Ships China Among the Wreckage

Every trip seems like the last – I think I cannot find enough people who want to come to Truk, and yet I still return. Some people like to return for a second trip, feeling like they just did not get enough on their last visit and others are intrigued and want to find out more. Two years ago, most of the group felt they were missing something and wanted to return but only if we ran the trip as a Technical Charter.

So what is a Technical Charter in Chuuk? Well it is a trip that steps beyond the typical charter by offering access to the deeper wrecks not often visited by divers to the lagoon. There is more room on the boat, the number of divers is limited to twelve, and more decompression gas is available. There is even surface supplied oxygen on the decompression bar. The boat has to add extra crew because of the depths of the dive and their knowledge of the wrecks is not as extensive as it is for the other wrecks they visit on a regular basis.

These charters tend to attract more experienced divers because of the depths and the decompression times required. The minimum training level required is Advanced EANx (IANTD) or Decompression Procedures and Advanced EANx (TDI) but more training to handle the depths and planning is highly recommended. I really recommend that a participant is better served with Technical EANx (IANTD) or Advanced Decompression Procedures (TDI) and a wreck penetration course under their belts. With more training, the divers tend to enjoy themselves more and stay underwater longer.

The Technical Diver Group

This week we are joined by a group of very experienced technical divers and a few new ones. My diving companions for the week are Geoff Barker, Steve Brennan (second time to Truk), Mark Conrad (second time to Truk), Ron Hicks (fourth time to Truk), Ann Keibler (third time to Truk), Jerry Kesielwski, Kelly Plato (second time to Truk), Pam Radford (second time to Truk), Bob Sloan (second time to Truk), Jess Stark (second time to Truk), Geoff Streitel (second time to Truk), and Stephanie Watowich (second time to Truk).

I have often thought that a live-aboard dive trip is the most relaxing dive trip but also the most active way to dive. Your equipment is set-up at the beginning of the week and sits there, ready to be donned in an instant. Ok, so maybe it takes more than an instant but it is already together and ready to go. Of course there is still the gas testing, configuration adjustments and the process of getting everything together that accompanies a technical dive but you are only a few steps from the water and a few steps from the ladder on your return. In between dives there are naps to take, books to read, logbooks to complete, planning for the next dive and for the photographers, photographs to download and process.

Geoff & Jerry Planning Their Dive

In general, our surface intervals are three hours between dives and there are three to four dives available each day. The planning portion becomes easier when you realize that the depths are mostly consistent for the dives with only a little variation in depth between the dives.

Our dives this week will be on a wide variety of wrecks, from passenger/cargo vessels to some light destroyers and even a submarine. The first dives of the day will be deeper with shallower wrecks in the later afternoon. Of course many of the “shallow” wrecks for a Technical Charter are the deep wrecks for a standard charter. Our schedule for the week is:

• Sunday:                      Arrive, 9:30 pm
• Monday:                     Nippo Maru, Hoki Maru, Rio de Janiero Maru
• Tuesday:                     Amagisan Maru, Shotan Maru, Fujikawa Maru
• Wednesday:               Aikoku Maru, Kensho Maru
• Thursday:                  Oite, I-169, Shinkoku Maru
• Friday:                        San Francisco Maru, Heian Maru
• Saturday:                   Nagano Maru, Fujisan Maru
• Sunday:                      Terra Firma Again
• Monday:                    Depart at 2:30am

Only on a dive vacation would the day begin at 6:00 am. Breakfast on the Odyssey is a hot, made-to-order breakfast served to you in the dining salon. There are pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereals, juices and of course COFFEE!

Kelly Plato After a Dive

At about 6:30 the engines start and the crew moves us to the fist dive site of the day. In Chuuk, most of the wrecks are fairly close together, scattered around Tonoas, Weno, and Uman so moving between them is not a long steam. At about 7:30 the crew has the boat tied up, the lines rigged, the ladders down and are ready for divers to jump in. Of course there is a short dive briefing before each dive to aquaint us with the boats location on the wreck, the highlights of the wreck and any other things we should be aware of. The biggest one of these items is the planned departure time for the next wreck.

Diving these wrecks is always a new experience for me. While this is my sixth trip to Chuuk and I have had a number of dives on most of these vessels, I still find new things that I have not noticed before as well as the realization that nature is working to reclaim these massive ships.

One of the most notable is the fly bridges on the Aikoku Maru. In 1998, they were still in position, hanging majestically over the edge of the hull. Over the next few visits they began to sag and now they are merely rubble hanging down over the hull. They are just another pile of twisted metal, appearing to be a part of the damage caused by the explosion of the ammunition hold.

Catalogs of Time

Some people will tell you that ghosts remain on some of these wrecks. There was a large loss of life on many of the wrecks we visited during this week and the remains of these fallen sailors and soldiers are still there. While there was an effort to remove them and give them a proper Shinto send-off in the late 80’s, there are still bones on most of the wrecks including some skulls. Diving the deeper wrecks increases your chances of coming across them exponentially. This experience makes you realize that these are more than diving attractions but also underwater graves, interments for sailors and soldiers who were not fortunate enough to escape the bombings, torpedos and fires. On the Oite, a destroyer, over 400 people perished in the attack.

Diving these wrecks is like swimming through a time capsule; time stopped in 1944 for these ships and the men they took with them. Their personal belongings as well as the cargo are from another place and time. They are reminders how temporary life can be on this earth.

Fine Wine

What makes these trips special is the people. Most of the people on this trip have been diving together for three or more years. They have taken classes together, helped on another with courses and evaluations and practiced skills with one another. They have traveled together including a trip to Chuuk. Their interaction with one another made this trip especially fun and entertaining.

Who can forget Pam’s “Blink” taste test with wine and beer or Kelly’s agreement to let Jess apply some Krazy Glue to his abused, cut hands. And of course, there was wine served with every meal and several bottles of special wine, thanks to Pam, served with some.

It was a great week of diving and I look forward to the next week when our new diving family arrives but I will miss this group when they leave. There is nothing like diving with these fun loving people.

We had a pre-trip meeting for our September Truk trip.  We have thirteen divers headed over at the end of August for a week of technical diving on the deep wrecks and then we are teaming up with Matt Reed for another week of wreck diving on a more recreational charter.  Some of the people from the first week will remain for the second week but we also have some new people arriving for this week.

I am excited about returning to Truk.  This will be my sixth trip to Truk Lagoon.  Every time I tell myself, this will be the last trip, I should go somewhere else nest time, I find the lure of these wrecks, the warm water and the people I have met calling me back.  In preparing the trip information sheet for this year’s trip, I looked back through some of the earlier packets as well as the photographs from earlier trips.  A lot of friends have joined me on these trips over the years and it was fun to look back and see some much younger faces peering back at me.

Many of those people moved away and started diving in their new home waters; others like Eric & Patricia Bancroft are busy raising children and find little time for technical diving.  Still, there are a number of the people who remain active divers with us, exploring the hidden wonders in other exotic locations.

As we march steadily toward our twentieth year in business, I suspect we will be looking back at a number of old photographs and remembering trips and friends from the past.  We have trained a lot of divers over those years and have taken thousands of people all over the planet to look under the lapping blue waters.  We have been touched by the many special people we have met in those locations and our outlook on the world will be forever changed.

For our new divers, welcome to the family, for those from all of those past years…why don’t you write?????

I should know better, since I was a kid on the AAU swim teams, I have needed to dry out my ears with ear drops or suffer the consequences.  So here I am, paying the piper for a ignored procedure last week.  I guess it is time to mix up some more ear drop solution and put it back in my dive bag.  I have my own solution based on some suggestions I received from my doctor and some experimentation.  It may not be the best solutions and it may not work for everyone.  But, it works for me.  You might check with your doctor.

Tom Mount suggested using a domeboro solution instead of my solution becasue alcohol can lead to drying and cracking of the ear tissues.  According to Web MD “this medication is used to treat infections of the tube (canal) of the outer ear (external otitis). This product contains acetic acid/aluminum acetate, a combination that kills bacteria and fungus that cause infection. Wetness in the ear canal can help bacteria and fungus to grow. This medication also causes drying of the ear canal, helping to cure the infection.”  Tom’s point is that it is less abusive on the ear canal.  The one downside to this is that it is available only with a prescription.

The most important thing in preventing ear infections is to dry out the ear canal so that harmful bacteria and fungus don’t grow and cause the infection that i am now suffering with.  Some people use their hair dryers to dry their ears but since I have little hair left, I don’t use a hair dryer too ofter.  I am not even sure where it is.

Treating the ear infection once it starts is important becasue you do not want it to travel into the inner ear.  So, your Doctor should prescribe some ear drops and maybe some oral antibiotics to combat the infection.  Remember to complete the cycle as your doctor tells you.  It is a bit harder to get rig of the infection if it becomes a more resistant strain.

I have a lot of diving to do overn the next two months so I need to get rid of this sooner rather thna later.  Hence the muffled hearing I spokeof earlier.

Platinium Pro Winners - Jess Stark, Eric Keibler, Gary Taylor

Several members of the Oceanic Ventures Staff have just returned from DEMA, the diving industry trade show.  The purpose of the show is for retailers to preview equipment, training products and travel locations so they can bring new things back to their clients at home.  The training agencies host parties and meetings to showcase their offerings and to thank members for their support in the previous year and in the upcoming year.

SSI is no different, hosting its annual dealer social at the Rivera hotel.  It was great to see friends from all over the country – many of whom we only see at these events.  Julie Footman was on hand to shake her head but to also offer her support to Ann for her 2009 Cold Water Diving Program to help her Antarctica divers gain some diving experience.  We will be joining Julie in Maine after the group completes their Ice Diving Course, at Lake Winipasakui, New Hampshire in February (there is still room for interested people).  Julie is the owner of Aqua Diving Academy in Portland Maine and has been a great source of information for a number of things including dry suits and repairs.  She is also a good friend. 

During the dealer social, I was awarded my Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor Award.  This means that I am old and have been teaching a long time.  The award is based on points made up of a number of things from Instructor Ratings to Number of years diving; but, primarily, it the points are the number of students I have taught over the eighteen years (see what I mean about being old).  [Find out more about Eric and this award by pressing here or going to www.oceanicventures.com].

Jess Stark and Gary Taylor (a member of our adjunct faculty) were both honoured during DEMA this year.  Both of these men have been diving a long time and have accumulated in excess of 5000 dives (Gary has in excess of 10,000 dives).  They were among this year’s recipients of the Platinum Pro 500 divers award, given by SSI.  They join a very exclusive club of divers representing the who’s who of divng.  We were fortunate to have been able to nominate both of these people as well as two other designees – Lamar Hires, CEO of Dive Rite and Ron Carlo, manufacturer’s representative for a number of lines including Dive Rite.  Congratulations to all of you!

Another party we attended was hosted by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.  They always throw great parties!  Of course it is even more fun since the Houston office is full of our students!  It was quite an evening full of free drinks, horśderves and good company.  Carl Griffing joined us at the party as did Robert Hew and Ian McKnight.  Of course, Carl and Ashton seemed to have a better time than most of us – at least their evening lasted longer.  I guess I’m getting too old!

Of course we did much more than party.  The group attended Risk Management seminars hosted by IANTD and another by SSI.  There were seminars on selling & teaching technical diving, recruiting, marketing, new camera systems, improving your client’s photographs, dealer product updates and new course offerings.  We all had meetings with manufacturers and manufacturers representatives, destination representatives and a host of other meetings.  Through it all, we also had some goals of things we needed to accomplish and some new products we needed to find.

And we did come back with some really cool things.  Here are a few of the things we brought back to Oceanic Ventures:

• Komodo, Indonesia live aboard – The crew of the Archipelago Explorer II are excited about the potential of rebreather diving and with the help of Oceanic Ventures and Silent Diving Systems they are hosting the first live-aboard, all rebreather dive adventure in Indonesia!  This trip promises to be and extra special experience and a real treat for rebreather divers!  The trip will be 22 July 2009 to 2 August 2009, give or take a few days (Dive Mom is finalizing the air schedule)
• Cool New Lights – We found some really cool new LED lights that are more affordable than anything we have had in the past.  These new lights, which come in a flood versin and a spot version use Lithium batteries and are rated to 400 ft.
• Inexpensive back-up Light – When you need an inexpensive back-up light that fits in your pocket or on your BCD, we have a suggestion.  A 5 LED light for $9.95.  Pretty cool find!
• Camera Spotting Light – This light is different from anything we have seen before.  It is a spotting light with an sensor that shuts-off the light when your electronic strobe fires, keeping the different temperature lights out of your photograph.
• 8 megapixel Camera & Housing for $199.95 – What a find!  As Dave said when he was telling us abut this at one of our morning staff meetings during the show, this makes photography affordable for everyone.  New divers and experienced divers can start taking underwater photographs almost from the start.  And, you can always add an external strobe later to improve your photography even more.  We are so excited about this new starter camera that we have put one in the pool for our students to try during dive class!
• New Training Options – The new buzzword in dive training is on-line training.  Ann, Dave and I have been watching this for several years and we believe that now there is a good product that will meet the needs of some divers.  Beginning in 2009, Oceanic Ventures will begin offering On-line education as a part of its training program.  Keep an eye out for more details on this program.

We believe that DEMA was very successful for us this season.  We appreciate all of the staff’s help during the show (Ashton, Dave, Barney & Barbara at the show and Zaide in the office).  I hope you will come by and let me show you these way cool things!  If you can’t make it by, send me an message and I’ll tell you more about them.

 We were the guests of the Elizabeth Himes with the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, sponsors for the club this year.  After a little white wine the first match started.  Who would have thought Ashton was such polo fan – he kept an active score sheet and was familiar with some of the players.  In looking through the guide, we found that several of our clients actively played polo at the club and others were supporters.  It is always fun to find out what other activities your clients are involved in outside of Scuba.

Ann & Cindy Thompson Enjoying a Glass of Wine

Between the two matches, we were treated to wine from a small California winery, a tour of two Jaguar convertibles and a Rang Rover all mid-field.  The wine was nice and the cars were beautiful.  Ann really wants a Jaguar convertible so this did not really help squash that desire…

 We followed the Polo match with dinner and drinks (mostly Iced Tea).  It was a fun day and definitely different from what we normally do – Polo anyone?

Yesterday I spoke with a gentleman from Surfside, a small town on the coast, and he said that his roof was gone and everything was wet but he was lucky – he still had a house.  Many of his neighbors were not so fortunate.  There were pilings (homes in this area are built on stilts) where houses used to sit and piles of debris that represented years of hard work sitting in the road.  These people had truly lost everything they had.

When you hear stories like these, I feel guilty about the depression I feel when looking at the store.  For our part, the majority of what we had is still there and only a little of it is totally lost.  And we have insurance to help replace what was lost.  More than anything, we are all fine. 

Our staff seemed to have weathered the storm and are coping with the changes the storm has brought.  Wade has no power and is maintaining his freezers and sanity with two generators.  Their hurricane plans called for the installation of two small window units to help keep the moisture down in their home for the month or two it takes to get power restored in their neighborhood.  Steve  still has no power and is using a generator to keep the food, beer, and wine cold while using fans to keep cool.  Vernon is getting more help from his Mother-in-Law since her home is in Galveston which is only open during daylight hours.  Fortunately, here home came through the storm in reasonably good condition.  Chuck finally got power back as did Mike. 

Barney suffered some damage at his home but found his boat safely tied in its slip.  For his part, procrastination paid off since their plans were to move the boat to the cannal behind their new home, but he had gotten around to adding the pylon he needed t secure it properly.  This probably kept his boat from being one of those that greets you on the highway on the way into Galveston.

Some of the staff are still feeling like vagabonds or summer campers.  They are still waiting for power to be restored.  According to the news, Centerpoint Energy has restored power to 66% of their customers (thankfully we are one of the ones with power both at the store and at home).

 The piles of drywall in front of the store have been removed.  The dehumidifiers were silenced yesterday and the few remaining fans noisily running throughout the morning were cut-off and pulled front he store.  The Steam Team, our flood recovery specialists, ended their siege of our space and removed the last vestiges of their encampment.  Our space has been pronounced “dry.”

 While the specialists were crawling around the office, Oceanic Ventures restarted business in full swing, with classes resuming last evening.  Ann and Ashton are still staged at the western office (our house) and I am manning the store while working with the building management and our insurance carrier to resolve the situation and revamp the piles back into an operational facility.  We have a lot of work to do but we also have a lot of support from our friends, staff and clients.  The hard part is deciding where to start and what needs to be done next.

 As I suggested in an email message, when things get too rough, remember your last dive trip and focus on the underwater beauty.  I for one have been spending a lot of time in Cayman and the Pacific.  These images continue to remind me of why I do what I do; and they serve as a catalyst to move on so I can continue to introduce others to the wonders that await them underwater.

There is still a lot to do to clean-up after Ike.  Some of the traffic lights are coming back on line which is creating some confusion since some are out, some a blinking and others are fully functional.  Over the past few days, a number of our clients and friends have checked-in and thankfully most have had only minimal damage to their homes and are safe.  Some are still out of town while others have returned to start putting things back together

Stan Watowich was able to get onto Galveston island to accesses his lab at UTMB.  He felt that things were in reasonable shape and they could recover quickly as soon as power was restored.  While most of his graduate students are unable to get back to the island, he did check their homes and found that most were in reasonable shape but a few of their homes were destroyed.  

OVI World-Wide Headquarters at Pat Croll

As for us, we have now moved the Oceanic Ventures command central from its temporary location in Katy to its newest point – our house, where Ann and Ashton are having a bonding experience around our diving room table.  We now have the email server, data servers, individual computers all running here – imagine having an entire office worth of computers crammed under your diving room table with cables running everywhere.  By Saturday our new credit card machine will be on hand so we can process your purchases and trip deposits

This week we have met with the water removal specialists from the Steam Team (a very impressive group from Austin), our insurance adjuster and our landlord.  At this point, we are still unsure about what we will be doing with the store.  We still have no power there, the dehumidifiers and fans are running on generators, the computer system has been relocated, and the phones have been rolled.  We are looking at moving to some temporary space either elsewhere in the complex or nearby.  The major problem right now is power – most places, including our building do not have any.

 

We are operating with repairs being done off-site and equipment purchases being delivered by appointment.  The Fedora Lounge across the street from the store has been popular with cold beer and mixed drinks to keep everyone relaxed and happy.

 

It has been interesting to see how people are dealing with the storm and the aftermath.  Yesterday, the owner of a Republic Mortgage, a fellow tenant, hosted a luncheon for his staff and anyone who was around at the time.  We saw other tenants as well as the generator delivery crew and the Steam Team members joining with the mortgage staff for some fun and great Mexican food out in front of our buildings.

 

In talking to the office manager of Semark pest control, when she returned home she found that she had had water in her house.  But her attitude was that all of her family was safe and in passing she said she told her husband “I have wanted some new things, now we have the opportunity!”  She has a great attitude and a warm thankful smile.  We even joked with Kim, who had most of her nail polish bottles crash onto her hardwood floor and break, that maybe she could put a piece of glass over the polish and create an are piece on the floor.  Of course she did not think much of the suggestions but enjoyed the humor in the thought.

 

It is important to keep injecting some humor in our days right now.  Things are a little awkward and they certainly do not run as efficiently as we would like them to.  As many merchants are saying right now, “thank you for your patience.”  With some patience and laughter we will get through this!

Ike in the Gulf

As many of you probably know and may have experienced, we were visited by hurricane Ike in the early morning hours on Saturday. We were lucky in that the main force of the storm moved a little east of its original path which put us more on the dry side with slower winds and less rain. Still, we had at least 90 mile an hour winds and at least 10 inches of rain.

On the face of it, our house came through without allot of damage. Ann and I came through the storm fine. Luckily, our house received little damage and all of our trees survived the storm. It was a good thing Ashton and Jeremy helped Ann trim the tree. Some of our neighbors were not so lucky.

We have no power, the water pressure is low and there are leaves and small branches everywhere. The fish are swimming in green water with leaves floating on top and the street looks like a war zone.

The store did not fare as well. The storm lifted the corner of the roof on our building and broke it up allowing the water to enter the store. The sheetrock just outside the store fell down and the sheetrock in the store sagged with the weight of the water. Since friends called us to alert us, I came in and relieved the pressure by punching holes in the ceiling. Of course it was too late to abate some of the damage. The store is a total mess with all of the carpets, electronics and paperwork wet.

Houston too is a mess with blocked streets, trees down and over 90% of the residents without power. Driving is an adventure with lanes and entire streets blocked by 100 year old trees and traffic lights dangling from their wires. At the larger intersections, the fixed traffic poles are twisted with the lights facing in incorrect directions.

Things will be a little disjointed over the next month but we are up and running. I am thankful; no one we know of was hurt and the damage we received was minimal compared to others. Our friends are safe and while we have a lot of work to do, we are keeping a positive outlook, trying to remember that things usually turn out for the best. We have some exciting things happening but we have some challenges to work through as well.

Ray Turek getting ready

My cadre of students finished their courses.  Ray Turek completed his Normoxic Trimix course and may have been convinced that CCR was the only way to dive deeper because you could stay longer.  Of course, he’ll now have to explain the need to his wife and then decide on which unit is right for him.  He certainly got to see a variety of units here this week.  Kim Smith from KISS rebreathers was here as was Peter Den Hann from Silent Diving Systems the North American distributer of the Evolution and Inspiration rebreathers.  Paul Rainmaker, designer of the rEvo rebreather was here showing off his new rebreather.  Then there were the divers themselves sporting a number of units including the Sentinel from VR technologies, several Inspirations, Evolutions, Evolution Plus’, an Optima, a Titan or two, a Megalodon, a few KISS Classics, a KISS Sport, and some rEvo’s.

While Ray was completing his Normoxic course, Madison Lee and Mark Nawman were working on their Trimix Course.  They ended their training on Friday with a 300 foot dive near Dolphin Drop-Off in the west bay.  All three of them received preliminary certificates at the closing session on Friday evening.

Madison ready to Go

The training was a minor part of the week at least for me.  The best part was the diving.  Due to the winds from Gustov and Hanna, our diving was primarily off the West Bay portion of the island.  Of course, this is not a real problem since these walls are beautiful and the aquatic life is abundant.

Diving deep in Grand Cayman is a real treat because not only are the deep portions of the walls beautiful, but your decompression is spent on the walls as well.  This makes for a more entertaining stay and a more relaxed dive.

Coming up the coral canyons at Big tunnels treated us to more than 14 lobsters milling about and two chasing one another around the reef.  In Orange Canyon and at both Leslie’s Curl and Dolphin drop off we were treated to exhibitions by the ultimate free-divers – the turtles.  Rays and sharks greeted the divers on most dives and even the sharks made an appearance.

All in all it was a fun event and we had some great dives.  The staff at Cobalt Coast and DiveTech work hard to make these events special and they succeeded once again.

See the press release at http://www.caymannetnews.com/news-9858–1-1—.html

Tek Week Group