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DODGERS, DARWIN, MALDIVES, & more
How about that Ohtani fellow . . .
WOW!!! - Even
if you not a Dodgers fan (or even a baseball
fan), hopefully you can appreciate the
magnificence of Shohei Ohtani's performance
Friday during the Dodgers' game 4 clinching
victory over the Brewers. Simply magnificent.
I'm not sure what the diving equivalent would be
but it's on the order or making your tank last
for three hours, seeing every rare fish in the
book, and then having a whale bring you back to
the boat. It was very special watching the
outing.
SO FAR, SO GOOD -
At the risk of jinxing it, we're very happy let
you know that we haven't had any incidents or
fatalities in L.A. County (can't speak for other
jurisdictions) since the opening of lobster
season two weeks ago. Keep up the good work.
Regardless of whether you're looking for bugs or
"just" diving recreationally, safety begins with
you and no one can have a greater impact on
whether you have a safe dive or not than you.
Develop a safety mindset and keep it going.
TROUBLE AT DARWIN ARCH -
Trouble for one hammerhead at least. Seems like
two Orcas got hold of him and finished him off.
There is FaceBook video: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1686904305289492 .I
think what's more surprising (to me) is that
there are Orcas in the Galapagos in the first
place. (They're well-known, especially at
Darwin, for schools of Hammerheads.) By the same
token, the Galapagos waters aren't exactly
tropical, certainly not below the equator. Then
again, Darwin Arch - called Darwin's Pillars
since the 2021 collapse - is above the equator.
But pretty amazing/interesting nonetheless.
OPEN YOUR TANK VALVE ALL THE WAY -
I've seen a couple of posts lately about people
noticing 20-30 minutes into their dive, that
their pressure gauge drops to zero psi and the
bounces back up. This is the telltale sign of a
tank valve not being fully opened when gearing
up. Essentially, you're sucking all the air out
of all of the hoses - primary, octo, SPG, and LP
inflator - faster than the tank can replenish.
And the reason the tank can't replenish fast
enough is because you didn't full open the tank
valve when hooking up your reg. It should take
3-4 turns to fully open. (You no longer need to
come back 1/4 turn.) One way to confirm your
valve is fully open is simply to do a quick hit
of the purge button on the reg while watching
the valve. The pressure should not change. If it
drops and then comes back up, confirm the valve
is fully open. If this happens to you
underwater, the quick solution is to signal your
buddy and have him/her fully open your valve.
(Make sure they don't mistakenly turn it off.)
But this is also why you should be doing a buddy
check prior to the start of every dive.
TRAVEL ADSVISORY FOR THE MALDIVES -
I call BS, since I was just there for almost the
entire month of September. It seems the U.S
issued an advisory due to the possibility of
terrorist activity since the Maldives is
comprised of many isolated islands and atolls
where terrorists can hide or attack without
resistance. I can tell you that we never felt
threatened or insecure while we were there,
including the days we walked around the capital
of Male. We also never heard of any such attacks
happening. A friend of mine knowns someone in
the Maldives Ministry of Defense who told him -
take this for what you will - that because the
Maldives will not allow people with an Israeli
passport to enter their country, Israel
asked/pressured the U.S. to issue the travel
advisory as a retaliatory tactic against the
Maldives, which depends heavily on tourism (the
Maldives received some 2 million visitors in
2024). We saw absolutely no signs of any unrest
or problems while we were there. The airport is
shiny, new, and bustling. Male seems vibrant and
thriving, and all of this IMHO seems much ado
about nothing and is simply politics at play on
an international scale.
LOOKING FOR WORK? -
The Aquarium of the Pacific has a job opening if
you're a current Instructor or Divemaster. The
position is that of Assistant Dive Safety
Officer (ADSO), is considered full-time (30
hours/week - three 10-hour shifts), and pays
around $40K/year ($26/hour). I think it also
comes with benefits. (And technically, for good
or bad, you'd be my boss.) Here's how the
Aquarium describes it along with a link to apply
- and more details about the job and
pre-requisites - if you're qualified and
interested: "Assistant
DSO - Paid Position, Full Time, 30 hours/week,
$26/hour - The Assistant Diving Safety Officer
of Aquarium Diving Operations (ADSOED) works
closely with the Diving Safety Officer to
oversee safe diving operations at the Aquarium
of the Pacific. The ADSOED is largely
responsible for the oversight of the routine
daily dive operations and training inside the
aquarium.
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/employment/info/assistant_dive_safety_officer
SPOTS HAVE OPENED UP ON BOTH THE INDO AND
PHILIPPINES TRIPS -
I guess we're NOT sold out for next year's trips
after all. Two spots have opened up for our
Indonesia trip July 1-13 (where we'll also
celebrate Marilyn Lawrence's 80th birthday) and
one male-share spot looks like it will open up
on our two week Philippines trip in September,
with one week on land at Atlantis Dumaguete and
one week on their liveaboard Infiniti.
If you're interested in either or both, give us
a call at 310/652-4990 or drop an e-mail to this
address.
TAKING MADAGASCAR OFF OUR LIST -
Looking ahead to 2027 and our planned trip to
Luxor, Egypt, for the total solar eclipse, one
part of the equation was figuring out where to
go diving after that. Although the Red Sea seems
the obvious choice, given the number of diving
incidents there in the past few years and a
seeming lack of a culture of safety, that wasn't
high on our list. But one thought was to go to
Madagascar (SE corner of Africa). That was, at
least, until we read about last week's military
coup there. So maybe we'll take that one off of
our list of possibilities and keep looking. One
option might to be do Luxor and then continue
eastward to the Maldives, again on Manthiri,
and then come home, making this a true
around-the-world-circumnavigate-the-globe
vacation trip.
SPEAKING OF MALDIVES -
I hope you had a chance to look at the
admittedly voluminous amounts of report, pix,
and videos from our fabulous back-to-back trips.
There's always an image or two we take on these
trips that becomes my favorite and this was the
one: A Sabre Squirrelfish doing a stare-down in
one of my favorite (and hardest) types of shots
to get, the dead-on-head-on: |
