OT: Take a look at what it is like to scuba dive.

[JoMal]

Don't know if you all remember me mentioning that I am a certified master scuba diver, but it is one of my favorite pastimes. Found this lovely web-site that give you a real feel for the sport. The cameral is about 50 feet down, which is the ideal depth for seeing the most reef fish, and this wall looks like it is just below the lip of the falloff, where the fish like to congregate. 


http://www.breathebonaire.com/

[Derek Bodner]

That's awesome dude.  Scuba's been one of the things that I'd love to get into, but I just haven't had the time/opportunity to. 

[JoMal]

That's awesome dude.  Scuba's been one of the things that I'd love to get into, but I just haven't had the time/opportunity to. 

Well, Derek, to get an open water certificate, it takes the equivalent of about one week to complete. I had to spread my training over several weeks when I did it, with the dive class only on Wednesday evenings. On that day, we did two hours classroom and two hours pool work for 4 or 5 weeks, then two separate days where we went to actual dive sights in the Northern California area. The first was at Folsom Lake, near Sacramento, on a hot, hot day where it took practically two hours to get into my wet suit. The second and final dive was at Salt Point, along the Northern California coast. Anyone familiar with this coastline knows it is all just rough inlets, huge waves, and cliffs. You have to climb down (and back up!!) these cliffs with all your gear, including tanks and wet suit, all of which you put on at the thin beach at the bottom. Then we swam out through the narrow inlet to open sea, with ten foot waves crashing over you. You kind of have to swim under the waves to clear the inlet. Once outside the inlet, you kind of roll up and down with the waves in place with about forty feet of water under you. The final test is to dive down to the bottom, take all your gear off (not including the wet suit) and putting it all back on, dropping your mask and finding it, all the while in water with visability of roughly six feet and in a kelp bed, which required cutting out of your equipment before going back to the surface. It was dark and dingy.

Since that time, I have discovered that I could have done all the class work here in town, then gone to a Carribean dive site to do the actual open water testing. That is a much better scenario, but I am glad I did it the way I did, because that Salt Point dive was one of the hardest I have done.

[Lurker]

A great way to get the experience without all the training is to do "resort" training.  We have done this in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta.  Basically you do about a 2 hour training in the resort swimming pool which gives you a temporary certification good for 1 week.  Then as part of the package you get a 3-4 hour dive which is very well monitored.  About 4-5 "newbies" per dive leader.  Of course they then try to sell you additional dives.  Only caveat: do this early in your trip as you shouldn't dive 24 hours prior to flying.

[Derek Bodner]

Yeah.  Maybe I'll look into that again this summer.  The jersey shore's about an hour and a half from my house, and maryland (which is 100x nicer) about 3.  I would have loved to have gone while I was in the Caribbean last year, but my girl doesn't swim.  I'm working on that, don't worry.

[JoMal]

Actually I would not rely too much on those "resort" certifications. Though my first dive experience was by doing one of those, out of the 18 or so people who signed up for it, only two of us finished the first dive out on a reef. The reason was that they were unfamiliar with the equipment, did not know what to do in a current, sheer panic once they realyzed they were under water, and dive teachers who were not certified scuba instructors. While it helped to encourage me to get certified, looking back, there are too many things that can go wrong during a dive to trust it to an overextended tour crew.

[westkoast]

Aside from the depth you can go with the scuba gear why is it so much better then snorkeling?  Couldn't you see most things that way?

Cool link though.  I think one day if I travel to an island like Hawaii that I will have to try to do something like this.  Looks too beautiful not to try at least.

[JoMal]

Aside from the depth you can go with the scuba gear why is it so much better then snorkeling?  Couldn't you see most things that way?

Cool link though.  I think one day if I travel to an island like Hawaii that I will have to try to do something like this.  Looks too beautiful not to try at least.

I have nothing but praise for snorkeling as well. There is tons to see in the shallows and it is easy to do.

But with diving, you can see the turtles come and go, the eagle rays dart through the crevases, the nurse sharks close up enough to pet them.

You can peak into an overhang to watch lobsters reaching out their tentacles to inspect who you are, you can observe octopi doing a mating dance, or watch a cleaning station in action. You can have a remora attach itself to your tank, thinking you look like a shark so why not. 

You can see a juvenile drum fish - truly one of the wonders of the reef - or schools of chromis surround you so you can't tell which end is up.

Seeing a reef shark where it feeds is a thrill of a different sort, and turning around to suddenly see that a six foot barracuda has been stalking you can be interesting as well. Recognizing a scorpion fish, or a toad fish, is exciting too.

But for no other reason then to be able to watch these animals in sixty feet of water or deeper without pause is worth it. 

[Lurker]

Actually I would not rely too much on those "resort" certifications. Though my first dive experience was by doing one of those, out of the 18 or so people who signed up for it, only two of us finished the first dive out on a reef. The reason was that they were unfamiliar with the equipment, did not know what to do in a current, sheer panic once they realyzed they were under water, and dive teachers who were not certified scuba instructors. While it helped to encourage me to get certified, looking back, there are too many things that can go wrong during a dive to trust it to an overextended tour crew.

Well, both of the certifications we did were PADI authorized.  And on the first one in Cancun there were probably about 4-5 out of 25 that didn't finish.  It was about a 30 ft dive.  The second one in Puerto Vallarta was another 30-35 foot dive.  I don't think anyone pulled out of that one.  Both times we took our high school/college age kids.  We really enjoyed both experiences which were firsts for me & the kids.  My wife lived for 3 years in the Carribean when young and dove almost weekly.

We also have done snorkeling in the Bahamas, Cancun and Hawaii.  In those spots the ocean is full of colorful life in close to shore.  And IMO the snorkeling in Cancun was just as fun as the scuba diving. 

[Joe Vancil]

Oops.

I saw the topic, and thought of someone being submerged far, far, far below the water, and figured it must be a topic about the Knicks.  My bad.

Carry on.

[JoMal]

Actually I would not rely too much on those "resort" certifications. Though my first dive experience was by doing one of those, out of the 18 or so people who signed up for it, only two of us finished the first dive out on a reef. The reason was that they were unfamiliar with the equipment, did not know what to do in a current, sheer panic once they realyzed they were under water, and dive teachers who were not certified scuba instructors. While it helped to encourage me to get certified, looking back, there are too many things that can go wrong during a dive to trust it to an overextended tour crew.

Well, both of the certifications we did were PADI authorized.  And on the first one in Cancun there were probably about 4-5 out of 25 that didn't finish.  It was about a 30 ft dive.  The second one in Puerto Vallarta was another 30-35 foot dive.  I don't think anyone pulled out of that one.  Both times we took our high school/college age kids.  We really enjoyed both experiences which were firsts for me & the kids.  My wife lived for 3 years in the Carribean when young and dove almost weekly.

We also have done snorkeling in the Bahamas, Cancun and Hawaii.  In those spots the ocean is full of colorful life in close to shore.  And IMO the snorkeling in Cancun was just as fun as the scuba diving. 

Cancun is not really known for its diving; to see the real colorful reefs, you have to visit Cozumel. Cancun is also where I did that resort dive as well. The thing is, they do not take you to the more interesting spots with those resort dive packages. To see the sea life where it matters still requires the visiting of the off-shore reefs.

Though of one other spot that requires scuba diving and not snorkeling. The Blue Hole. Its too deep for snorkelers.

[JoMal]

Oops.

I saw the topic, and thought of someone being submerged far, far, far below the water, and figured it must be a topic about the Knicks.  My bad.

Carry on.

That "O.T." at the beginning of this thread does not stand for "Other Teams", Joe. Though this is still "The Laker" blog.