Time slips away....

Boy, you turn around and another two weeks has disappeared into the mists....

So, I am obviously back from Roatan, but have been a little swept up in the last few weeks with courses and business matters. As the warmer weather draws ever closer it is up to us to get the ball rolling on some of our ideas for this year....

Some of our ideas include children's activities, weekend getaways for advanced courses and just for some fun dives and of course, the reinitiation of open water season! We're also planning a couple of stupendous diving vacations for the next year or so and they take a surprising amount of preparation.

As for yours truly, funnily (well, perhaps not) enough, I am still recovering from my recent excursion to Honduras for some great diving. The diving truly was very cool, the problem was on land. On the last full day there, I foolishly went out without insect repellent for one hour. Enough time for a couple of hundred "noseeems", also known as sand flies (they're tiny tiny little critters....thus No See 'Ems), to devour me alive. I had a couple of hundred bites over my body, which all swelled up and then became INCREDIBLY itchy. I still have the scars from most of the bumps and its been three weeks since I was bitten.

As you may have noted from my posts while I was away, the dives started off so-so, but ended up being very cool. Particularly on the last day when we dove Calvin's Crack and Mary's Place. Two awesome dives. And Paul, the DMT with the dive shop I dived with, took some photos for me to remember the dives (yep, forgot to have a camera with me >.<).

I'll try and download a few of the better ones and post them over the weekend!!

Happy Friday to the beginning of Family Day weekend everyone!

Another couple of dives....not much to report...

There was an intense build-up of wind (and I don't mean in my pants) on the south-eastern side of the island of Roatan last night. It woke me up a few times with its bluff and gusto, the wind funneling into and around the villa. With the exception of the doors into the villa, there is no glass in any of the windows, instead there are wooden shutters to close out the light. While they are sufficient at blocking out the light, they are not as impervious to wind. That's perhaps harsh, they do keep out a significant amount of the wind, but you could feel a soft movement in the air all night and the wind rushed unimpeded through certain parts of the villa where there are vents, but no blinds to shut out the wind.

Noisome enough wind to get me out of bed to peer into the darkened sky to pick out the tops of the trees swaying to and fro in the ceaseless blast. Omnious foreboding for the next day of diving if the wind was to sustain itself....

...which it did. On into the morning with a passion. Still, any day is good for a dive in my book. Last year in Thailand, I dived when visibility was only two to four feet and when the waves made you feel as though you were riding a mechanical bull on the way to and from the dive site. So, bah, a bit of wind.....

'Twas a rough bucking bronco ride to the dive site.

We were expected to dive Calvin's Crack (I know, a little inappropriate....still, apparently it used to be called something like Caroline's Crack, so I guess its a step forward.....), but due to the high swell, we aimed closer to home base. Calvin's Crack sounds very cool to me, because you enter the dive through a hole in the reef, that opens up onto a sand channel that runs down to the wall, excpet the reef constantly closes in above you, with occasional openings.....sounds funky, no? But maybe the closer to home dives were exciting too????

Maybe not.....the dives today were so-so dives. I hope to explore Calvin's Crack on Friday (I can hear you snicker already), as well as Mary's Place (one of the signature dive sites of the island). Tomorrow we head to the west side for a couple of dives, as well as hopefully a night dive.

Not much to report on these dives....we saw a juvenile drumfish:

..a giant crab, some lobster, another boxfish and some big barracuda, but not much else. Oh......and a purple-blue nudibranch....

Hopefully more to report tomorrow.....tonight we're off out to explore the above-water bottom-feeders and sharks.....

Two great dives today...

This morning saw a two dive day for this half of the Toronto Scuba Club. Opening the door and peeking out after a cup of Joe (and what a cup of Joe.....Roatan-grown coffee beans from here in Honduras, simply delicious), saw a miserably grey sky. Ahh well, I thought, I'll be underwater for most of the morning anyway. Of course, a grey sky would make the visibility a little less in all likelihood and make for more mellow hues to the dive, but c'est la vie.

Then we started out at about 9....and the sun gloriously burst into my Honduran sky in fantastic technicolour. It was stunning....one second it was grey all over, then in the next it was dazzling....not a cloud in the sky, the sunlight glinting off the ocean, Roatan looking green behind us and a soft and gentle breeze teasing my hair......romantic? sure....but bloody perfect for a dive day!

And bloody perfect it was. The first dive was to about 90 feet out along a wall and then relaxing at about 50 for the last little stretch. The dive was about 55 minutes and just great. SO MANY lionfish! I know they're a pest these days, taking over massive stretches of ocean, but they are still so freaky cool looking. We saw four regular lionfish for the area, but also managed to spot a cool little black fella too.

On top of that, there were a couple of small morays hanging out in nooks in the wall, as well as some arrow crabs:

and a whole bunch of other little dudes. I also spotted the obligatory lobsters and a crab....oh, yeah, we also found some weird miniscule little flounder guy who looked like a leaf, it was cool. Thank god for the sun, it was nice to have the light, easpecially a bit further down.

Then we hit the shore for a little breather at Cocoview resort. A quick drink and a surface interval and we were ready to hit the Prince Albert....a hundred feet off the shore from our pit stop.

And another awesome dive!! The sun remained nice and bright....

As we sank down onto the wreck, the fauna started playing for us immediately....a couple of barracuda swam along with us as we descended to 50 feet in a few seconds. And then we were straight by the prow of the Albert. Where a few lobsters waved hello. We swam alongside the boat, spotting some rockfish nestled against it, taking a peak inside (even to say hi to a puffer fish chilling out inside) and then we were about to head off when I saw one of the largest morays I have ever seen hiding as much as possible right under the bottom of the boat. The dive leader came back to my waving and had a look...initially he thought I was looking at a cluster of really large arrow crabs, but then he spotted it....this moray had to be about at least two feet wide....massive.

This was in fact the dive for morays.....we saw five monster eels at various points of the dive (about 60 feet for an hour). On top of that, I saw a frogfish...difficult to spot and according to the resident marine biologist (one of their instructors just became one of the island's leading marine biologists) very very rare. We identified it as a dwarf frogfish, who was happily hanging out on a sea fan. After checking out the wreck (and an airplane fuselage with crowds of hermit crabs scuttling about in an insane version of a line dance), we took off to finish off the dive with more wall (where I actually spotted the frogfish) and then ended on the shallow reef where we chased a lobster. Here's my little friend:

A great day diving. Tomorrow's a day off....this intrepid diver is off to see monkeys and rainforest aqnd grab a quick zipline. Back to diving on Wednesday (two in the morning and a night dive), Thursday we take an excursion to the west side of the island) and then last two dives on Friday.....I'll be back tomorrow.

Here and There

Well half of the Toronto Scuba Club is in Toronto today and just taught the pool portion of an open water course. The other half is on a pretty sweet little island, a small boating channel away from the island of Roatan (one of the Bay Islands in Honduras).

First of all, congratulations to our OW students, I know you did GREAT!! And well done to our refresfer students too....

Do I need to congratulate Peter on his teaching today? Of course not! We all know he taught a great course today.

One of the best things in Roatan is the diving. Another is the resort I am staying at :) It's a nice little exclusive thing with only 9 villas and a small lodge on the main island. The little villas are all on a small island reached by a private 24 hour 20 second ferry. So not a lot of disturbance on the villa island.

To make the diving even better, the dive shop here mostly caters to the resorts diving enthusiasts and only occasionally to outside guests. With a maximum capacity at the hotel of 28 guests and only a fraction of them diving, the dive shop professional to diver ratio is extraordinary. Not that I need too much attention, but its nice to have direct interaction with your dive crew. In fact, today, it was just me, the instructor and a DMT.

It is a little odd that they feel it necessary to lead fun divers with instructors, but apparently it is a house rule. Their maximum group size is also 6 divers per instructor. Not too hard when they also have five dive boats! All in all, a good little set-up.

So dive one today, to get a feel for these guys.

We did a nice wall dive that was supposed to be a drift dive, but there was little current, so not much drifting. Still, we got a fairly long distance even without the current and a good 55 mins from an 80 foot dive.

So-so flora....the usual corals and such and not a crazy amount of unusual fauna, but I had a fun dive anyway. Certainly enough to appease a cold and dive-desperate refugee from the cold north. I did get to spot a humongous crab (and point it out to the dive leader) and our dive was capped off by finding one of my favourite fish, a boxfish! Other than that we saw the usual Caribbean suspects.....parrotfish, spiny lobster, wrasse, damsels, butterfly fish, giant grouper, sergeant majors, snappers and tangs, etc.

A few of the snappers actually did something unusual and decided to accompany us for about two thirds of the dive....quite bizarre. The tangs were also very friendly, swimming about a nose-length away from my mask for a close-up look at yours truly (no smart alec remarks about that still being a long way off because of the size of my snout).

And this was my first wall-dive since BC last May, so refreshing once more to look into the abyss. I have a bit of a love-terror relationship with the abyss....part mesmerized and thrilled by the incredible depth and mystery of thousands of feet of drop-off and part terrified by the incredible depth and sheer intensity of the deep blue sea. Still, it was great to float around, spin about and revel in warmth of a toasty ocean dive.

It makes me think we REALLY need to start bringing groups south soon...it is simply so soul-satisfying and relaxing. Strangely enough though, the dive today got me completely pumped for our summer weekends planned for Brockville. YES! Wrecks!! My advanced students are going to have a fricking awesome time...

Two or three dives planned for tomorrow!

Happy New Year!!

Well, it was a bit of a Christmas break for the Toronto Scuba Club. Our last course was virtually the day before our break for the holidays and then the actual festive season whooshed by before we knew it.

One of the things that did happen over the holidays was that we narrowed down our new car stickers (advertising the biz) to two particular looks. Now we just need to pick one and we'll have 'em on our cars in no time. If you're interested in proudly displaying a Toronto Scuba Club sticker on your car, let us know and we'll see about getting you one too!

An interesting proposal for our friends and members coming up in the next few days too....keep watching, I just need to finish something first.

Misconceptions

So, I have been teaching a rescue course today (and we taught the Emergency First Response course on Thursday ... basically PADI's first aid course). The student is an excellent student. She's already an accomplished diver and very good in the water, which makes it a hundred times easier for us, obviously. She's also advised us that she can have a tough time absorbing information and so she has made copious notes during her study for the course. I think she's a little harsh on herself, as she has been outstanding, even in the classroom portion. Anyway, enough of the praise, that wasn't the point I set out to make.

What I wanted to talk about what was the reluctance that many people have in taking the rescue diver course. I think it boils down to a fear that they will become responsible for other people and will have to be much more involved in the management and control of other divers.

Admittedly, there is an element of becoming a rescue diver that will make you more aware of other divers around you and of potential problems that may arise. And yes, admittedly, if an issue arises, you may be one of the more qualified people to step in to save the day, but these should be seen as positive things. The reality is that overall, being a rescue diver will not change your dive experiences in any dramatic way. And, God forbid, if something bad was to happen during a dive trip, you'd be able to step in and help instead of standing there like a lemon and watching a potential travesty unfold.

More importantly, the course is a huge step in the natural progression of a diver. It increases one's confidence immensely and also gives a diver an opportunity to work on known skills, as well as introduce a few new helpful ones. Learning to more effectively control your own buoyancy, in addition to that of another person means that you will generally be a more efficient diver regardless.

Personally, I find the rescue diver course to be one of the most rewarding, both from the perspective of the student and of the instructor. Not only that, but despite sounding cheesy and like a PADI advertisement, it really is a fun course. Even the victim DM's get to have a laugh on the course.

Let's face it too. If you weren't certified as a rescue diver and your dive buddy got into an emergency situation, you'd still try to help them out. You wouldn't stop and then take off from a fear of being responsible or possibly liable. At least, I think most people would try to do something rather than watching something horrible happen. And wouldn't it be a better situation if you stepped in and knew at least some rescue fundamentals than nothing at all?

Sadly, it's still a highly under-rated course and one I would love to see more people take.

Not only that, but we have just acquired some freaking awesome new CPR mannequins! They have lights!! It's so cool, the lights tell you if the rate and the pressure of the CPR is at the optimal rate.....slick, eh?

Have fun kids and don't kneel on the spiny sea urchins...they don't like it and neither will you!

Sorry for the Delay.....

So the weird thing that most of you likely missed is the big gorilla that walked through the middle of the screen!! Watch it again.....I know you don't believe me. The video illustrates the concept of "Inattentional Blindness". Basically, we focus so intently on something, we aren't able to see the most obvious and glaring issue directly in front of our eyes.

This came up recently in something totally unrelated to the Toronto Scuba Club or diving generally, but while I was dealing with it, it reminded me of something completely dive-focused.

Most of you who have dived are aware of the phenomena of Nitrogen Narcosis. The situation where the nitrogen build-up in our systems has a slightly narcotic effect at a certain depth which in turn makes us feels slightly tipsy. Well, it strikes me that the effects that nitrogen narcosis have on us can be the same as inattentional blindness. You see, one of the major concerns of nitrogen narcosis is that we can lose focus on the many things we need to pay attention to as we dive and become fixated on something inconsequential. Inattentional Blindness creates the same effect......

It's cool how issues interrelate and apply to diving nonetheless. Is it just me that thinks this.....