. They have peculiar behaviors, such as taking defensive components from their prey and using them in their own defense. When consuming a poisonous animal, they will relocate the toxin or stinging cells to their own back, which will then discharge into their predator when threatened.
There are several groups of Nudibranch, distinguished by the various body forms and tubules located on their back. Elevated projections (Rhinophores) protruding from the front of this mollusk, are sensory devices, an organ of smell, not eyes. Unlike flatworms, Nudibranch have girth, a body size from the miniature to as big as your hand. But they are typically slow, unless swimming in the current.
We have a deep blue with bright yellow striped (Hypselodoris edenticulata) Nudibranch here in the Gulf of Mexico. Others call it the Florida Nudibranch. If you use a flashlight underwater, its bright colors will distinguish this creature from its environment. I was out in the ocean last week during checkout dives, and stumbled on a large one in 40 feet of water. I brought it up to show everyone. Cypress Rudloe, of Gulf Specimens Aquarium told me the Florida Nudibranch eats a blue sponge, which may contribute to the creature’s color.
Needless to say, this Nudibranch now resides in our aquarium. The fish avoid it, which tells me the message that it tastes bad comes across loud and clear. During the day, it resides up on the walls of the aquarium around the air bubbler. We have placed blue sponges in the aquarium, but have seen no feeding yet. Perhaps it will take time.
Learn more about hese special creatures at: http://www.nudibranch.com.au/colour_white.htmor http://www.emeralddiving.com/id_nudibranchs.html

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June 01, 2017

Red Snapper in our Gulf.

The current rage is Red Snapper fishing in Federal waters since we are about to have a three-day season on them from June 1 through June 3.
That is the Federal limit for recreational fishing Red Snapper for the year as it stands right now. My son tells me that’s where the big Red Snapper are located. I know the last several trips out to Federal waters that I’ve been on have been surprising with the abundance of these giants. I can appreciate the frenzy.
Red Snapper fishing in state waters (within 9 miles from shore) has been in effect since May 6 only on Saturday and Sunday. Starting May 27, daily fishing for Red Snapper is available until July 9. During September and October, Red Snapper may be taken only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, including Labor Day. This represents a total of 78 days for recreational Red Snapper harvest this year.
The recreational Daily Bag limit, when in season, is two fish per person (and the charter captain and crew get none). An aggregate bag limit is 10 per day in State waters. The minimum size limit is 16-inches. All other Snapper have an open season all year! Look up the current size and bag limits at http://myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/snappers/
Red Snapper is one of those species that will, at some point, have protection on specimens above a certain size as the larger females produce more eggs than smaller females. One 24-inch (8 year old) female produces as many eggs as 17 5-year-old females! These fish mature early (at 2 years old) and can live as long as 57 years. Current efforts are to protect the smaller breeders. What would happen if the largest of the breeders were also the fish we regulate? The concept seems to work for the Redfish.
Back in 2015 the FWC asked for help to better understand fishermen’s impact on the fisheries. Is it time to sign up for or renewed participation on the Gulf Reef Fish Survey (if you plan to fish from a private vessel)? The following reef species were surveyed in the Gulf of Mexico this year: red and vermilion snapper; gag, red, and black grouper; greater amberjack, lesser amberjack; banded rudderfish; almoco jacks; and gray triggerfish.
Biologists need data. I understand that every fish pulled to the surface has a 10 percent chance of returning to the reef alive. Due to uncontrolled air bladder expansion, most become fish bait when returned to the sea, undersized or not. An advantage we spear fishermen and women have over hook and line fishing is better selection skills. While not always perfect, we select for species, and size, reducing needless fish death due to ascent before measurements can be done.
Decisions on size limits and seasons must be based upon data, not politics. We all want a better-managed fishery for everyone.
Want to know more about the Gulf Reef Fish Survey? Visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on Saltwater, Recreational Regulations and Gulf Reef Fish Survey. To renew online, visit GoOutdoorsFlorida.com.

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June 08, 2017

Diving scientist training at Texas A&M.

Again this year I assisted my good friend and fellow Scientist-In-the-Sea graduate, Dr. Tom Iliffe, with his scientific diving class for the cavern training portion of his class.
Dr. Iliffe’s popular class often exceeds 30 students, which makes in water training difficult, what with a national standard of a ratio of four students to one instructor in the overhead environments.
The majority of his semester-long class, like what I taught at FSU, includes techniques and technology to collect data underwater.
He uses cavern training to improve the skill set required to work (not just play) underwater.
Very few of these students want to go on into cave diving in their future.
The way we handled his large enrollment in this class was to break the group up into teams of four students and then split the teams between Tom and me.
We had assigned teaching assistants (TA) that worked with us to shuttle teams down to us to complete required skills. We went to either large cavern sites where we could host 10 people underwater at a time, or where there were several caverns nearby. It still made for a very long five days of work!
I spent more than 1,000 minutes underwater, around 200 minutes a day.
We would each drop to the depth of the day and wait there until the TA brought us a team already briefed on the surface for training at this site. Most dives lasted 30 minutes until they reached their thirds, before signaling to go up and then sending in the next team.
The rule of thirds is where each diver relegates one third of their air supply for the dive, one third for the return to the surface and one third held in reserve for emergencies.
Students had to master trim, buoyancy control, special kicks, hovering and propulsion skills to move around underwater research sites without sending silt into the water column.
The floor was not their friend! They needed to handle losing their mask, their light, and their way without panic, and to recover easily for a safe exit.
Much reel (a tool to keep line from entangling) work was perfected during all of the dives.
People were asked to simulate the loss of breathing gas unexpectedly, get help from their buddies, and then exit the cavern on a line they previously set, with no light and no mask.
The entire class performed more than 25 dives across the semester, ending with cavern training in North Florida.
As you could expect, I had students who were skilled divers before they arrived, and performed very well. And I had timid new divers that were afraid of their shadows.
But as a group, they were dedicated to master what I asked. All completed all the required skills (and more) with high marks.
Some required a little more patience and time to complete the tasks. To reach 100 feet in one cavern, we needed to back down a tight vertical shaft, while still in full view of day light.
A few students were reluctant to do so when discussed at the surface, but after watching the rest of the team complete the task, they followed through.
At a murky entrance that cleared up as soon as we were in the cavern, several students needed hand holding until they were under the overhead. We expected a lot and got every bit of it!
And I am proud to be a part of this tradition, continued at Texas A&M University.
Now, I’ve got to recover myself from such an intense exposure (three to four times what each of them had).
Ah yes, the benefits of a rebreather make this possible.

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June 15, 2017

Every Diver Rescues their Buddy

I do not believe in the solo diver. I understand the notion that every instructor is solo diving because new dive students are ill equipped to handle complex rescue requirements.
I understand that spearfishing is considered a solo diving activity because fish are more likely to spook with twice the noise, movement and incoming shafts. I understand the most hazardous creature underwater is your buddy.
I always considered my most inexperienced student a viable buddy. On a training dive on Stage II (a tower now gone, but still underwater) in Panama City I was so involved with the project, I suddenly ran out of breathing air. I did not want to panic anyone, so I approached each student and asked to buddy breathe, as though it was a sudden drill.
By the time I made the circuit of eight students, we were on the surface. Everyone said I should pull such drills more often. There is nothing more convincing than the real thing. No, I did not tell them.
Fish do acclimate to the sound of bubbles. I found myself abandoned by a spearfishing group not too long ago and figured I was doing OK.
Near the end of a successful collection of fish, with blood in the water, I turned to face a shark sweeping into my space clearly interested in my catch. I recall thinking of my question on my basic exam: Why use the buddy system?
One answer was, so that the risk of a shark injury would be cut in half. Or I swim faster than my buddy. And suddenly, the shark turned 90 degrees and fled! I looked up to see my buddy grinning as he turned his Shark Shield on. The shock wave chased my aggressor away!
And true to form, most of my challenges underwater have come from my buddy, running out of breathing gas, getting lost, having equipment failure, etc. But they were all educational.
A very long time ago my new diving buddy and I were at 60 FSW in Hanauma Bay, when he suddenly ran out of gas. We had recently been taught buddy breathing (no extra second stage back then). I calmly reached for the regulator in my mouth but could not pull it out!? The neck strap that came with all regulators was firmly attached and would not come free.
My young friend calmly watched, then placed a hand on my chest, another grasping the mouthpiece, and wrenched the regulator out of my mouth. The strap snapped with a loud crack and we made our way up to the surface.
I think I was 17 years old. We then cut all of the straps off of our regulators. Interesting that these widowmakers are finding their way back into our inventory.
When I was trained to dive in 1965, the UDT divers out of Pearl Harbor required my father train with me. I was 16. At the time I thought this an intrusive problem. He became my first buddy, but I soon developed more friends that dove in high school. It was soon after that, I began dating. As a freshman in college my father, my date and I went diving one day. We found a great cavern offshore. But my date ran out of breathing gas at the entrance. My dad recued her with buddy breathing while I watched.
I’m glad he did, as I soon married her and we have been together for more than 50 years. The next rescue you or your buddy makes, my be your own or that of a loved one.
But it only works when you are both there.

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June 22, 2017

Our Bay Scallops.

As we approach July, talk of our upcoming scallop season enters our conversation. Back in April, suppliers were pushing inventories of collecting mesh bags, floating flags, and skin diving kits for the entire family. Stores along the Coastal Scenic Highway had to speculate on the size of the harvest. If the harvest is good, sale of this inventory can be as high as a quarter of the total sales for July and August. But inventory is an expensive risk: you can’t sell what you don’t have.
In May, the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) harvest survey sweeps east along the coastal sea grassland counting the incoming spat and juvenile scallop population. This provides a glimpse of a future harvest. Previous red tides and storm freshwater run off affect scallop populations in many ways, only some of which are understood. FWC Fishing regulations that close off scallop grounds, such as St. Joe Bay last year, represent an effort to permit a scallop population’s recovery. Ever shrinking bag limits attest to the increasing popularity of this sport.
By far the largest comercial wild scallop fishery for the Atlantic sea scallop is found off northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Most of the rest of the world’s production of scallops is from Japan (wild, enhanced, and aquaculture), and China (mostly cultured Atlantic bay scallops). Scallop aquaculture is often performed in cages.
Scallops are commonly harvested commercially using scallop dredges. Recently, Bay scallops harvested by divers have entered the marketplace. In contrast to scallops captured by a dredge, diver collected scallops tend to be less gritty. They are also collected more ecologically friendly, as the harvesting method does not cause damage to the sea floor community.
Everything is interconnected. For example, On the east coast of the United States, over the last 100 years, the populations of Bay scallops have greatly diminished due to several factors, but probably mostly due to a reduction in sea grasses (to which bay scallop spat attach). This is caused by increased coastal development and resultant nutrient runoff. Another possible factor is the reduction of sharks from overfishing. A variety of sharks used to feed on rays which are a main predator of Bay scallops. With the shark population reduced, the rays have been free to feed on scallops to the point of greatly decreasing their numbers. By contrast, the Atlantic sea scallop harvest is at historically abundant levels after recovering from overfishing.
Every year we prepare, pray and wait with great enthusiasm for the incoming Bay scallop.
The child who harvests scallops this summer may become the Hydronaught diver of tomorrow, and the Astronaught engineer of our future.

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June 29, 2017  

Addressing safety concerns in diving.

By Travis Kersting

The last few days have been tragic for our local diving community. On Saturday June 17, diver Glen Peel went missing while spearfishing off our coast. I had built a bit of a professional friendship with the diver, who was part of a cheerful group who enjoyed diving in our shallow coastal waters in search of something for dinner.
Glen wasn’t a diving extremist, he didn’t need to plunge into extreme depths or take excessive risks to have a good time, yet he didn’t return from a routine adventure underwater.
Most adventurous folks are aware of the risks their hobbies involve and when they depart they leave details on their expected destinations, event/location schedule, and when they expect to return. Contact phone numbers for the other members of the party would be a good thing to inform your family of too. That being said, going offshore will take divers well outside of cell phone range.
For the family members wishing to watch from home there are certain tracking devices, some of which allow limited communication back and forth using phone apps. A popular device for this is called “SPOT” but it requires annual fees and each additional feature ups the fees. SPOT is common in the hunting, hiking, and camping community but less so among divers.
Specific to divers is a tool called “Nautilus Lifeline.” It won’t communicate back home to your family but instead works like a personal diver’s Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). When activated, any boat with radar, within 34 miles, will get a “diver in distress” message so that they may come to your aid. Nautilus also alerts the Coast Guard or other authorities.
One device often found on life vests and found in certain geographic areas in the hands of divers is a personal strobe. The newest LED strobes can be seen for over a mile in optimal conditions but will stay powered for several days. Divers used them to mark features underwater, such as in wreck diving. I’m now carrying two of these in a small pocket, one for the anchor line and one in case the boat and I become separated.
Those devices all rely on electronics, something saltwater isn’t friendly with, a different and popular option and one required by most every dive boat is a SMB (submersible marking buoy). Often called a “See Me Tube” this is an inflatable and high visibility buoy which typically comes in various lengths. These devices make it easy to spot a diver from a distance, especially in rough seas, and they provide additional buoyancy in the event of other equipment failures.
A low tech and interesting method to increase a divers visibility on the surface is a chemical called fluorescein dye. When dumped into the water it makes about a 50-foot diameter high visibility green cloud. In the event that a helicopter was dispatched to find a diver this would be the thing to have during the day. These vials are one time use, last a decade or more just forgotten in a pocket, and are one of the least expensive “safety” items a diver can buy.
One item I would expect to see every diver carry yet I almost never do, a whistle. Some are more expensive than others and some are louder than others. Regardless of what type you have this is the one piece of kit that is an absolute must have. If you can barely talk you can still blow a whistle and be heard several hundred yards away.
All of these items require the diver to be awake, alert, and able to operate them. Some require more dexterity and mental capacity than others but they all need to be operated. This is where Gregg will argue that there is a chance you may not be awake or otherwise able to use this equipment and that there is one other vital piece of kit to have handy, a buddy. The dive buddy is there to help you when you cannot help yourself.
Glen will be missed.

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July 06, 2017

Primitive Hunters. Column originally appeared in July 2015.

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July 13, 2017

Rip Tide.

June is a great time for basic scuba training as the daylight is longer, the water is warmer and tides less ferocious. For a long week, eight trusting souls pored over books, read on-line chapters, listened to lectures on the environment, marine life, physics and diving physiology, planned hypothetical dives and took exams. The pool exercises were equally exciting, managing cylinders, regulators, buoyancy compensators, gas sharing, rescue, Nitrox, and skin diving skills. The goal was to go diving in both fresh- and saltwater by week’s end.
But the weather did not cooperate! For a group this size, I needed help and got it from FAMU’s Jorge Olaves. As the University’s Aquatics Director, he teaches swimming all the way up to pool management classes. He is currently training to become a NAUI diving instructor. I am so glad I asked for his help. NAUI has standards for student to Instructor ratios of no more than 8:1 in the open water. I have always followed a more conservative 4:1, and securing more help is always a good idea.
Our favorite Spring dive site at Morrison was overwhelmed by the river backing up and flooding the park. Zero visibility on a dive is never much fun. We were pleased to find Vortex close by, a much improved alternative near Ponce de Leon. Cold water and frequent rain showers made for a long but successful day. Sunday was planned to be the culminating Ocean dives at the Panama City Jetties.
Everyone arrived ahead of the supply truck that carried Nitrox cylinders, regulators, buoyancy compensators, dive flags and all manner of needed stuff. Diving the Jetties is a scheduling challenge, where the clearest water is found on the high tide. But even then, stormy weather gave us five to 10 feet visibility that morning. Everyone made the best of it and applied what they learned effectively. By the afternoon’s dive however, everyone was dragging a bit. We hiked up over the dunes to the open Gulf and made a beach entry into a one to two foot surf!
Before entry, students noted a break in the surf, evidence of a longshore current (called by some an undertow) feeding a rip current headed seaward. It was safely back aways from the Jetties, serving a nice entry portal through the surf to a 5 foot depth on the backside of the waves. Students then plotted a compass run to the Jetties. Everyone then turned southward and swam seaward along the Jetties to the point at about 45 foot depth, looking for treasure! With dive flags and staff at both ends of the group, and parents in the middle, we began our return to shore.
Black clouds had developed however, while we were down, as a squall to our west came in to shore. Winds grew and shifted direction, waves got bigger, and conditions changed suddenly. When wind drives waves into the Jetties corner on the beach, water builds up and must escape seaward somewhere. It chose to move the existing rip tide over to the Jetties, and intensify. The intensity dug a trench along the Jetty.
And we swam right into it in our effort to return to the beach. Every diver knows you can’t swim against a rip current. Pelting heavy rain did not help. One by one however, each buddy team figured out what was happening and turned 90 degrees to swim or walk out of the rip current and safely back to shore.
What an adventure! What an awesome group of newly certified divers.

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July 20, 2017

The mighty oyster underwater.

Once, there was a clear bay along the north Gulf coast, where oysters and fish were plentiful, perhaps before the arrival of the current mankind.
Native Americans sustainably harvested bay oysters along the south eastern coastline for thousands of years. Perhaps they were few and lacked mechanization reducing their impact on the oyster population, perhaps restricting their impact only to the near shore community, but ancient oyster shell midden studies reveal their importance of the day.
Then mankind became many. These pristine conditions changed, the oyster population declined, and the water became so enriched, the visibility declined. The damage is done. The question now is how can we recover?
Ideally, we need all ideas and all interested parties at the table. Ideally, we want a way to turn the tide, to grow oysters, to seed and propagate new reefs, to protect and manage these resources, past, present and future. Ideally, we should want to clean the water, even as the water carries the food oysters eat. High nutrients found in our coastal boundary today, feed the algae that feeds our oysters. But the organics also create the muds that tend to bury our oysters. So we must elevate these reefs above the mud lines and provide healthy oysters to also continue to seed reefs. Ideally, we must provide sustainability to our past and future oystermen. Where is the paradigm shift required?
The Zebra mussel of the Great Lakes comes to mind. More than five years ago, I ventured to Wisconsin to participate in a survey of the Christmas Tree Wreck, located in 170 feet of water. I knew, from 40 year history that the water quality of these lakes was poor at best, and expected to study the schooner by braille. Imagine my surprise when at 30 feet, the schooner lay clearly below me as we descended on our first day of diving. The answer was also below me, encrusted over the ship’s timbers, the filter feeding mussels that over the past two decades, helped to clear up the lake’s visibility.
Now imagine thousands to millions of similar filter feeders housed in cages hovering above a natural or constructed rock and mud sea floor, shedding larval oysters as they grow to market size. Water quality improves, nutrients are captured and recycled, natural reefs are seeded, mud banks are reduced with oyster hash replenishment, biomass goes to market, and money comes home to reward diligent oystermen.
Studies have brought to light, additional benefits to these healthy floating and benthic (bottom) reefs as fish attractors.
Fish feed on the crabs and shrimp that grow next to oysters. Farmers (and even fish) knock these pests off into the water column for easy fish predation. Recent studies suggest fish harvests of $3,000 to $6,000 per sea floor acre are possible, opening up yet another source of revenue.
This oyster harvest technology is an international paradigm shift, but not at the expense of the natural oyster reefs.
Less productive triploid oysters that shed viable oyster seed are often mixed with the non- viable (and fatter) diploid oysters, to give back to the natural reef system.
I look forward to cleaner water and abundant oysters in my old age.

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July 27, 2017

The path to becoming a dive instructor.

Our successful summer diving instruction has generated a lot of questions regarding what to do next! I will attempt to shed light on this process over the next few columns.
Now that you have successfully completed your basic diver training, you must get back into the water and dive!
European training agencies don’t want to see you back for further training until you have made at least 20 dives to depths and conditions similar to your basic training. Studies have found however, that up to 80 percent of you will never dive again.
Congratulations to those of you who have moved beyond this depressing statistic.
In the U.S., our training agencies promote further training immediately after the basics, with the lure of the Advanced certification, a series of six types of dives, that should expand your horizons, such as a night dive, a deep dive (100 feet), and a navigation dive for starters.
Other electives include boat dives, search and rescue, hunting and collecting, light salvage, UW photography, non-penetrating wreck diving, fresh water, UW mapping, and using computers.
The natural progression in diver training is to join in on a Master diver course, a minimum of 25 hours of more detailed academic investigation behind diving, such as a greater understanding of compression/decompression and how to manage deeper dives (down to 130 feet), marine life behavior, human performance underwater such as thermal limits and wet/dry suit management and the performance of other dive technology.
Eight to 10 more dives are required after a few hours in preparatory pool dives to complete the Master diver certification.
Speciality dive courses are just plain fun. All Speciality courses require at least two dives and some academic coverage of the topic so consider them a weekend event.
A list of them include, but are not limited to Night, Environmental, UW Photographer, Search and Recovery, UW hunter, UW Ecologist, UW Wreck (non-penetration), UW Archaeology, Nitrox, Deep, Cavern (not cave), Training Assistant, and more!
Notice some are an extension of the Advanced certification or even basic training.
People progress through these and other intermediate training courses just diving over a one- to three-year period as they accumulate 50-100 dives.
Accomplishing these dives is not difficult with our vast ocean and spring diving opportunities here in Wakulla County. This is recreational diving.
NAUI Motto: “Safety through Education.”
Every course taught by NAUI includes rescue. But they also offer a three to four day course dedicated just to Rescue.
Here is a pivotal class, taken by serious divers, who are taking a greater interest in becoming a professional diver in the future.
Rescue is required for a person to move up in the Dive Leadership ranks to Assistant Instructor, Dive Master and Dive Instructor.
My next column will discuss professional diving.

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August 03, 2017

Equipment doesn’t always last forever.

By Travis Kersting

Most of you probably have a cell phone and/or a computer but do you expect them to last more than a year or two before needing replacement?
Diving equipment is not much different than the other products in your life but it is intended to last more than a year or two. A dive computer such as the Oceanic Pro Plus 2 has been out for about 11 years now and the manufacture still has limited resources to fix it even though there are two generations of computer that follow it in the same family.
As I learned this past week, when consulting the service department, the actual manufacturer of electronic components for their circuit boards has discontinued the parts to make more boards. When Oceanic runs out of the populated boards in stock there will no longer be parts to keep that model in service.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if your cell phone lasted 11 years and when it finally died the manufacturer offered you 20 percent off a new model?
There are other instances where the manufacturer is less than willing to help the consumer out but typically that doesn’t come for many years, far longer than in other consumer product categories.
When Luxfer cylinders learned about the sustained load cracking in 6351 cylinders they ceased production (using that alloy) in June 1988. They continued to accept returns of those cylinders until the early 2000s meaning the consumer could exchange their condemned cylinders for a new one for over a decade, regardless of use/condition.
Dacor, a scuba equipment manufacturer, was purchased in 1999 by Mares, which offered customers of Dacor a trade-in program for a new Mares brand regulator, until 2006. This upgrade program was advertised by diving magazines, early online retailers, and dive stores. That being said, I see Dacor products almost every week, some of which remain in use without being serviced (where a service center would have informed them of the upgrade options) for over a decade after the program ended.
The reason for the trade-in push was Mares didn’t have a way to support the Dacor customers, because the molds used to make parts were destroyed or lost when moving assets to Italy after Mares acquired Dacor.
In the above three examples the manufacturers of the product had no intent to design obsolescence into the products they made. Instead, they suffered from unforeseen issues that resulted in the customer having a product that is no longer supported. The manufacturers offered very fair options to those customers who needed service or replacement for several years after the bad news came down the pipes.
I bring this up because I am often the person giving these customers the bad news about their equipment.
This year I have had about 12 or 13 dive computers come in flooded or that no longer turn on, all over 10 years old. I see one or two aluminum scuba cylinders a month that have sustained load cracking, something that came from an alloy of aluminum which hasn’t been used since 1988. Regulators from Dacor, Voit, Healthways, and other forgotten companies come in for service two or more decades after the last parts were manufactured. Sadly, if customers had brought in their products following anything close to the manufacturer’s recommended service intervals, most of these folks would have gotten free or inexpensive replacements for their equipment.
If you got 14 years out of a piece of equipment, without even servicing it, and the product is no longer supported please don’t be surprised.
We want you to have safe functional equipment that will endure your diving career but occasionally things still need replacement.
What an adventure! What an awesome group of newly certified divers.

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August 10, 2017

Path to Instructor, Part II

Here we divert into two pathways. Traditionally, training agencies expect you to move into the Leadership Pathway, in large part because more instructors means more certifications generated.
The alternative choice is for the recreational diver to enter the Technical Pathway, which I will address in the near future.
Once you have progressed through Master Diver, Rescue and 100 hours (some require less) of diving experience, the candidates are expected to be working with a fully certified Instructor, beginning with Assistant Instructor (AI) or Dive Master (DM).
I prefer my candidates do both! The AI learns how to teach both in lecture and pool. To be an effective instructor, you must combine your passion for the sport with fundamental learning principles.
Once mastering the requirements of the AI, passing the written and pool practical exams, the candidate is awarded the AI certificate and may participate in dive instruction under the guidance of a fully certified Instructor.
Becoming a Dive Master is the next step. Dive supervision is very different from teaching diving. In many cases the candidate will find him or herself falling back on instructional skills to better enable them to supervise a dive.
A Dive Master is a professional, requiring professional liability insurance, as agencies now require DM on vessels to assure dive safety afloat. Both the AI and DM can take a full 16 weeks each to complete certification requirements or roughly a half a year.
I accept candidates into the Dive Instructor training program once the AI and DM are completed. Agencies, such as NAUI, now require AI, DM and Instructor candidates’ complete on-line training and on-line exams as well.
My Dive Instructor course can take as much as a year, but usually can be finished in as little as six months. Like the previous two certification, the candidate participates in mentored, on-going basic and advanced diver training, taking on more responsibilities as opportunities permit.
Instructor Trainers (IT) perform the first two-thirds of this course. Once ready, the candidates attend a three to four day exam battery conducted by several ITs.
The candidates must meet strict expectations, standards and physical performances. If at the end, the candidate passes all the tests, one last measure must be met.
Each evaluator of Dive Instructor candidates must search their conscience and determine if each of them would send a loved one to this candidate for scuba training.
As a Course Director, I supervise this process. I have witnessed extremes, where politics interfered and candidates who could not swim were passed through this process.
I have also witnessed a candidate with exceptional skills at instruction and deep understanding of diving knowledge, be rejected based upon extreme arrogance.
In the end, it comes down to a vote.
Some agencies are social organizations bound together to maintain high standards (thus the .org after the name), while individuals own others with similar objectives in pursuit of commerce.
There is both good and bad in each. Choose wisely.

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August 17, 2017

Pathway to Instructor III.

There is an additional option on the pathway to Dive Instructor: Skin Diving Instructor. Early, even before the Assistant Instructor training, some agencies encourage Leadership applicants become a Skin Diving Instructor, as youth programs are popular and offer great opportunities.
Many in our diving community have sought exciting new diving opportunities during their pathway to becoming an Instructor in diving. This diversion is known as Technical Diving.
What began five decades ago, called cave diving, has expanded into any form of recreational diving beyond the basic open circuit, open water diving already described. Years ago I began describing recreational diving as any dive where the person resolved their challenges at the surface.
Safely getting there is called an emergency ascent. That necessitated the person be always able to go straight up to reach the surface. Any limited overhead restrictions such as required decompression stops; ice, cave, inside wrecks, and more, became, by definition, a Technical dive. Not all training agencies agree with me.
When I began diving caves, the people who entered submerged caves were members of a secret society. They mentored under masters, who themselves were survivors of the activity. And many of these early explorers are no longer with us, a common refrain when describing your cave instructor.
I am no exception. But attitudes must change. Risk must be limited, managed and mitigated.
Today, we have much improved technology, breathing gases, and training. And the cave diving society is no longer secret. Most of the advances in technical diving today came from experience in the cave diving community with one notable exception: Rebreathers.
If technically diving, you must be able to diagnose and correct a number of challenges to your dive or dive equipment while still at depth.
A prudent diver will terminate a dive when a failure has been diagnosed, and exit the water for further repair and consideration. The consequence of this condition is carrying redundant technology. More equipment requires advanced configurations, bigger buoyancy options and many pockets.
And above all, technical diving requires technical training, which is not as inexpensive as recreational diving. Technical diving is not intended for the masses.
Technical diving, by my definition, includes overhead (not cavern with natural light), and deep dives requiring decompression stops (similar to an overhead). Deep often requires helium-breathing mixtures, which carry additional complications. Some light helium blends in the future may not require decompression stops and may, like Nitrox, be relegated to the recreational world. Rebreathers fall into this category as well.
Again, recall the definition separating technical from recreational diving. I can currently train non-divers using a rebreather. I can also train rebreather as a recreational activity in half the time it takes me to train as a technical activity.

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August 24, 2017

Diving under Antarctic Ice. Column that originally appeared in June 2011.

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August 31, 2017

At 70, Still Diving

I now offer references to aspiring diving scientists, which takes me back.
You all know, when I was certified to dive at age 17 in 1964, I was told to plan to hang up my fins at age 40. That was a totally incomprehensible 24-year life span. I could only expect to no longer be immortal by that age. I either dove or went surfing every weekend for the first year. In college I found jobs that let me dive weekly, such as working for the Hawaii Cooperative Fishery Research Unit at the University of Hawaii in the study of Artificial Reefs.I easily cleared 1000 dives before leaving Hawaii in 1970, having passed my NAUI Instructor exams (Provisionally), graduated with 5 years of college in Zoology, and got married.
My search for employment in the early 1970s took me across an unfamiliar mainland, finally settling for a water collector job for the Florida Department of Pollution Control (former DEP). I ran their Mercrusers around Escambia and Perdido Bays, taking samples for various projects. Great thrills running the bays, but little diving, so I gave it up to work at Aquatics Sciences in Boca Raton. I was closer to the Keys, so we headed down to marvel in what was available underwater back then. Yes, the corals were abundant but stressed. I cultured oysters, algae, rotifers and other creatures to feed larvae fish. We tested the effects of commercial products on marine animals. But as a research arm of Aquatic Sciences (the makers of Instant Ocean), we were challenged.
My first big break came as a research diver at Harbor Branch Foundation Lab (now a lab for Florida Atlantic University). I jumped at the opportunity, and began diving every weekend again since the surfing was lousy. I began teaching diving at the Indian River Community College. I was a member of the Johnson Sea Link support divers and created the Harbor Branch Interlibrary Loan Department. Just as I thought I had gone to heaven, the Sea Link was trapped in the Keys and diving was put on hold. I took the summer off and attended the Scientist-In-The-Sea Program (SITS) at the U.S. Navy base in Panama City. There, while living underwater, I met Bill Herrnkind.
Clear vision began after the SITS Program and my acceptance at FSU for an advanced degree with Dr. Herrnkind. I grew up as a diving scientist under Dr. Herrnkind. He had to cool my jets as I was barreling through my degree to move on. I ended up staying 5 years to create the largest diver support research program in the country. I then accepted the Directorship of the Academic Diving Program in 1979. It still exists at FSU, but has been downsized. At age 40, we were discovering NITROX!
With opportunities growing in Panama City to work with the Navy to offer the SITS Program again, develop new lines of underwater research and a program of Underwater Crime Scene Investigations, I jumped, leaving my Tallahassee program. In 5 years we created anew an Advanced Science Diving Program that continues to this day. Seeing rebreathers as the new future, I retired from FSU to pursue the Wakulla Diving Center, a specialization private endeavor as large as the Academic Diving Program, but with fewer students (which I greatly miss). And that was 14 years ago. Under this new Program, I dive deeper (100 meters) and longer (4 hours routinely) and with greater safety than I ever did in my entire career. Space-age rebreathers have permitted this opportunity.
So now that I am at 70 years of age, when is the next age that I should consider hanging up my fins? I’ll let you know when I find it.

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September 07, 2017

Two new crabs for the aquarium.

We are trying to run our 26-foot Mako boat out to “K” Tower every week, weather permitting.
On a recent trip, Makenzie (a recent student of mine) and I were looking for creatures to enhance our aquarium. She pointed to a sponge that promptly moved off when I tried to capture it. When Makenzie captured it, I pulled the Ziploc bag out only to find whatever this creature was, was on the loose again. Simple enough, we just kept looking carefully on top of the barge at 40-foot depth until we saw another small sponge making its getaway!
Once in the clear bag, it was obviously a crab with many small and colorful sponges attached to it’s carapace (back), claws and arms. After swimming around the entire barge, we came back to the place we first lost our first mysterious creature, only to find it again. They both reside in our aquarium for all to see.
Imagine the scene, sinking through schools of Minos that swirl around in large bait balls being attacked from all sides by predatory fish. They part to let us drop to the darkened barge below causing Goliath Grouper to begrudgely move over, grunting their displeasure as they move under vertical stanchions rising up from the deck. We scour the deck for lost anchors, lead sinkers, Tiger Scallops, and Turkey Wings, and now crabs. Once we have collected what we need, we move off the barge and down to the ocean floor at 60 FSW. There we encounter Arrow Crabs, a long legged stripped creature that hangs over anemones and sponges. These are abundant and easily caught. Unlike the Decorator Crab, this creature uses its very long claws to capture food originally collected by their host anemone or sponge. Long legs keep it out of harm’s way. The arrow crab also has a long rostrum, or tip to its carapace, upon which it grows a garden of algae, upon which it will occasionally feed.
We swim the circumference of the barge, finding all manner of fish, big and small. The Bat Fish is always a delight to find, as it walks about and can be picked up and closely admired without injury to either party. We collect a few small fish, but more on them in another column.
A short 40 minutes later, our breathing gas is low so we must find the anchor line. We return past the Goliaths, up through the bait ball and back to the sun drenched sea surface. Specimens are quickly put into an air pumped seawater bucket for safe transport back to the shop. Plankton is also collected.
None of the taxonomic keys that I use accurately described what we first caught. But Cypress Rudloe at Gulf Specimen described this crab as a Decorator Crab. I am more familiar with the Arrow Crab as it is found around the Caribbean hovering over many anemones and some sponges, and referred to as having a commensal relationship.
Technically, that means each member relies on the other for survival.
The crab gets the occasional morsel of food while the anemone uses the crab as a lure to attract prey.
I’m not so sure what the sponge gets out of putting up with the crab.
But now we can watch them every day in the shop. Come join us some time.

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September 14, 2017

Surviving Irma

We knew no one would be diving with the approaching storm and for many weeks afterwards. With 10 foot seas in the Gulf, we figured the time spent on installing the Bahama Shutters, purchased four years ago, would keep us busy.
Travis actually labeled each panel for easy future installation.
All boats and trailers fit inside with space to spare for my wife’s car. The shop was ready for anything. But it never lost power from what we could tell. We were fortunate to miss that bullet.
As a scientist, I do appreciate climate change and the changes we are and will face. I love water more than most and appreciate the consequence of a hurricane.
And I live underground, much closer to the aquifer some 2-4 feet below my floor, protected by two to four industrial sewer lift pumps.
When those pumps all failed a few years ago, my house developed an artesian spring in the middle of the atrium. The water was clean and clear. Imagine sleeping on a dry bed but surrounded by water!
I managed to get one pump going and the house only took on 4 inches of water. The house is built to tolerate a flood, once the water was pumped out 24 hours later, running the AC (dehumidifier) for a week returned the house to normal occupancy.
Ever since, I have been aware hurricanes were going to get worse. I always struggle with a generator when we lose power. With all new sewer lift pumps, I moved my attention to a serious generator. On eBay I found several places up north that collected military surplus generators. But for years the available stock just did not appeal to me.
The solar eclipse led to a road trip up to Kentucky and a surplus place that claimed to have a new supply of 15 KW diesel, three-phase, Yanmar driven generators. My sailboat has a Yanmar engine that I dearly love for its efficiency. Have Sprinter will travel!
After witnessing the total eclipse in Kentucky, we drove back down and spent the rest of the day learning about this 1,800 pound, boxed generator. I then took the plunge, loaded up a functional 2010 unit with 400 hours run-time and headed south.
Back at home I needed to mount the box on my roof to keep it dry in a flood. I can park cars on my roof. Since we had built a ramp to accommodate my Dad’s wheelchair access to the granny pad, I asked Robert Haddock to make me a small but stout trailer at 3.5 feet wide.
Using block and tackle, Travis and Eric placed this package right where it needed to go. The next day, with a day to spare, we fired up the generator, only to find it had a few unexpected challenges. It would only provide 50 Hz power. The 60 Hz switch was defective!
Brainstorming with Dr. Joerg Hess and my electrical engineer brother, we managed a patch that worked. But just in case, I purchased extra gasoline for the 6 KW old generator.
We had Talquin power until 8 or 9 in the morning of the strike! Internet went down several days earlier. I proudly went up on my roof (in the rain) and could not get the generator to switch to the 60Hz frequency! Fortunately the storm would not strike us directly. I fired up the gas drive and the pumps worked just fine. I then called in the brains and over lots of coffee we figured out a different solution. By early afternoon, the whole house generator was up and running. Two hours later the fuel filter fell off the engine! But once that was replaced, we were fully powered until power was returned at 9 p.m., only 12 hours later.
Bring on Hurricane Jose. We are ready!

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September 21, 2017

A proposed season on Goliath Grouper.

By GS and TK

If you spend time out on the Gulf of Mexico, either diving or fishing, there is a pretty good chance you have had an encounter with a Goliath Grouper. These massive fish can grow to many hundreds of pounds and live for several decades.
Goliath Grouper are currently protected from harvest and have been since the early 1990s. Back then, they were harvested to near extinction.
Thanks to protective measures, they have made a remarkable comeback. These Goliaths are increasing in numbers in our local waters. They have however, not yet spread out across their historic range, instead choosing to stay in the waters around Florida. This has led to concentrations of Goliath Grouper, especially on artificial reefs, shipwrecks, and towers. Local sites like S-tower and the Exon Template are only a few hundred yards away, but they may have more than 30 of these exceptionally large fish inhabiting that area.
Currently, tourist divers in south Florida pay up to $300 for the opportunity to see these gentle giants up close and to take photos or video. However, those who spearfish may see the Goliaths as unwelcome bullies capable of swallowing a stringer full of fish in one lightning-fast gulp. If you need proof of this the internet has many videos of Goliaths stealing fish from fishermen and spearfishers alike. One diver had his speared fish, shaft, and his arm swallowed, leaving a nasty scar on the diver’s shoulder.
Because the Goliaths have been bullying divers and stealing the catch from anglers, there has been an outcry from these groups to thin the herd once again. Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is hosting several workshops throughout the state on the subject of harvesting these enormous fish. On Aug. 9, at the Franklin County Senior Center, they presented options and sought public opinion.
FWC has proposed a tag lottery season to harvest 100 fish from Florida’s state waters, per year, for 4 years. Harvest in Federal waters would be off limits. This is not yet set in stone and it comes with a bunch of potential restrictions. Along with proposing a tag lottery system they proposed for size restrictions of a slot between 47 and 67 inches, over the size where a fish may be safe to eat and under the size where they are a real trophy for those desiring one. The proposal is for harvest via hook and line only; no spearing allowed. Harvest from July through September would be closed to allow the fish to spawn. FWC may require harvesters to meet a researcher at the dock for measurement, biopsy, or other science related information. Of course the whole thing may cost you a few hundred dollars in tag fees too.
There will be another opportunity to learn and provide input at 6 p.m. on Oct. 25 in Tallahassee at FWC Bryant Building, Room 272, 600 S. Meridian St. For those who feel very strongly, it may be a good idea to attend the commission meeting where the proposal will be voted on Dec. 5 and 6 in Gainesville.
You can also take the survey online by visiting www.myfwc.com/saltwatercomments. There were also questions about how much a tag should cost with options from $0-300.
Do people really want to visit Goliath Grouper in their native habitat? Is the economic impact of fish interactions greater than that of harvest? These are among the dozens of questions that need answering before we take a side on this issue. I think we have become so used to customers who want to kill and eat fish that we forgot what most divers really enjoy; seeing the underwater life up close and in person. Perhaps occasionally, we need to exchange spear guns for cameras and appreciate all the creatures that call our reefs home.

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September 28, 2017

First Flight Underwater.

All summer long I have been training people to venture below the surface of the water. The student commitment is no small matter. They must spend up to 16 hours in a pool mastering skills and 16 hours in lecture understanding this new world, in addition to on-line studies (like reading books) and taking exams for basic scuba and Nitrox, before they ever see the real thing.
Once all of that is completed, students are rewarded with four or five checkout dives, two full days of diving – their first flight underwater.
I remember my first underwater flight, a drop from the surface down to a reef 60 feet below our boat, a period of surprising calm (as compared to the surface waves), accentuated by repeated attempts to equalize the pressure in my middle ear.
The constant distracting noise of my exhausted breathing gas complicated my descent into darkness as the water absorbed colors. The feeling of weightlessness was overwhelming, I put my arms out and guided myself toward a sandy patch and landed ungracefully. Much has changed in 54 years, but not the first flight.
Today I teach my students that the ocean floor is not your friend, that we must fly above the reef much like the fish, to avoid injury to ourselves and the residents we have come to visit.
The critical diving skill is buoyancy control, trim and swim kicks to efficiently hover/move above the reef.
My first flight underwater was with a new safety tool called a safety vest, taken from a submarine. It was big and bulky, and made us the laughingstock of Hawaiian divers. No one else used them but our Pearl Divers Club. Now, everyone uses a Buoyancy Control device on all dives.
In my early days of diving, we carried crowbars with which to rip up the reef in search of beautiful shells, spear guns to shoot almost anything that moved, and bulky cameras to document what we saw.
Today students are taught to take only empty shells, never damage coral reefs, spear very selected fish, and pick up trash whenever it is found.
Cameras are encouraged, but later when better skills have been mastered. My classes have a clean up dive towards the end where we know trash collects.
This last class went to the Panama City Jetties because off shore conditions were poor, post Irma.
The rivers were swollen with run-off as well, closing favorite freshwater sites like Morrison Springs and Orange Grove.
In Vortex Springs, a controlled fresh water site, students demonstrated skills, had a chance to make buoyancy mistakes over a rocky floor, and prepare for the ocean dives the next day.
The tides were on a low cycle, but high enough to permit a great dive to 60 feet. The water was a warm 78 degrees, with 30-40 foot visibility and little current during the afternoon.
The second Gulf of Mexico dive out of the outer Jetties permitted students to bring in a huge amount of trash lost off the beaches and concentrated in 40 feet of water.
Several finds were recyclable, like a fine mask, rope and towels.
How things have changed, yet remain the same, and for the better!

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October 05, 2017

Seasons Underwater

Above water, our periodic seasons have names: Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Just as our day (light) and night, (lack of sun light), define our activity schedules, underwater behavior patterns are not the same. The angle of the sun during our dawn and dusk causes solar light to reflect off the surface. Underwater, dawn and dusk are longer; later and earlier respectively in the day. During our underwater surveys, we often saw the nocturnal (nighttime) species come out of their hiding places and swarm before departing for their feeding grounds during their prolonged dusk. Diurnal (daylight) species were observed locating their hiding places, some spinning cocoons in the reef, other wedging up in cracks in the reef. During the day, solitary nocturnal species, like the grey snapper, were observed restfully schooling under ledges.
Tide, a periodic flow of water on and off the shore, is another predictor of periodic marine behavior. These predictable and routine oscillating flows serve as a queue for fish to find food. Tidal currents can be measured far out into the Gulf of Mexico (K Tower 17 miles out and at 180 feet in Wakulla Springs), bringing food to expectant species. Fisherman watch tides to predict the best time to drop a hook.
We know we have the longest daylight in the summer, and the shortest in the winter. Photoperiod (how long day light lasts) is often a predictor for the behavior of most species. So is temperature. On land we can find temperature can change quickly. Due to the density of water (880 times that of air), water temperature changes more slowly. My pool dropped only a few degrees during the Hurricane, and then slowly warmed back up to 80 degrees. Today’s (Sunday) aerial drop of 20 degrees did not affect the pool’s temperature, but it sure felt warm as I fought to keep up with the increased falling leaves!
Fish migrate (some 12,000 species), some to shallow food-rich and warm waters near shore during the summer. Many migrate off shore to calmer and warmer deeper waters in the winter. Some migrate from equatorial waters to polar waters and back seasonally. Some even migrate to historic offshore spawning grounds. Remember, back just 14,000 years ago, terrestrial Florida was double in size, with sea level some 300 feet down from current levels. Early humans roamed this early Florida, leaving their occupation sites, now submerged under a water and sand veneer. No surprise these fish migrate out to these early coastal boundaries to spawn.
For the longest time, no one understood what triggered the distinctive migration of the Spiny Lobster to their deep water refuge. FSU’s Dr. William Herrnkind discovered shortened photoperiod caused lobsters to collect along the edge of the Bahaman bank, but a winter frontal weather boundary was required to trigger them to queue up and, in single lines, walk over the edge and vanish into the depths. No prodding will make the lobster queue until conditions are met. Jacques Cousteau stuffed lobsters into a pipe and expelled them forcefully, to encourage them to queue, to no avail. His Lobster Bazooka resulted in lobster injuries and confusion, but no queue. After he left however, a frontal boundary moved across the area and his crew got what footage they came for.
Customers appear to seasonally migrate as well. What keeps us busy with 20 paying customers a day during the summer mysteriously drops to two per day during September through February. Perhaps a seasonal hurricane has this effect.

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October 12, 2017

Diving Emergency Response

I have been asked to write a chapter on diving physiology for a textbook on underwater Archaeology. While doing so, I began reflecting on this summer’s diving activities and realized we need to tighten up on our rescue skills. Tallahassee no longer has a chamber dedicated to dive support.
Dr. William Kepper, long recognized as our guy to go to for advice, has retired. More people are diving Nitrox and now Trimix but need better training for rescuing divers in distress. Longer travel and complexity can be expected.
If you remember nothing else from this column, remember this: NEVER HOLD YOUR BREATH while diving on compressed gas. Unfortunately, our terrestrial behavior is programmed differently. If I frighten you suddenly, most of us will gasp a full breath, hold it and decide to either fight or flee. Underwater flee means a race to the surface while holding our breath. Boyles Law dictates that the full lung of gas will expand beyond its elastic capacity and burst. The gas bubbles will either burst into the plural cavity and cause a pneumothorax condition, burst in the mediastinal cavity and cause an emphysema condition, or burst into the Aortic Blood system and cause an air embolism (like a stroke). While none of these conditions are nice, the air embolism is life threatening!
When a lung collapses, as in a pneumothorax, the hospital will probably not place you in a hyperbaric chamber. Instead they will insert a large needle into the plural cavity (where the lung resides) and pull the escaped gas out to re-inflate the lung. If the gas bubbles migrate into the mediastinal area (around the heart and throat) they will make swallowing and talking difficult. This may result in a chamber ride.
When the lung ruptures and delivers bubbles into the arteries headed back to the heart, we call this an Arterial Gas Embolus. Bubbles traveling in the aortic blood vessels first pass the feed vessels to the heart, then to the carotids that feed the brain. Once in place, blood flow is diminished and deficits become obvious. The victim may show signs of the condition by falling unconscious within a few minutes of surfacing due to a heart attack or brain failure. Other stroke-like signs may appear, such as speech, visual and memory impairments. Immediately inform the Captain to contact Coast Guard for medical evacuation and start CPR if required. Always use 100 percent oxygen either with the CPR or on the breathing victim. Treat for shock by elevating the feet and cover with a blanket. If the victim wakes up do not allow him/her to sit or stand up as they will pass out again. Time is of the essence. Recompression is essential for recovery. Transport to a hospital based recompression chamber with all the haste possible. Keep feeding the victim 100 percent (demand) oxygen. In many cases, the oxygen is the only thing between recovery and permanent deficits.
At this point, my students complain that I am causing them great fear of diving. First, I point out the nature of risk. There is no safe dive, as safe means without risk. Secondly, I suggest we deal with relative risk. Who got to class driving a car? The risk of driving a car has been shown to be much greater than diving. Who wants to give up their car? Then I ask how can we might mitigate for such an injury. Let’s start with good training to avoid the injury. Then let’s see how we can support an air embolism rescue.
Today, most training agencies require the instructor have an oxygen kit with them during all training. But how much and what kind of delivery mechanism differs widely. Many ambulances will not maintain 100 percent oxygen because they do not understand the requirement for diving injuries.
Secondly, I want to see a demand resuscitator regulator on the oxygen delivery system. This device lets you ventilate a non breathing victim with much needed 100 percent oxygen.

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October 19, 2017

You’re breathing gas.

Ever wonder what you breathe? On land you may breathe air, a mixture of Oxygen and Nitrogen with a small trace amount of mostly Argon (and other stuff). Up here we have a variety of other stuff or “pollutants” that may crowd the volume of your breathe, including the smoke from burning carbons, nitrous oxide from the combustion of petroleum, moisture from the humidity in the air, and insecticides, herbicides, toluene (from paints) and other chemicals we use every day.
In reality, unless you walk around with a chemical filter strapped to your face, you breathe the pollutants of your immediate surroundings. And we are fortunate as we currently enjoy one of the cleaner atmospheres in the country.
But to breathe underwater, we must clean this atmospheric gas up a lot. The compressor does not make this any easier. Most compressors use a hydrocarbon lubricating oil that can be both flammable and toxic on top of the atmospheric gas that is used to compress into cylinders. Over time this lubricating oil builds up in storage flasks, fill lines and ultimately in scuba cylinders. When 100 percent oxygen is unwisely added, spontaneous combustion burns components (called flashing) that add carbon monoxide to what your breathe at depth (not desirable). Many compressors used in diving have a label stating the compressor is not intended for use for human consumption.
To make our compressed gas consumable, we must be sure clean air is pulled from the atmosphere. We have a high 4-inch intake stack above our building. When the neighbor burns trash, a forest fire overwhelms us with smoke, or a large truck runs its engine under the intake, we must turn the compressor off! We use particulate filters at the other end of this intake pipe to remove insects, frogs and mice from getting in. Each of the four compressing stages builds pressure slowly while removing moisture, which is vented off outside every 15 minutes.
We use an expensive, oxygen compatible synthetic lubricating oil to reduce flashing and internal fires.
We can add pure oxygen and pure helium at the compressor intake to make specialized breathing blends call Nitrox and Trimix. We maintain several of the blends in addition to Nitrox 21 or AIR as others call it. They all get the same treatment as we all breathe them at depth.
Before we push this mixture into large storage flasks, we filter the gas to remove even more moisture, and impurities such as carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbon oils through hopcolite, silica gel, molecular sieves and activated charcoal that are kept in 6 tall stack housings. They are monitored and replaced often. But that is not enough. According to Florida State Law, our breathing gasses must be tested every 3 months and sent to an independent facility to validate our efforts to provide clean breathing gasses. The Florida Department of Health maintains records on this testing service. We get results back that are posted, along with a certificate that documents the Grade E gas quality level (5 mg/m3 hydrocarbon) that our community must maintain. But we actually test at the Grade E+ level (less that 0.01 mg/m3 hydrocarbon) as we blend oxygen, which requires a very low level of hydrocarbons.
Customers also help by submitting their scuba cylinders every year for inspection and if needed, hydrocarbon cleaning, to insure an enjoyable refreshing dive.

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October 26, 2017

Choosing a Dive Computer

By Travis Kersting

If you visited a cell phone store today and the sales person handed you a phone with all mechanical buttons and one with a touch screen you’d probably like the touch screen better. If that wasn’t the case we’d still be using “Blackberry” phones instead of iPhones or Android smart phones. Technology has evolved and “clicky” buttons have almost become non-existent on phones. As a result mobile phones have been able to expand features, screen sizes, and with fewer components that can wear out or stick, while being simpler to use.
When cellular phones were rare, people used land lines and used more pen and paper with cursive writing skills to communicate. Now cell phones are commonplace, even in the hands of children. Cursive writing may be a lost art in a few years! A similar paradigm shift has happened among divers, where in the past, a watch and decompression tables were the only option available to calculate bottom time, gas exposures, and decompression obligations. Today, diving information is collected electronically on a Dive Computer. Most divers have at least one (and often two) dive computers to do all the calculations for them.
If you wanted to buy a dive computer today in a scuba store or online, you’d have a large selection of “puck” style, small and relatively inexpensive, dive computers with 1-4 spring loaded buttons and a tiny monochrome screen. The screens on these puck style computers have to be small since the whole computer is usually designed to fit into a 2-2.25-inch rubber boot like the analog gauges it replaces. The screens display confusing abstract symbols and whatever information the programmer wanted you to see.
Most puck computers have a button style battery that the end user can open with a coin or special tool. BUT this battery is protected by a single small O-ring and there are usually multiple small components to align in order to reinstall the battery. Good luck preventing a flood if you are not experienced with these types of battery replacements.
When you go up in price, you move into the world of the “brick” computers. Some with monochrome screens but the newer ones are colorful. Some are wrist mount only and some are meant to replace a gauge cluster. These typically still have spring loaded “clicky” buttons. The fanciest models may integrate a soft spongy pad over the button which makes it easier to push. Regardless, buttons can leak, fail, and destroy your $800-$1,800 dive computer. Even in this price range the owner has little control over which information is visible on the home screen during a dive.
If you have a brick computer you probably have a factory installed rechargeable battery and some kind of proprietary charging adapter. Yay! We can save adding more trash to the landfill by using rechargeable batteries, but wait… Like your phone, you only get so many charges before that battery doesn’t work anymore. This seems to be a 3-7 year life depending on numerous variables. Then what? Dispose of the whole computer? In many cases that’s about your only option because the battery was potted inside the computer housing using an epoxy like material. Some manufactures will replace these batteries but to my knowledge none of the companies have a user replacement option. Imagine how popular your cell phone would be under these circumstances!

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November 02, 2017

Scuba adapters.

By Travis Kersting

How many of you own a smartphone but someone in your house has the opposite brand as you? It makes things challenging when two people can’t use the same phone charger because the interface is different. Alas, usually there is an adapter to make one charger work on several phones, if you can just keep track of the little component.
Scuba is no different than any other area of our lives. You may need a charger for a Divesoft Freedom computer and it doesn’t work on a Scubapro G2 or Shearwater computer. A charging adapter currently doesn’t exist in these technologies. The scuba community seems reluctant to standardize on interfaces for their computers and often uses very proprietary connectors. Perhaps the only connector that ever worked between more than one brand of dive computer was from a company called Fischer and that connector wasn’t even designed for submersion in water. Although multiple manufacturers have implemented Fischer brand connections on their computers, they all purposely wired their connector differently so you couldn’t swap things around anyway.
In spearfishing the actual trigger that holds the spear (the shaft interface) to the gun isn’t the same from brand to brand. Through attrition, we now have fewer and fewer companies making spearguns. There are really only four mechanisms left. One is the American mechanism used by Riffe, Death Stick, and Koah spear gun manufacturers. Another is a mechanism used by the former Sea Hornet, A.B. Biller, and Ocean Rhino. A third is the European gun manufactures that use their own mechanism standardized between Omer, Sporasub, Mares, and others. And lastly, JBL has their own system for their guns and to my knowledge no other manufacture uses their trigger system. Adapting from one spear gun mechanism to another is not advised, yet we are often asked to modify one shaft to work in a gun it wasn’t meant for.
The other end of the spear shaft, the pointy end, can often be threaded and those routinely require thread adapters such as from 5/16 to 6mm male threads. Fittings that change gender also exist for the various pole spears which have shipped with both male and female threads over the years.
When it comes to your breathing apparatus, air delivery system, or regulator there have been a handful of different threads used over the years and thankfully almost every company has standardized those. Nearly every company has 3/8-24 SAE threads for the lower pressure hose to first stage regulator connection and a 9/16-18 swiveling insert fitting for the second stage mouthpiece. In the past this definitely wasn’t the case and commonly 7/16 and ½ inch fittings were found at the first stage. The higher pressure hoses used for gauges are 7/16-20 threaded on both ends, male at the first stage and female swivel at the gauge. Strangely enough, the rest of the regulator components are typically made with metric specifications. Within the regulator world I routinely adapt things so people can fill the tires on their car from a scuba cylinder or to power shop air tools. This is a careful practice as mismatching things could lead to ruptured hoses, injury, or worse.
My ramble on adapters is because it was the topic of my week. I’m building a computer and had to special order numerous adapters to fully use the headers on my motherboard. I’ve been getting back into cave diving and had several swivel adapters that needed service over the past two dives. Lastly I needed to replace the brake lines in the 1998 Ford I’ve been driving and spent way too much time adapter shopping to make that car work again. Whether you are trying to keep a product from the past working longer or make one brand of product work with another brand you will need adapters, and often they are hard to find or expensive.
Where is the old General Store of yesteryear, like Raker’s or Pigott’s, where adapters for almost everything were commonplace!

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November 09, 2017

The Lionfish problem persists.

By GS and TK

Like most invasive species, the Lionfish inhabiting our reefs are not an easy species to control.
The primary method of removing them is via diving down, usually on scuba, and using a pole spear to shoot the fish and a containment device to hold them. Without diver intervention Lionfish can decimate a reef in weeks.
At this year’s DEMA show in Orlando there was an informational seminar presented by FWC, NOAA, Reef, Whole Foods and other organizations. They touched on the current state of research, removal efforts, technological solutions, sale of fish, among other concerns.
Yes, a major food market is seeking as much Lionfish as anyone can provide. They have the market interest to work with any fisherman that can reliably deliver, regardless of size. If interested, drop us a line and we can give their contact numbers.
The biggest change from past presentations is that it is no longer acceptable to try and teach other marine life to eat the Lionfish. Too many creatures are being harmed or killed, often by starvation after Lionfish spines get caught in the throat or gills of a predatory fish and prevent them from eating other prey.
If an animal, like a shark, wanted to eat a Lionfish it needs to eat it head first so that all the spines lay flat agains the body and the fish goes down the throat easily. Instead the sharks take them off the spear and spines are driven through the roof of the mouth. They had some pretty horrific images of suffering animals. We do not know how the venom affects these potential predators either.
Diving to collect Lionfish is one option but Steve Giddings from NOAA has been working on traps that have zero bait, or bycatch, and little or no chance of ghost fishing.
The traps are very promising and the permit process is in the works so that fisherman like those collecting crabs or lobsters will easily be able to add Lionfish to their income. If you are interested in this you can read about potential trap designs and the permitting process with a simple Google search.
Even more technological devices are in the works, many of which have been highlighted on social media. Everything from Autonomous ROV’s with poison or electrical killing apparatus to reef mounted traps using audio type baiting systems that call in the fish, are among the dozens of upcoming designs.
There are even some diver mounted suction systems that function much like a vacuum cleaner.
Nature may be fighting back against the Lionfish on a biological level but there is still a lot of research and science to be done before we can elaborate on that.
For now, if you find Lionfish that have strange flesh or tumor like growths you probably won’t want to eat them but please report these fish to us or FWC along with approximately where you found them. We will keep you posted as we find out more on this subject.
Divers are still the best defense against a predator that is otherwise taking over the reefs. Unfortunately there is another invasive Damselfish from the same Indopacific region that is also moving into our waters. Our fight is hardly over.
If you’d like to know more, FWC and reef.org both have wonderful informational resources on Lionfish and you are always welcome to come chat with us on the subject.

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November 16, 2017

Our Offshore Diving.

These dry and cooler days contribute to water quality improvements offshore. While the water temperature is dropping, diving conditions are improving.
One of our favorite dive sites is at the “K” tower, some 20 miles off shore. While chart plotters are a nice way to find the site, the tower still sticks out of the water to a height of 100 feet, easily seen for a good ways on a dead reckoning of 180 degrees out of the Ochlocknee River.
On a relatively calm day, we can reach the K Tower in less than an hour.
Once at the site, we prefer to drop the anchor just off the 40-foot barge that holds the tower in place. Never tie up to the tower. Always check the anchor at the start of the dive to be sure it catches in the sand/rocky substrate.
Always return to the anchor line after the dive to have a safe return to the boat and if departing, loose the anchor from any entanglements.
And as a sideline note: engrave your phone number on the anchor. We recover many anchors from local dive sites, and are pleased to return them if identified. On a recent dive at K tower, we recovered five anchors!
Dropping down to a reef through the water column is an awesome experience. We first encounter barracuda that usually come up to meet us, but are no threat.
Interspersed in this school, we might encounter amberjacks, not nearly as large as they used to be years ago. As the deck of the barge begins to take shape, a large fish-boil, of swirling minnow sized fish engulf us while we are still on the anchor line.
Periodically, they split and reform as predators dash in for a bite. These predatory fish are King and Spanish Mackerel, Jack Carvel, and snapper. Such a sight is mesmerizing to the descending divers.
As we settle on the top of the barge, we hear a loud grunting, almost booming sound and realize we have offended a rather large fish that is hiding out under metal stations that are closer to the tower. We approach to find three baby Goliath Grouper, our size. They also are of no threat, but fascinating.
Half the dive is spent on the deck of the barge as it is littered with sponges, decorator and arrow crabs, Lion Fish, Damselfish, and lead with fishing lures. Students like to collect the lead!
When folks get their courage up, we go over the side of the barge and down to 60 FSW, and the big residents of this reef.
Here, the adults live: giant Goliath Grouper large Red Snapper and Gag Grouper. If someone is spearing fish, we can also expect a shark or two looking for a handout.
That’s why I encourage early divers to bring a camera early in their diving careers. When they can afford a pricy Shark Shield, they should consider spearfishing in our waters. Here is also where we find most of the anchors, complete with chain and some line.
Attached to the walls of the barge we find large tiger paw scallops and flame oysters.
Our return to the surface is by way of our anchor, a slow progression through the bait-ball of tormented minnows, and the barracuda to a safety hang at 15 feet to complete a safer return to the sunny surface and boat above.

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November 23, 2017

Emerald Sink is clear!

The steps down to Emerald Sink. (PHOTO BY GREGG STANTON)

Decades ago I was trained in the skills of a cave diver by Parker Turner at Emerald Sink and many other sites within 100 miles of Wakulla County.
Our routine was to meet at a local gas station and get Gatorade drinks to hydrate before the dive, then drive up to the sink to inspect it for options. There were no steps down its steep slope, or fancy driveway into the site. But back then our area had a drought, which translated into much better diving conditions once in the water.
Emerald Sink got its name from the rays of sunshine that penetrated this deep shaft at midday. During droughts, the water would clear up. As a diver enters the open water within the sinkhole, these rays of sunshine would illuminate the area resulting in an emerald blue condition. Such a sight was welcomed at the end of a returning dive. We would swim 1,000 feet upstream to the Dark Abyss, an area that dropped to 200 feet in depth, turn around and return as an afternoon stroll in our underground park.
Because of its proximity to Tallahassee, Emerald Sink became a favorite swimming hole for our Florida State University and the University of Florida Dive Programs to conduct training check out dives in the open water.
Many hundreds of students have started their diving careers at Emerald Sink. We never placed a training platform here as the shaft drops precipitously to 60 feet. Such a shallow platform was installed at Clear Cut and West Hole (privately owned). Today both Emerald and Clear Cut sites are regulated by the Wakulla State Forest, using an iron ranger to accept very reasonable entrance fees. This arrangement has become an excellent management mechanism.
A decade ago, the local diving community came together to build a set of steps down the steep slope at Emerald Sink. Erosion was causing damage to the slope, and was dangerous if a person slipped especially with heavy tanks on his or her back! We contributed manpower, funds and materials to encourage construction of a facility that would withstand the rigors of flooding and time. So far so good! The Park built a better road and parking area, even adding a picnic table for good measure. I only wish they had left the portable toilet that was once offered.
Decades ago, many of us would stop off at Emerald Sink to get our weekly exercise, by swimming at 70 feet depth under New Light Church Road to Twin Cave to the north and back as a nice hour dive. A more ambitious dive would be to swim at depths down to 160 feet depth to Clear Cut, across the Crawfordville Highway. If we had all day, we could swim southward along a shallow series of sinkholes towards Wakulla Springs, exiting at Promise and Go-Between Sinks. Opening Emerald Sink to the public has been a wonderful step for the local diving community.
And now, with a stretch of dry weather, the reduced runoff from Tallahassee rain has made Emerald Sink and all of the Leon Sinks conduits clear again. Spread the word!

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November 30, 2017

A Thing is Only Worth What Someone is Willing to Pay for it. Part 1

By Travis Kersting

Have you dabbled in a sport or activity but were unsure you would enjoy it so you didn’t want to make a massive investment? Perhaps you liked the idea of golf but didn’t want a $2000 set of clubs or maybe it was race cars but you didn’t have $80k to drop on building a complete car from scratch. That’s normal and the retail market loves people who dabble. They sell them something “inexpensive” to get them started and then as the person continues they buy more and more items and often spend 2-3 times as much as if they had bought the proper stuff the first time.
Many people dabble in SCUBA because it’s scary to spend a whole bunch of money on equipment if they don’t live near water, lack reliably favorable diving conditions, or don’t think they will find others to enjoy the activity with them. Others are pressured into it and don’t want to commit or it’s a bucket list activity and they don’t intend to dive again. Sometimes life intervenes with medical problems, pregnancy, or relocating for work.
Regardless of why, if you bought the cheaper entry level items you can almost certainly expect their resale value to be low. If you are testing the waters or if you intend to stick with SCUBA, then it’s usually best to look at the resale value of items, prior to purchasing, and weigh what you buy on more than just looks.
As an example, the first thing most people want to buy is either a dive knife or a SCUBA cylinder. Ironically those are both fairly low on the initial list of important purchases. If you did decide you wanted to buy a SCUBA cylinder then you should know two things: Aluminum cylinders do not retain value as well as steel cylinders and cylinders bought in matching pairs will typically resell for 20-30% more than cylinders sold individually. This is fairly logical, steel cylinders are less common in rental so they are in higher demand by individuals. Because aesthetics are important to us a matching set, especially for those looking to set up doubles or side-mount cylinders, garner a higher resale value. It’s expensive but do yourself a favor and buy cylinders in color, brand, and age-matched pairs.
What you want to do is make sure the other items you buy will be appealing to the widest audience when you try to resell them. A piston first stage regulator, that isn’t meant for cold water, will reduce the buyers to only those living or diving in warm environments. A modular BCD will be more valuable to more people than a jacket BC because it will work for single cylinders plus doubles for rebreathers. A canister type light is desirable to open water divers, cave and wreck divers, and those shooting videos or pictures. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend more money and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to compromise on comfort or features.
Strangely enough, color plays a big part in resale value in SCUBA. These days folks seem uninterested in the flashy blue and yellow wetsuit styles of the 70’ and 80’s. The same goes for every other piece of kit. If the colors are flashy or obtrusive they will only appeal to other people who like flashy color. Black, grey, blues, and sometimes reds tend to be favorable among the widest audience. You can buy a mask in yellow because you think it will be easier to see if you drop it but don’t expect to resell it for much.
Brand name, more than any other feature (including performance) will dictate how much something is truly worth, to certain people. There are folks who buy a specific brand regardless because they perceive it as better. I’m not a fan of Oceanic products, especially their Buoyancy compensators with proprietary fittings, but there are people who own every piece of kit in the Oceanic line of products because that’s the flavor of Koolaid they drank. If you are purchasing diving equipment, ask your friends what they have and like. If you decide to resell things those are probably the first people you’ll try to sell to. If they all like Scubapro Air Delivery Systems, it won’t help you to buy a Mares model unless you want to take a huge loss when you sell it on Ebay.
Buying and selling used equipment is a reality of our world, SCUBA is no different. The best we can try to do is minimize poor buying decisions and when it’s time to sell something try to maximize the number of interested parties to recoup some of that investment.

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December 07, 2017

A Thing is Only Worth What Someone is Willing to Pay for it. Part 2

By Travis Kersting

Have you purchased something at a retail establishment and then tried to sell it when you no longer needed it? Used items are valued differently by different people and the resale price can vary widely even if an item is in like new condition. Let’s say you purchased a car for $30k and you put 60k miles on it in 3 years. That car should still have a long life but if you try to sell it you may only get $8K for it, even if the cosmetic condition and running conditions are both good. That is a discount of over 70 percent which would suggest the vehicle is 70 percent used up/worn out but that isn’t the case.
Many things play into the value of an item. It’s age, condition, functionality, complexity to service/repair, aesthetics, the manufacture’s reputation, etc. In scuba, these things all apply plus a few others. For example, cylinders that have never been in saltwater will drive a higher price than cylinders which were in saltwater even when they are both identical inside and out. This is a perceived difference because we all know saltwater promotes corrosion faster than fresh water but realistically it doesn’t always make a difference. In another example, if a person lost their life using a piece of equipment and that equipment played no role in the death it will almost always lose all of its resale value.
You’ve decided you want to get into scuba and you are comfortable buying used equipment. How much should you pay for those items? There isn’t a straight up answer and especially not without knowing brand, age, use conditions, care, etc. As a general rule I tell people to send me photos or links to the used items they are looking at and I will happily guide them. However, I also typically say to look up the new price for that identical item and start at around a fourth of the new retail price. If the item was recently serviced, properly, then you can expect to pay a bit more. If hoses are dry rotted or it has clearly seen a lot of sun exposure, which degrades materials, then the price should be even less than a fourth of retail. Why one fourth? Numerous reasons, but partially because you will find a new item for say $100 retail but with occasional sales at 10-15 percent off that ($85-90). Black Friday sales can drop the price 20-40 percent and going out of business sales can drop it 40-60 percent. You may even find the item “free” as part of a bundled package of other items. Then there is the cost to service or repair the item so that it is safe to use. Servicing can cost more than buying a new item and unfortunately we see people make this mistake too often. If a new air delivery system is used for $50 but requires a full service and three new hoses it could end up costing $250-300 by the time you are done. For $350-370 you could own a brand new regulator which probably has a warranty and better breathing resistance.
There are some real things to avoid in used gear. Manufactures have stopped supplying parts for almost anything made more than 10 years ago. There are exceptions and Scubapro is one of the companies still supporting older equipment, in certain product categories. If a product was made by Dacor it is certainly 100 percent not supported and an all-around poor buying decision in any condition. Wetsuits, booties, gloves, and hoods are all considered exposure protection and typically a bad decision to buy used no matter what it looks like. Wetsuits can be washed and cleaned but only so well as they are made of a porous rubber material which is very hard to properly disinfect in a time where 1 in 4 people has an itchy/scratchy condition… The rubber in wetsuits also hardens with age and the newer suits have vastly better fit than older suits for several reasons. Cylinders, used, are almost always a good buy but it is still gambling until we look at them so it’s best to have an agreement to purchase those after they have been inspected and tested. An untested and uninspected cylinder is otherwise worth $10-25 as you can at least scrap it and recover that much if it does have a problem.
The point of all this is that the used market for scuba equipment is huge but it’s also gambling if you don’t know a lot about what you are looking at. Anything you do buy should be properly serviced before use unless it was serviced immediately prior to selling. I’m more than happy to help guide you when you have questions.

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December 14, 2017

K Tower.

Anthony Sogluizzo, a technician at the FSU Marine Lab, attaches a datalogger to one of the structures near K-tower (marinelab.fsu.edu/news-around-the-lab)

Years before GPS was available, the Air Force Towers provided a surface land mark for us to locate a dive site that was beyond the sight of land. The local towers (designated C, K, O, V and S) were built to provide the U.S. Air Force with an array of antennas to simulate war games for jet fighters in the northern Gulf. Of all the towers located off the Northern Gulf of Mexico, K tower is the closest from the FSU Marine Lab and the Apalachee Bay. For nearly a decade The Gulf of Mexico Coastal Oceans Observing System mounted Weather and Oceanographic instruments on K tower (designated N7) and other sites, the data made accessible to the public to better monitor conditions off shore. In 2016, they lost their funding and removed the equipment.
These towers are supported by a 40-foot square barge that is filled with rock. The tower, which looks like a rocket ship, is welded to the center of the barge, and protrudes from the surface of the water to an elevation of 100 feet. There is a small dock at the water’s edge with a ladder up the side to a landing at near the top.
I have been diving the K tower since the mid 1980s, as an easy and productive dive site for training, fishing, and research. I was first asked to harvest sea urchins for embryonic studies at FSU. Back then the red shortspine Lytichinis urchin was abundant at K tower. Arbacia, the small black urchin covered the tower barge. And the sand at 60 feet covered the Bisquet Urchin. Soon after we were conducting checkout dives at K tower every semester. We installed a current meter for the Oceanography Department. Missing back then were the lionfish and Goliath grouper. In abundance were the bait balls, Amberjack and sharks.
One day an Air Force technician rode out with us to service the tower. While we were diving, he fell off the tower and landed on the rails of the little dock at the water’s edge. His rescue became an exercise in bureaucracy. The U.S. Coast Guard sent an ambulance to the Marine Lab, hours away. We had to call the marine operator to get LifeFlight to meet us at the Marine Lab. Fortunately the victim survived by flying to the hospital.
Once, our research vessel blew its engine while supporting training dives at K tower. With a storm approaching, we had to wait for a launch from Panama City. Our policy against spearfishing on the boat was overlooked by bringing up an old fishing rod from depth, lashing a knife to one end, and collecting all the mask straps to build a pole spear. I dove into a school of large Amberjacks and hit a big one. One of our students was a chef. With limited tools and a microwave, he served an awesome spread for everyone to fill in the long wait for rescue.
Today, K tower is occupied by large Goliath grouper, lionfish and an abundance of fishing lead on the barge. With talk of removing the towers as they are obsolete, it is understandable that we wax nostalgically as even if removal is to blow them up, much will be lost in their current vertical majesty.

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December 21, 2017

Safety Under the Sea

Safety is at the core of everything we do these days, from training to sales to equipment repair in the diving world. Yet the reality is that the safest dive is no dive at all. The term safe according to the dictionary is an activity devoid of risk. Diving is hardly risk-free! No, I can argue that diving is safer than many activities we do with little regard as to risk, such as being out doors with the risk of a bee sting (more people die of bee stings than from diving), or driving a car (considered much more hazardous than diving!). We can always be safer at what we do.
To be safer at diving, we can get training. Shek Exley wrote a list of steps we can take to be safer in an overhead dive. At the top of his five safe cave diving rules was the requirement for training. Training provides supervised practice under the mentorship of an expert with more experience than you already have. Often a different perspective provides you with the opportunity for improvement. We are never so experienced as to shun more training. I am always in a learning mode and am seldom disappointed.
In this country, experience is acquired through additional training. In other words, stay within the limits of your training. If the depth limit of your basic training is 60 feet, then do not make a dive to 100 feet before you seek further training. It makes sense under our capitalistic model. In Europe, where there is more club based training, once certified at the basic level, you are expected to get experience within the club atmosphere for at least 20 dives before returning for more formal training. The American system expects you to take an Advanced diving class to give you six additional dives after basic. Which is “safer”? Both have merit. Both agree that a diver with no experience is a liability to him-/herself and buddies on a dive.
Diving equipment is build robustly, with improvements made every year. Selection is mostly based upon personal preferences and convenience features that make the dive more enjoyable. What reduces safety in diving equipment is a failure to maintain it. That includes washing it after a dive, repair failures before diving it again, and not scheduling routine maintenance according to the manufacturers recommendations. Accommodating poor performance of an old regulator, cylinder or BC is exposing yourself to greater and unnecessary risk in diving.
Preventative maintenance makes common sense. Parts of a regulator ware out, depending upon use and age. Like a car, component parts can last a long time, but others parts are designed to be routinely replaced to maximize performance. When a regulator begins to breathe with difficulty, you have exceeded its performance criteria. When a valve handle is hard to turn, it must be serviced. Depending upon the part these days, it may be cost-effective to replace the entire valve than to fix it. Buoyancy compensators (BC) are made of synthetic cloth and rubber/plastic parts subject to solar and salt damage. BCs suffer the same cost-effective challenge that a cylinder valve does. If the company has closed or been purchased by another, repair parts may not be available (such as Dacor).
Diving companies are buying competitor companies these days; resulting in the loss of warrantees, spare parts and repair/replacement options. Imagine you purchased an expensive rebreather only to find that company was purchased by another, which cancelled the model, including any repair or parts options. It just happened. Be wise as to what is going on in this turbulent economy. Safety is paramount, and ultimately is the responsibility of the participant.
That is you.

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December 28, 2017

Former Camp Indian Springs is up for grabs

By Travis Kersting

In February 2012, divers from around the world met to try and convince Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection that Wakulla Springs was a worthy destination for recreational scuba use.
“Recreational” was defined many different ways. In a heated back and forth debate dozens of folks spoke passionately about why Wakulla Springs State Park should or should not allow diving access without a research permit. Regardless of what side of the debate you were on not a single individual supported destruction, development, or overuse of the spring. We were all united on conservation and only argued about what degree of conservation was necessary.
From a purely economic perspective it was estimated that diving access at Wakulla Springs would generate around $1 million of out-of-area money into our county every year. But DEP made their decision, Wakulla Springs would stay closed to divers. Later two sinkholes on park property would allow access, Emerald and Clearcut, near the intersection of Hwy. 319 and New Light Church Road.
It is time again for divers and the public to unite over the conservation of a spring and again divers would like to enjoy access. The former Camp Indian Springs property is in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. It is a 77acre parcel which is broken into two segments, one north of Hwy. 267 and one south of the highway. The portion to the south is the one with the spring basin along with several bunk houses and small outbuildings. The northern portion is set up with a horse barn. The parcels are directly adjacent to existing state park property.
Unfortunately, our county doesn’t have the funds available to buy the land but there is another option. The State of Florida could use special springs preservation funding to buy the land. Wakulla County commissioners voted to make a formal request to the state to acquire the land specifically for use by divers, campers, and for equestrian enthusiasts. The state put in a bid on the property but due to a rule, which I’m told came from Rick Scott, the state will not pay more than 90 percent of the appraised value for any property regardless of what resource that property has.
There are three parties trying to attain the property and I only know that the state is one of them. The other two could be developers or parties who otherwise wish to profit off the spring in destructive ways. The county has access to a grant which could provide several hundred thousand dollars to renovating facilities and sewage handling systems on the property. The money cannot be used to buy the property outright. These matching funds would limit, or eliminate, how much the state would need to fork out after buying the land further justifying a higher offer on the land itself.
We, the residents of Wakulla County and other recreators, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unless some generous donor wants to buy the land and sell it at a loss to the state, we can only do one thing. Contact our representatives and ask them to make an exception to the 90 percent of appraised value rule. The decision on who gets the property will come down to Judge Specie on Feb. 14.
If the state will up their bid to 100 percent of appraised value it’s very likely they will be awarded it.
Please be a voice for the preservation of our precious spring resources and contact the representatives below and encourage them up the amount the state can spend for this parcel. A wide spread support for state acquisition of this land, regardless of its end use, is the best possible option for a spring which feeds directly into the Wakulla Springs system.
Rep. Halsey Beshears District Office: 1305 West Washington St., Monticello FL 32344-1130 or (850) 342-0016.
Sen. Bill Montford District Office: 404 South Monroe St., Tallahassee FL 32399-1100 or (850) 487-5003.
Gov. Rick Scott The Capitol, 400 S. Monroe St., Tallahassee FL 32399-0001 or (850) 488-7146.

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