Go deep, stay long

A while back, I spent some time on the CDT Fourcault diving shipwrecks of the North Sea. The trip was a blast, and I met some really wonderful divers. There were groups from Belgium, UK, USA, and Italy (actually only one diver from Italy). All were fine divers, and many great sea stories were told over the dinner table.

Since that time some of us have kept in touch, and exchanged photos and videos of the trip, and other dive events. The latest was a promotional video made for the vessel CDT Fourcault. There are clips from our trip, and even a shots of me.

Photo Gallery

When I was young, I built a darkroom in the corner of my bedroom, rolled my own film, and had photos published in the local papers. While I was never more than a novice, I’ve always enjoyed photography. Digital photography and digital video have made the process much simpler. Now sharing photos is also much easier.

With all the snow this winter, I had some time to do some sorting and reorganized the gallery.

Featured Albums:

Bonaire

Cozumel

Crystal River Manatees

Flamingo snail

After a few weekends of being snowed in, I had the opportunity to work through my piles of photos and relate some memories (and pictures) of past trips.Val and I visited Bonaire on two separate trips. I’ve attached some shots of resort (Buddy Dive), and added a new gallery.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bonaire, it is 50 miles north of South America (Venezuela to be exact). The island part of the Nether Antilles. This location of the Caribbean is constantly swept by easterly trade winds. The east side of the island is subject to rough waves and the shoreline is rocky. The western side of the island is protected in the lea. Here is some of the best diving of the Caribbean.

Sunset over Kline

The shore diving really is about as easy as it gets. The dock at Buddy Dive is only a few feet from the dive shop, and the reef is only a few fin strokes away. I spent the first day draining tank after tank poking around the reef. I was working with a new still camera, and practicing with the video housing. Surface intervals were only a quick stop for fresh tanks, batteries, or tape. The top of the reef is about 20 ft deep An Al 80 lasts quite a while at this depth, and decompression is impossible, especially on Nitrox. After 6 tanks, my wife dragged me out of the water for dinner.

The next day we got a map of the island and headed out in our pickup truck (provided with the suite). The west side of the island is rimed with a seemingly continuous reef. In some places it is a double reef with sand in between. On the shore, there are areas where you can park a your truck, gear up, and make an entrance. Some areas have docks and with ladders to facilitate access. These entrance sites have names, which are both on the map, and written on yellow stones along the side of the road.

Clearner shrimp on a butterfly

Our package included boat a few boat dives. These were mostly spent visiting Kline Bonaire. This is an uninhabited island to the west of Bonaire, also protected from the trade winds. Many of these dives were deeper as the slope to Kline was much steeper.

Many sections of the reef hold different microcosm and wild life. There are many web sites describing, so I’ll just point out some of the highlights. The Hilma Hooker is a shipwreck in the sand between a double reef. It’s a nice dive, and if you’re one of the first there, you will find a few large Tarpon hiding in the holds.

Salt Pier is where the dried sea salt is loaded onto ships. The structure of the pier seems to attract schools of fish, and event the shallows are full of life.

Fish to look for:

Eels: this is the one of the first times I’ve seen eels out hunting during the day.

Frog Fish: Another first for me. They are hard to spot, as their camouflage is nearly perfect.
Tarpon: They are huge, and will follow you on a night dive.

Sea horses: Ask your Dive Master where to find them.

School of fish: There are so many fish, that sometimes you feel like one of the crowd

Spotted Eagle Rays: These majestic rays swim effortless and leave you breathless if you try to follow.

Dolphins: I’m not sure how often these appear, but on one day we got snorkel with them on the surface interval.

I provided a simple answer to this question in a post last winter.  Over the past year, this post received a large number of hits, so it’s obviously this is a question that is often asked.   Therefore, I wanted to expound on the previous post.

There is no short answer to this question.  Ultimately, the limiting factor is either available gas, or environment.   The environmental factor here is cold.  Water transfers heat 25 times faster than air.  Even 80 degree water robs your body of heat.  This is why exposure protection is needed.  For the rest of this discussion, let’s assume there is sufficient exposure protection for the given water temperature.

Now the time limit is just a function of the available gas.  Let’s breakdown the answer based on type of diver.

Free Diving: Here the divers plunge to some amazing depths on one breath of air, and stay for several minutes before returning to the surface.  The limiting factor is the individuals tolerance for low Oxygen, and high CO2. I believe the current record is 124 M unassisted.  The maximum duration for static (resting) breath hold is 11 minutes 35 seconds.

Basic Scuba Diving: Here there are two limits:  The available gas in the diver’s tanks, and the no decompression limit for the depth.   There is a detailed explanation of the factors involved, but an average diver can stay between 60-80 ft for about an hour.

Technical Diving: Divers are limited by the number of tanks they use during the dive.  Some exceptional dives have been for over 18 hours.  Clearly a great deal of planning is required for these types of dives.  More routinely Technical Divers often go to 150-250 ft with durations around 90-120 minutes.

Rebreather Diving: A rebreather (as described here) removes the gas limitation, but imposes a limit on the duration of the scrubber material.  Based on the construction of the rebreather, this is usually between 3 and 11 hours.  The limiting factor here is the number of tanks a diver is willing to bring in case of rebreather failure.

Commercial Diving: These divers are provided gas from a surface vessel or station.  This technique also referred to as surface supplied, does not have a limit on the gas available.

Saturation Diving: In this case the divers body is completely saturated with inert gas.  In some cases the divers will utilize a habitat between dives.  This provides an area where the diver can warm up, and take food and liquids.  In essence there is no limit to the duration that a diver can live in saturation.  The down side is the extremely long time needed to decompress.

I hope this helps answer the question.   If you have any questions on this subject, send me a comment below.

Butterfly Forest

Okay, it’s not diving related, but while Val and I were in Florida, we had some time to kill.  Dali recommended the butterfly forest exhibit at the Florida University, Museum of Natural History. Given that Val has planted a butterfly friendly garden in our backyard, she was definitely interested.  As a nature lover, I was happy to join her.  After consulting the GPS, we jumped in the car and headed down.

When we entered the Museum, we discovered that there were several other exhibits.  The butterfly forest was only one of them.  On entry to the butterfly exhibit, the walls are covered floor to ceiling with display cases.  It quickly reminds you of the diversity of this order.

The forest itself was screened in, so the cool weather limited the activity.  Butterflies are most active when the weather is warm.  As the sun warmed the rocks and structure of the building, they became more active.   We walked around the exhibit taking pictures and reading the signs.  Several time a day one of the researchers at the museum come out and releases some of the newly hatched butterflies into the exhibit.  During this period they talked about the different species and the research going on there.

On the way out we stopped by the incubation area, where there were rows of chrysalis were hanging prior to hatching.  Here and there a newly hatched adult could be seen spreading their wings for the first time.

We spent a few hours touring the rest of the museum, learning about stages of Florida’s wildlife development over the past few million years.

If you get a chance, stop by, it’s great fun. Thanks, Dali for the recommendation.