a little note from Ashton Arsement…
New divers as well as more experienced divers have been introduced to the benifits of Sink-the- Stink or Mirizyme in keeping your dive buddies close. However, these products do little to keep your expensive suits clean and conditioned.
Regular cleaning with a wet suit cleaner will help prevent damage from chlorine (pools), salt (Caribbean and Pacific travels) and other minerals (those local dives). Additionally, these cleaning products help keep the fabric soft and flexible.
So, in addition to using the deoderizing products like Sink-the Stink or Mirazyme be sure to include a washing with a proper wet suit shampoo.
Scuba Diving Equipment
Old Home Week – Chuuk, FSM
Every trip seems like the last – I think I cannot find enough people who want to come to Truk, and yet I still return. Some people like to return for a second trip, feeling like they just did not get enough on their last visit and others are intrigued and want to find out more. Two years ago, most of the group felt they were missing something and wanted to return but only if we ran the trip as a Technical Charter.
So what is a Technical Charter in Chuuk? Well it is a trip that steps beyond the typical charter by offering access to the deeper wrecks not often visited by divers to the lagoon. There is more room on the boat, the number of divers is limited to twelve, and more decompression gas is available. There is even surface supplied oxygen on the decompression bar. The boat has to add extra crew because of the depths of the dive and their knowledge of the wrecks is not as extensive as it is for the other wrecks they visit on a regular basis.
These charters tend to attract more experienced divers because of the depths and the decompression times required. The minimum training level required is Advanced EANx (IANTD) or Decompression Procedures and Advanced EANx (TDI) but more training to handle the depths and planning is highly recommended. I really recommend that a participant is better served with Technical EANx (IANTD) or Advanced Decompression Procedures (TDI) and a wreck penetration course under their belts. With more training, the divers tend to enjoy themselves more and stay underwater longer.
This week we are joined by a group of very experienced technical divers and a few new ones. My diving companions for the week are Geoff Barker, Steve Brennan (second time to Truk), Mark Conrad (second time to Truk), Ron Hicks (fourth time to Truk), Ann Keibler (third time to Truk), Jerry Kesielwski, Kelly Plato (second time to Truk), Pam Radford (second time to Truk), Bob Sloan (second time to Truk), Jess Stark (second time to Truk), Geoff Streitel (second time to Truk), and Stephanie Watowich (second time to Truk).
I have often thought that a live-aboard dive trip is the most relaxing dive trip but also the most active way to dive. Your equipment is set-up at the beginning of the week and sits there, ready to be donned in an instant. Ok, so maybe it takes more than an instant but it is already together and ready to go. Of course there is still the gas testing, configuration adjustments and the process of getting everything together that accompanies a technical dive but you are only a few steps from the water and a few steps from the ladder on your return. In between dives there are naps to take, books to read, logbooks to complete, planning for the next dive and for the photographers, photographs to download and process.
In general, our surface intervals are three hours between dives and there are three to four dives available each day. The planning portion becomes easier when you realize that the depths are mostly consistent for the dives with only a little variation in depth between the dives.
Our dives this week will be on a wide variety of wrecks, from passenger/cargo vessels to some light destroyers and even a submarine. The first dives of the day will be deeper with shallower wrecks in the later afternoon. Of course many of the “shallow” wrecks for a Technical Charter are the deep wrecks for a standard charter. Our schedule for the week is:
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Sunday: Arrive, 9:30 pm
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Monday: Nippo Maru, Hoki Maru, Rio de Janiero Maru
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Tuesday: Amagisan Maru, Shotan Maru, Fujikawa Maru
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Wednesday: Aikoku Maru, Kensho Maru
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Thursday: Oite, I-169, Shinkoku Maru
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Friday: San Francisco Maru, Heian Maru
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Saturday: Nagano Maru, Fujisan Maru
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Sunday: Terra Firma Again
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Monday: Depart at 2:30am
Only on a dive vacation would the day begin at 6:00 am. Breakfast on the Odyssey is a hot, made-to-order breakfast served to you in the dining salon. There are pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereals, juices and of course COFFEE!
At about 6:30 the engines start and the crew moves us to the fist dive site of the day. In Chuuk, most of the wrecks are fairly close together, scattered around Tonoas, Weno, and Uman so mneung between them is not a long steam. At about 7:30 the crew has the boat tied up, the lines rigged, the ladders down and are ready for divers to jump in. Of course there is a short dive briefing before each dive to aquaint us with the boats location on the wreck, the highlights of the wreck and any other things we should be aware of. The biggest one of these items is the planned departure time for the next wreck.
Diving these wrecks is always a new experience for me. While this is my sixth trip to Chuuk and I have had a number of dives on most of these vessels, I still find new things that I have not noticed before as well as the realization that nature is working to reclaim these massive ships.
One of the most notable is the fly bridges on the Aikoku Maru. In 1998, they were still in position, hanging majestically over the edge of the hull. Over the next few visits they began to sag and now they are merely rubble hanging down over the hull. They are just another pile of twisted metal, appearing to be a part of the damage caused by the explosion of the ammunition hold.
Some people will tell you that ghosts remain on some of these wrecks. There was a large loss of life on many of the wrecks we visited during this week and the remains of these fallen sailors and soldiers are still there. While there was an effort to remove them and give them a proper Shinto send-off in the late 80’s, there are still bones on most of the wrecks including some skulls. Diving the deeper wrecks increases your chances of coming across them exponentially. This experience makes you realize that these are more than diving attractions but also underwater graves, interments for sailors and soldiers who were not fortunate enough to escape the bombings, torpedos and fires. On the Oite, a destroyer, over 400 people perished in the attack.
Diving these wrecks is like swimming through a time capsule; time stopped in 1944 for these ships and the men they took with them. Their personal belongings as well as the cargo are from another place and time. They are reminders how temporary life can be on this earth.
What makes these trips special is the people. Most of the people on this trip have been diving together for three or more years. They have taken classes together, helped on another with courses and evaluations and practiced skills with one another. They have traveled together including a trip to Chuuk. Their interaction with one another made this trip especially fun and entertaining.
Who can forget Pam’s “Blink” taste test with wine and beer or Kelly’s agreement to let Jess apply some Krazy Glue to his abused, cut hands. And of course, there was wine served with every meal and several bottles of special wine, thanks to Pam, served with some.
It was a great week of diving and I look forward to the next week when our new diving family arrives but I will miss this group when they leave. There is nothing like diving with these fun lneung people.
If It Ain't Broken, Don't Fix It!
Those words ran through my head this week as we hosted a Xscooter Annual Service Clinic at the store. Geoff Streitel and Kelly Plato were on hand to allow the group to repair their scooters. I should have know that the evening would not proceed as smoothly as we had hoped when the video portion of the PowerPoint presentation would not work properly.
After a little tinkering and rebooting my laptop, we abandoned the digital projector and just used the laptop monitor itself. So far so good, right? We continued with the steps for breaking down the rear-end which is where more problems presented themselves. The screw holding to lower hubs in place were frozen and while we eventually were able to remove Geoff’s without further damage, Kelly’s scooter was another matter. We ended up breaking off all of the screw pillars from the hub and still could not get the hub off. So, one unit down; it is off to the manufacturer for repair leaving us all one to look at.
The remainder of Geoff’s repair went alright, with some grunting and groaning while more things were removed with difficulty and new things replaced. Of course, we are not entirely sure everything worked properly – Geoff has to test it in fresh water to make sure the new seal does not leak. He should be doing it today at Beautiful Blue Lagoon. He and Kelly were planning on going out to test their scooters before Truk, but now Geoff will be testing and Kelly will be swimming.
I know Kelly is saying to himself, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but it really did need to have the seal replaced before it had a major lean and the bearings got wet.
Congratulations for the group for completing the Annual Service Training program. The new technicians are Geoff Streitel, Kelly Plato, Ashton Arsement, Barney Corbin, Jordon Hicks, Wade Sparks and yours truly, Eric Keibler.
Cool New Stuff
Several members of the Oceanic Ventures Staff have just returned from DEMA, the diving industry trade show. The purpose of the show is for retailers to preview equipment, training products and travel locations so they can bring new things back to their clients at home. The training agencies host parties and meetings to showcase their offerings and to thank members for their support in the previous year and in the upcoming year.
SSI is no different, hosting its annual dealer social at the Rivera hotel. It was great to see friends from all over the country – many of whom we only see at these events. Julie Footman was on hand to shake her head but to also offer her support to Ann for her 2009 Cold Water Diving Program to help her Antarctica divers gain some diving experience. We will be joining Julie in Maine after the group completes their Ice Diving Course, at Lake Winipasakui, New Hampshire in February (there is still room for interested people). Julie is the owner of Aqua Diving Academy in Portland Maine and has been a great source of information for a number of things including dry suits and repairs. She is also a good friend.
During the dealer social, I was awarded my Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor Award. This means that I am old and have been teaching a long time. The award is based on points made up of a number of things from Instructor Ratings to Number of years diving; but, primarily, it the points are the number of students I have taught over the eighteen years (see what I mean about being old). [Find out more about Eric and this award by pressing here or going to www.oceanicventures.net].
Jess Stark and Gary Taylor (a member of our adjunct faculty) were both honoured during DEMA this year. Both of these men have been diving a long time and have accumulated in excess of 5000 dives (Gary has in excess of 10,000 dives). They were among this year’s recipients of the Platinum Pro 500 divers award, given by SSI. They join a very exclusive club of divers representing the who’s who of divng. We were fortunate to have been able to nominate both of these people as well as two other designees – Lamar Hires, CEO of Dive Rite and Ron Carlo, manufacturer’s representative for a number of lines including Dive Rite. Congratulations to all of you!
Another party we attended was hosted by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. They always throw great parties! Of course it is even more fun since the Houston office is full of our students! It was quite an evening full of free drinks, horśderves and good company. Carl Griffing joined us at the party as did Robert Hew and Ian McKnight. Of course, Carl and Ashton seemed to have a better time than most of us – at least their evening lasted longer. I guess I’m getting too old!
Of course we did much more than party. The group attended Risk Management seminars hosted by IANTD and another by SSI. There were seminars on selling & teaching technical diving, recruiting, marketing, new camera systems, imprneung your client’s photographs, dealer product updates and new course offerings. We all had meetings with manufacturers and manufacturers representatives, destination representatives and a host of other meetings. Through it all, we also had some goals of things we needed to accomplish and some new products we needed to find.
And we did come back with some really cool things. Here are a few of the things we brought back to Oceanic Ventures:
- Komodo, Indonesia live aboard – The crew of the Archipelago Explorer II are excited about the potential of rebreather diving and with the help of Oceanic Ventures and Silent Diving Systems they are hosting the first live-aboard, all rebreather dive adventure in Indonesia! This trip promises to be and extra special experience and a real treat for rebreather divers! The trip will be 22 July 2009 to 2 August 2009, give or take a few days (Dive Mom is finalizing the air schedule)
- Cool New Lights – We found some really cool new LED lights that are more affordable than anything we have had in the past. These new lights, which come in a flood versin and a spot version use Lithium batteries and are rated to 400 ft.
- Inexpensive back-up Light – When you need an inexpensive back-up light that fits in your pocket or on your BCD, we have a suggestion. A 5 LED light for $9.95. Pretty cool find!
- Camera Spotting Light – This light is different from anything we have seen before. It is a spotting light with an sensor that shuts-off the light when your electronic strobe fires, keeping the different temperature lights out of your photograph.
- 8 megapixel Camera & Housing for $199.95 – What a find! As Dave said when he was telling us abut this at one of our morning staff meetings during the show, this makes photography affordable for everyone. New divers and experienced divers can start taking underwater photographs almost from the start. And, you can always add an external strobe later to improve your photography even more. We are so excited about this new starter camera that we have put one in the pool for our students to try during dive class!
- New Training Options – The new buzzword in dive training is on-line training. Ann, Dave and I have been watching this for several years and we believe that now there is a good product that will meet the needs of some divers. Beginning in 2009, Oceanic Ventures will begin offering On-line education as a part of its training program. Keep an eye out for more details on this program.
We believe that DEMA was very successful for us this season. We appreciate all of the staff’s help during the show (Ashton, Dave, Barney & Barbara at the show and Zaide in the office). I hope you will come by and let me show you these way cool things! If you can’t make it by, send me an message and I’ll tell you more about them.
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.
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.
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 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.
