Sea Stories

There are many scuba training organizations out there. PADI (professional association of diving instructors) is just one of them. Most of these agencies allow the Course Director (C-Ditz) to certify open water instructors. PADI (often referred to as "put another dollar in") decided to make instructor candidates go through an IE (instructor evaluation) by PADI headquarters staff, having the last word on instructor rating and of course collecting more money. I was an IDC (instructor development course) staff instructor. A candidate in one IDC, was an expat that owned a small resort on Grand Cayman. After graduation from the IE, he invited me and my then girlfriend at the time to come stay and dive there. Only had to pay for airfare and food. We stayed there for 5 days. After diving with him a couple times, he showed me the air fill station, pointed out the local dive sites and handed me the keys to his boat! His villa was on Seven Mile Beach. Needless to say we took full advatage of the opportunity.
 
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medtran49 said:
We were on a live aboard dive boat on a hunting trip to the Dry Tortugas. I was having trouble equalizing pressure, so had Craig go on down to start hunting while I swam above him trying to get my ears to equalize. He was swimming along through a dense school of fish, but so was a huge bull shark (close to half again bigger than him), and they were on a COLLISION course, talk about heart in mouth, nothing I could do. They didn't see each other because of all the little fish until they were about nose to nose. Abrupt 90 degree turns in opposite directions. It's funny now, but I was screaming into my regulator at the time.

That was not a good trip for me. We were on a deep dive where we had to make decompression stops and I got a reverse block (happens when you are ascending and pressure won't equalize). As the divers know, the stops have to be for certain amounts of time at certain depths or you may get the bends. I started getting more and more ear pain as we were ascending. It was severe by the time we made our last deco stop and got even worse when we surfaced, along with severe vertigo to the point I was uncontrollably throwing up. Had to be helped back onto the boat, even to walk pretty much at that point. Spent most of the rest of the trip flat on my back in our cabin, had to lay the car seat back as far as it would go for the 2 hour drive back home, then to the ER. Blew a tiny hole in my eardrum with bad bruising around it. Couldn't drive for a month and had episodes of mild vertigo if I moved too fast or turned my head too fast for months afterward.

Yes, I went back to diving after I healed, but was told some tricks by my ENT doctor, who was a diver himself, that weren't acceptable medical advice, which basically was that I really shouldn't dive anymore, and he would deny ever saying, but they worked.
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I have a problem with my right ear, ENT specialist advised me not to scuba, I have an ear plug for swimming and snorkelling but that is it.
 
MypinchofItaly said:
Here I am, another Open Water Diver PADI
I did only two dives, then due to lack of time I stopped (I like to say I stopped as if I were some kind of expert!)
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Most PADI Open Water certifications require 4 open water dives. Do you mean you did 2 dives after certification?
 
Jack Castor,aka Jacques Cousteau, what a piece of work! :mad: After he and his buddies decimated the grouper population in the Med, he decided to discontinue selling spearguns from U.S. Divers (Aqualung) around 1977. One of his first tv specials was the Bahama Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a deep area surrounded by a coral atoll. When it is low tide the corals are usually exposed above the water. Now just how do you get a ship, the Calypso, into the Blue Hole? The owner of the last dive store I worked at had some interesting pictures locked in his safe, that he showed me one day. Dynamite anyone?
 
So the Jacques Cousteau portrayed on the TV specials as the great protector of the oceans was a fabrication? Oh my.... now you have my curiosity up. WOW!
 
Backbay said:
So the Jacques Cousteau portrayed on the TV specials as the great protector of the oceans was a fabrication? Oh my.... now you have my curiosity up. WOW!
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Your not likely to find any info on the Blue Hole regarding good ole Jacques. There is info on the one in Belize.
 
We came across a hogfish at a decent price at the restaurant supply place when we went to pick up the clams for dinner tonight. Check out those teeth. They root through the sand and outer layers of coral looking for tiny crustaceans to eat. Those fins on top come up and look like the top head feathers on a cockatoo. We would always be on the look out for these fish when diving. They aren't the brightest light bulbs in the fish world. One time we were swimming along and I saw a good sized hogfish like the one we just bought, 6.27 pounds, around 20 inches long, while it was busily eating a small crab. I swam right up to it, put the spear tip nearly touching it in the kill spot, waited for it to finish its meal, then shot it.

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medtran49 said:
Hey now, I let it have its last meal, and it never knew what hit it. 🤣
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I was fishing for the first time with granddaughter about 3? Years ago, she caught a wee fish and wound it in, I cut its head off, she screamed blue murder. We havnt gone fishing again!! :)

Russ
 
Backbay said:
Medtran49, how will you prepare the hog fish?
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I'm sure 1 way will be a crab stuffing on top since that is pretty much our favorite. Who knows about the rest. Hogfish is a very mild, delicate tasting fish.
 
Eastern Stews
In 1980 I taught a semi private class of 3 Eastern Stewardesses. Now I'm an advocate of booties and fins that use straps. One of these ladies just had to use snorkeling fins where the toes can be exposed. When we went for their open water dives, we had just finished our skills part and started on a little tour. I was leading, when all of a sudden the one with the snorkeling fins passes me on the left, swimming upside down. I signal her "whats up" and she points behind her. I glance back and find several trigger fish in a line following her. They had been picking at her pink, polished toe nails. Trigger fish have pretty sharp "beaks" for picking at coral. When we got back to shore an ample amount of nail polish remover fixed the problem, so the second dive went smoothly. They had planned a diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico and said if I paid my airfare, I could stay with them. Being married, I had to decline the offer.
 
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