Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

Eric Keibler

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An update, post Ike…

OVI World-Wide Headquarters at Pat Croll's Home
OVI World-Wide Headquarters at Pat Croll


Ahh the hum of generators and air conditioning, this is the sound of Houston in the aftermath of Ike.  Like most of our neighbors, we have power back as well as phone and Internet service.  However, we have several neighbors with damaged power lines who remain off the city grid and are using generators or borrowed power to fuel their homes.  Thankfully, it is still cool here in Houston this evening.

There is still a lot to do to clean up after Ike.  Some of the traffic lights are coming back online which is creating some confusion since some are out, some a blinking, and others are fully functional.  Over the past few days, a number of our clients and friends have checked in and thankfully most have had only minimal damage to their homes and are safe.  Some are still out of town while others have returned to start putting things back together

Stan Watowich was able to get onto Galveston Island to access his lab at UTMB.  He felt that things were in reasonable shape and they could recover quickly as soon as power was restored.  While most of his graduate students are unable to get back to the island, he did check their homes and found that most were in reasonable shape but a few of their homes were destroyed.

As for us, we have now moved the Oceanic Ventures command central from its temporary location in Katy to its newest point – our house, where Ann and Ashton are having a bonding experience around our diving room table.  We now have the email server, data servers, individual computers all running here – imagine having an entire office worth of computers crammed under your diving room table with cables running everywhere.  By Saturday our new credit card machine will be on hand so we can process your purchases and trip deposits.

This week we have met with the water removal specialists from the Steam Team (a very impressive group from Austin), our insurance adjuster, and our landlord.  At this point, we are still unsure about what we will be doing with the store.  We still have no power there, the dehumidifiers and fans are running on generators, the computer system has been relocated, and the phones have been rolled.  We are looking at moving to some temporary space either elsewhere in the complex or nearby.  The major problem right now is power – most places, including our building, do not have any.

We are operating with repairs being done off-site and equipment purchases being delivered by appointment.  The Fedora Lounge across the street from the store has been popular with cold beer and mixed drinks to keep everyone relaxed and happy.

It has been interesting to see how people are dealing with the storm and the aftermath.  Yesterday, the owner of Republic Mortgage, a fellow tenant, hosted a luncheon for his staff and anyone who was around at the time.  We saw other tenants as well as the generator delivery crew and the Steam Team members joining with the mortgage staff for some fun and great Mexican food out in front of our buildings.

In talking to the office manager of Semark pest control, when she returned home she found that she had had water in her house.  But her attitude was that all of her family was safe and in passing she said she told her husband “I have wanted some new things, now we have the opportunity!”  She has a great attitude and a warm thankful smile.  We even joked with Kim, who had most of her nail polish bottles crash onto her hardwood floor and break, that maybe she could put a piece of glass over the polish and create an area piece on the floor.  Of course, she did not think much of the suggestions but enjoyed the humor in the thought.

It is important to keep injecting some humor in our days right now.  Things are a little awkward and they certainly do not run as efficiently as we would like them to.  As many merchants are saying right now, “Thank you for your patience.”  With some patience and laughter we will get through this!

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We’re all ok!

Ike in the Gulf
Ike in the Gulf

As many of you probably know and may have experienced, we were visited by hurricane Ike in the early morning hours on Saturday. We were lucky in that the main force of the storm moved a little east of its original path which put us more on the dry side with slower winds and less rain. Still, we had at least 90 mile an hour winds and at least 10 inches of rain.

On the face of it, our house came through without allot of damage. Ann and I came through the storm fine. Luckily, our house received little damage and all of our trees survived the storm. It was a good thing Ashton and Jeremy helped Ann trim the tree. Some of our neighbors were not so lucky.

We have no power, the water pressure is low and there are leaves and small branches everywhere. The fish are swimming in green water with leaves floating on top and the street looks like a war zone.

The store did not fare as well. The storm lifted the corner of the roof on our building and broke it up allowing the water to enter the store. The sheetrock just outside the store fell down and the sheetrock in the store sagged with the weight of the water. Since friends called us to alert us, I came in and relieved the pressure by punching holes in the ceiling. Of course it was too late to abate some of the damage. The store is a total mess with all of the carpets, electronics and paperwork wet.

Houston too is a mess with blocked streets, trees down and over 90% of the residents without power. Driving is an adventure with lanes and entire streets blocked by 100 year old trees and traffic lights dangling from their wires. At the larger intersections, the fixed traffic poles are twisted with the lights facing in incorrect directions.

Things will be a little disjointed over the next month but we are up and running. I am thankful; no one we know of was hurt and the damage we received was minimal compared to others. Our friends are safe and while we have a lot of work to do, we are keeping a positive outlook, trying to remember that things usually turn out for the best. We have some exciting things happening but we have some challenges to work through as well.

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Another Disappointment

Well, I should be talking about the fantastic dive we had and how incredible the brine lake looked just off the Flower Gardens, but instead, I am relaxing in air-conditioned comfort at home updating my blog.

It seems the weather god has decided that we do not need to see this unusual sight right now. The waves while not excessive, 3 feet, are such that getting a technical diver in full equipment back on the boat might be difficult. Remember that here in the Gulf, the period of the waves is short making them more akin to a high chop rather than a large roller. When the seas get up, boarding the boats becomes more challenging.So, after discussing it with Captain Frank, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and called the trip.

However, the good news is the Spree has some openings in October so we can reschedule to trip and try again. Of course, we have to convince everyone else to roll to the next time frame.

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The Victoria Eludes Us

During the week in week in Grand Cayman, it became apparent that our Lebanon trip was rapidly falling apart. The trip that started with 12 people for the first week and 10 for the second had within the past thirty days dwindled to 6 people for both weeks. During Tek Week two more people dropped out leaving the “Houston contingent” (Dave Snyder from Manhattan, Nat Robb from Cayman, Randy Terrill from Atlanta, Mark Conrad from Houston, and me)as our travel agent termed us. While we were committed to the trip, with deposits and air seats it became apparent that others were not as committed and for various reasons felt the need to drop out.

The problem for those of us remaining is that we have barely enough people to safely dive the Victoria and if someone has any issue (Ear clearing problems, equipment problems, etc) the dive would be scrubbed for everyone. Additionally, the costs for the dives would now be covered by 4 divers instead of 10-12 divers.

So after a lot of late night discussions, talking and soul searching we all decided to cancel this year’s trip and put one together for ourselves next year. I sent several notes to Walid in Lebanon, who was understandable upset about everything falling apart especially after he had purchased $5,000 of sorb and supplies for the trip, and explained our position and then told him we wanted to put our own trip together for next year. We also promised to handle it more like we would a conventional Oceanic Ventures trip complete with deposits for everyone.

This was a very disappointing development. We had all spent money and time preparing for the trip and the diving. It was especially disappointing since I spent the week in Grand Cayman diving in a DRY SUIT!

But as they always say in baseball, there is always next year.

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It's All Over

It is now Saturday and Tek Week 2008 has drawn to a close.  It started out a little tumultuous with Hurricane Gustov causing havoc in the Carribbean.  But as the winds moved on into the Gulf, memories were being made in Grand Cayman.

 


Ray Turek getting ready
Ray Turek getting ready

My cadre of students finished their courses.  Ray Turek completed his Normoxic Trimix course and may have been convinced that CCR was the only way to dive deeper because you could stay longer.  Of course, he’ll now have to explain the need to his wife and then decide on which unit is right for him.  He certainly got to see a variety of units here this week.  Kim Smith from KISS rebreathers was here as was Peter Den Hann from Silent Diving Systems the North American distributer of the Evolution and Inspiration rebreathers.  Paul Rainmaker, designer of the rEvo rebreather was here showing off his new rebreather.  Then there were the divers themselves sporting a number of units including the Sentinel from VR technologies, several Inspirations, Evolutions, Evolution Plus’, an Optima, a Titan or two, a Megalodon, a few KISS Classics, a KISS Sport, and some rEvo’s.

 

 

 

 

While Ray was completing his Normoxic course, Madison Lee and Mark Nawman were working on their Trimix Course.  They ended their training on Friday with a 300 foot dive near Dolphin Drop-Off in the west bay.  All three of them received preliminary certificates at the closing session on Friday evening.

 


Madison ready to Go
Madison ready to Go

The training was a minor part of the week at least for me.  The best part was the diving.  Due to the winds from Gustov and Hanna, our diving was primarily off the West Bay portion of the island.  Of course, this is not a real problem since these walls are beautiful and the aquatic life is abundant.

 

 

 

 

Diving deep in Grand Cayman is a real treat because not only are the deep portions of the walls beautiful, but your decompression is spent on the walls as well.  This makes for a more entertaining stay and a more relaxed dive.

 

Coming up the coral canyons at Big tunnels treated us to more than 14 lobsters milling about and two chasing one another around the reef.  In Orange Canyon and at both Leslie’s Curl and Dolphin drop off we were treated to exhibitions by the ultimate free-divers – the turtles.  Rays and sharks greeted the divers on most dives and even the sharks made an appearance.

 

All in all it was a fun event and we had some great dives.  The staff at Cobalt Coast and DiveTech work hard to make these events special and they succeeded once again.

See the press release at https://www.caymannetnews.com/news-9858–1-1—.html

 

Tek Week Group
Tek Week Group

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Tek Week Update

Hurricane Gustov made the start of Tech Week in Grand Cayman a little interesting.  We spent much of the week following the hurricane tracking maps and models on Weather Underground, www.wunderground.com, and talking to people down here.

 

Saturday morning found us going to the airport on faith that the Cayman government would open the island to non-residents by the time our flight left.  I had spoken to Nat Robb early Saturday morning who indicated that this storm was more of a non-event for them (not true for the sister islands however).  They had some wind and little rain.

 

Arie, the owner of Cobalt Coast, called me at 11:15 to tell me that the government on Grand Cayman had given the “all clear” and that visitors could now return to the island.  Of course Continental had not received the message as quickly – the gate agent infomed me that “they were the airline” and it was up to them.  However, the supervisors at Continental quickly cleared the flight for visitors with confirmed reservations (of course they wanted to see a printed confirmation…).  After getting a number from Arie (just in case someone needed to confirm it with him) we were on our way.

 

Things were a little out of sorts and most of the windows on the island were boarded up as were some of the windows at Cobalt Coast and Dive Tech.  The benches were pushed together and the dock was a little worse for wear.  The most surprising thing was to see all of the Dive Tech cylinders in front of Cobalt Coast—lots of cylinders.

 

This morning the staff showed up and things were pulled out, moved swept and by lunch time you would never have known there was a storm except for the pier which by the end of the day was ¾ repaired – the only thing that stopped Jay and his crew was the fact that they ran out of wood and it was Sunday so getting more was not possible.

 

Nancy and the staff, pulled the boats out of the mangroves, cleaned them up, re-equipped them and toured possible dive sites by 12:00.  By 1:00 we were diving on the North wall.  The water heading out was a little green and the visibility at the dive site was not more than 60’ but we had a nice enjoyable dive, with Ray Turek completing his skills for his Normoxic Trimix course and Madison Lee learning more about free diving or breath-hold diving from Simon.

 

At last count 16 people canceled mostly because getting here at a different time or on a different day made it impossible.  But, 33 participants still agreed to come and at least ½ of them were here by dinner time.

 

The seas should continue to lay down overnight and Nancy is predicting that shore diving off Cobalt will be available by tomorrow.  Tomorrow’s dive plan calls for a 200 foot dive for Madison and Ray.