International viewpoint

The mantas of Yap

18 June 2011, 07:59

International viewpoint comes courtesy of Undercurrent magazine, www.undercurrent.org , and this blog is by Bret Gilliam.

Bret Gilliam has been professionally involved in the diving industry since 1971. logging more than 18,000 dives worldwide since he started diving in 1958. His background includes scientific expeditions; military/commercial projects; operating hyperbaric treatment facilities, liveaboard dive vessels and luxury yachts; ownership of retail dive stores and a Caribbean resort; and filming projects for movies, TV series and documentaries. Additionally, he is ex-Chairman of the Board of Directors of NAUI, former CEO of UWATEC, and recently retired as President of International Training Inc. (TDI, SDI, ERDI) when he sold the company in February 2004. Bret is a prolific writer and photographer, covering various subjects related to diving. He has been published in virtually every diving magazine in the U.S., Europe and Asia, as well as National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Time, Playboy, and others. Bret has twice been the recipient of NAUI's Outstanding Contribution to Diving Award, and the Beneath the Seas Foundation has honored him five years in a row from 2005 to 2009 by naming him a Legend of the Sea.

Like most dive locations worth visiting these days, Yap is not easily accessible. First you have to fly at least 13-14 hours from the west coast of the U. S. (six hours more from the east coast) just to get to Guam. Then you’ll have to negotiate the Byzantine schedule of Continental Micronesia to get a flight into Yap that may require you to go by way of Palau, another three hours in the wrong direction, and then backtrack.

At least when you finally make your way into the Yap airport the first person to greet you is not some uptight uniformed customs agent but a topless teenaged girl in a grass skirt who offers you a flowered lei and a cheerful smile. Now that’s tourism promotion at its finest. And it’s your first clue that this island is distinctly different from the well-beaten path to other more mainstream destinations in the Pacific.

Yap’s main claim to fame for most observers was its peculiar stone money that could be 12 feet tall weighing a ton and required paddling or sailing it from other remote islands in dugout canoes. (Kinda makes you wonder about their ATM machines, doesn’t it?) It didn’t register on the radar of scuba diving destinations until the mid-1990s. It all started about 25 years ago when Bill Acker, the founder of Yap Divers, was trying to figure what to do with Paul Tzimoulis of Skin Diver magazine on a day that produced weather so severe that diving outside the reefs was out of the question.

As the wise man once said, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Bill didn’t exactly invent anything but he decided to pull a rabbit out of his proverbial hat and entice Tzimoulis to try a different kind of diving. He approached the subject with considerable caution not wanting to piss off the influential writer who, at that time, could make or break a resort operator with a few strokes of the pen.

“Paul, you can see that today isn’t really shaping up as a good one,” Bill began as eight-foot waves pounded the reef sending plumes of salt spray another twenty feet overhead. “And I know I promised you some great reef and wall dives if you’d finally come out here and take a look at Yap. But today is one of those days that are sort of beyond our control…” he paused as Tzimoulis started giving him one of those “I’ve heard this a million times” looks.

Bill quickly abandoned any thoughts he might have had about suggesting a cultural tour of the island’s stone money banks and frozen-in-time native villages. Clearly having traveled over 15,000 miles, the Skin Diver publisher was expecting to get wet no matter what the problem.

Bill’s house was located way out on the east side of the island and his balcony overlooked the inside channels that his boats used as a protected waterway through the mangroves saving an outside passage when it was rough. He used to take his morning coffee on his balcony that overlooked the area and he had noticed mantas swimming in the limited visibility but had never thought to try diving with them. Clutching at straws, he decided to see if he could spark some interest in diving with a promise of mantas.

So he explained to Tzimoulis that they might be able to catch some manta activity, was he willing to give it a try? Although skeptical, Tzimoulis agreed and Bill took a deep breath, crossed his fingers, and off they went to a rendezvous with destiny. Because, as almost any diver now knows, Yap is to mantas what Cozumel is to tequila. Tzimoulis wrote the first feature on Yap’s resident manta population shortly thereafter and since then the place has been branded as “the” place to see these colossal animals.

It’s proven to be a mixed blessing for Bill and for Yap.

On trip to Yap about a decade ago, I asked Bill why he hadn’t offered the manta diving before Tzimoulis. He stroked his long mustache and took a thoughtful gulp from a cold beer and reflected, “I never really thought anyone would be interested in diving in the channels because the visibility was poor. I mean, we had these crystal clear conditions on our outer reefs and walls and I just couldn’t see dumping divers in the 30-40 foot viz inside no matter what was there. I guess I was wrong because the divers we took to the mantas went friggin’nuts.”

And therein lies Yap’s rather ironic problem. On an island that arguably can lay claim to some of the most pristine coral reef structures to be found anywhere in the world, the dive operators have been faced with visiting divers who come only to see the mantas for a couple of days and dash off. None the less, Bill has built quite a successful hotel, restaurant and dive operation by giving his customers exactly what they came for… even to the extent of guaranteeing manta sightings.

He ruefully notes, “The mantas are great and I never appreciated how truly unique the experience was until Paul promoted it in Skin Diver so many years ago. Of course, I’m grateful but to think of Yap as only a place to see mantas is far too limiting. Our other diving is just as good.”

He’s dead-on right. The diving in Yap, particularly off the east side is nothing short of spectacular. I must admit that I fell into the “manta trap” myself and only scheduled three days on Yap my first visit. After getting dive bombed by as many as seven mantas so close that even a 12mm 178 degree lens couldn’t frame them, I was impressed. I had never seen manta action like that anywhere and I’d been around the block a few times in nearly every dive locale in the world. It was intoxicating and seductive.

No matter what they offered me for alternative dives on that first trip, I was hooked on the mantas and spent the better part of three days grinding roll after roll of film while laying on my back as they flew over me inches away.

Bill’s extremely competent staff have identified four distinct cleaning stations that attract the mantas and it’s a simple matter of getting into position where his guides place you and then hunkering down to wait. Their sighting success is good enough that if you sign up for at least four days diving, they’ll guarantee that you’ll see the rays.

As long as no one tries to encroach on a fairly well defined comfort zone, the mantas are content to hover at the cleaning stations for prolonged periods. One of my dives had three individual females continually orbit the coral head we had staked out for the better part of an hour. Although the visibility is never particularly good and further complicates flash photography by a preponderance of particulate matter making back-scatter a certainty, the experienced photographer gravitates to extreme wide angle natural light compositions with great success. Of course, there are days when an incoming current gets everything right and the viz is damn perfect inside as well. With those conditions, the manta photography options are unchecked.

Outside the Yap Divers’ waterfront patio a huge display showcases scores of mantas that the staff have identified over the years. Each individual is indexed by sex, size and unique markings making positive ID’s possible. It’s both interesting and educational and Bill’s eager to please staff encourages you to take a more structured “manta awareness” seminar that does a nice job of explaining the life cycle, habits, and biology of the species. One thing’s for sure, you’ll have the opportunity to see more mantas here than anywhere else and that alone is worth the trip.

But you would be making a mistake not to indulge yourself in the exceptional diving available outside the manta channels. There are maybe two other places in the Pacific that can showcase coral formations like those found on the east side of Yap. The coral structures, variety, and reef condition are easily within the top three destinations in the world. Visibility can often exceed 200 feet making the overall experience simply breathtaking. Add some great wall diving, exciting shark activity, superb macro critters, and great pelagic sightings… it’s worth adding to any diver’s logbook.

Bill has discovered two other notable additions to the varied diving. Several eagle ray cleaning stations have been identified where these lesser cousins of the manta can be observed up close and personal. Just as exciting is the scene just after dark when hundreds of mandarin fish come out of the coral and swim around in certain “secret spots” to the delight of macro photographers. It’s possible to frame several fish at once including mating rituals and males in full fighting behavior.

Yap was spared the devastation to its coral resources that so dramatically affected other areas in the region in the aftermath of the infamous El Nino of 1997-98 when ocean temperatures soared and reached nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit for a sustained period. This led to a devastating mortality for both soft and hard corals in other Micronesian islands. For reasons not entirely understood, Yap completely escaped and now boasts thriving coral gardens that may not be seen again in our lifetimes elsewhere.

While I preferred the windward east side due to the corals, the western lee offers the best wall diving while the south end combines drop-offs with towering coral cathedrals and caverns. All areas offer superb visibility and enough pelagic action to keep your adrenaline fix satisfied.

When you’re not diving, Acker’s Manta Ray Bay Hotel is an ideal base conveniently located right on Colonia harbor with all diving services (including nitrox) on premises. Bill built the three-story hotel himself and it offers 23 rooms that are clean, comfortable and delightfully decorated in different marine themes. And the food is excellent.

Another addition to the resort property is Bill’s latest toy: the 170-foot sailing schooner Mnuw (Sea Hawk). He found the 100-year old traditional wooden vessel in Bali after an exhaustive search for an appropriate craft to refit as a luxury floating restaurant and bar. It arrived and opened for business moored right in front of the hotel in December 2001 and was an immediate success. It’s a massive ship that conjures up something right out of an Errol Flynn swashbuckler movie with an eerie resemblance to Captain Hook’s flagship.

But there’s no finer place to sip a cold beer and chow down on some of the delectable food fare. I passed the better part of an afternoon with a spirited bunch of divers who pondered the great questions in life such as “How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?” as well as ruminating that the primary problem with the gene pool is that there is no life guard on duty. So much for suggesting that tropical islands tend to induce a certain alcohol fueled torpor.

Finally, I cannot end without noting briefly the phenomenon of beetle nut consumption. Although beetle nut use is widespread in Micronesia, Yap apparently enjoys a particularly enhanced reputation among those who indulge as the source of the best quality product (like Maui put the “Wowee” in their renowned cannabis) … and virtually everyone from grade school kids to grandmothers seems to have their mouth full.

Acker himself is a veteran beetle nut aficionado and, in fact, even chews underwater while diving. There’s no hiding the fact that you’re a beetle nut user since it rather permanently stains the teeth and gums a sort of diminished red and leads outside observers to suspect that a primary side affect of the habit is repeatedly biting your tongue.

Of course, this leads to an inevitable need to periodically spit lustily and the island parking lots, streets and paths are all festooned with the red residue of countless vigorous expectorations. This necessitates a certain slalom course discipline when walking to negotiate the ubiquitous “wet spots” when venturing away from the hotel. That leads me to this last reflection on beetle nut and its pervasive influence.

Just up the hill from Acker’s hotel is a swankly appointed resort called Trader’s Ridge. It’s exquisite in every detail and most divers make the pilgrimage up a steep path to sample their bar and restaurant at least once. The high view of Colonia is superb and every element of the hotel is first class. But training the local staff was apparently still in the works when I first visited in 2002.

I joined a group of Texans for dinner in the open air dining room that overlooked the tropical gardens one night and a fine meal was enjoyed by all. As the dessert dishes were cleared away, our barefoot sarong-clad waitress, who was all of maybe seventeen, presented the bills to each party. One of the Texans proffered a Gold American Express card and inquired if the establishment accepted it for payment.

Without missing a beat, our island princess launched a loogie over the balcony that would have made any major league baseball pro proud and envious of her technique. Geoff Comstock, a Dallas insurance executive noted sagely, “That’s the most emphatic rejection of a credit card I’ve ever seen!”

Oblivious to the diner’s shock, she wiped her chin and accepted a swiftly offered VISA card by our shattered friend never once realizing that her well timed beetle nut blast had unintentionally precipitated an adjustment in the competitive charge card cosmos. We’ll probably see her featured in a Super Bowl ad, “because they don’t take American Express.”

At Acker’s place, they don’t care how you pay as long as you settle up before you leave. Take my advice and spend at least a week to sample the great variety of superior diving to be had. You’ll like the laid back staff in every department of Bill’s operation where customer service is a first priority.

You won’t be disappointed. It’s the best kept secret in diving and it shouldn’t be. Just watch out for the wet spots.

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The pleasure is all ours: Thoughts on touching wild animals

12 November 2010, 08:48

International viewpoint comes courtesy of Undercurrent magazine and this blog is by Burt Jones & Maurine Shimlock. The images have been added by The Dive Site.

Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock are award-winning marine life photographers whose assignments have taken them around the world to portray diverse subjects including the world's longest underwater cave in Mexico and nesting sea snakes in Borneo. Their photographs have been published internationally, and Secret Sea, a collection of their photographs, was honored with the Benjamin Franklin award as the best book printed world wide. Since June 2008 they have been based in Bali while on assignment for Conservation International. Burt and Maurine's long-term project is to explore, photograph and produce guidebooks for the remote and uncharted dive sites around Papua's Bird's Head Peninsula including Raja Ampat and Triton Bay

We experienced a very interesting incident a few weeks back during our survey of Cenderawasih National Park. We were there to explore sites for a new dive guide to the Bird’s Head Seascape, which will include Cenderawasih, Raja Ampat and Triton Bay. Fifteen thousand-square kilometer Cenderawasih is Indonesia’s largest marine park and, for the moment, the biggest attraction is its resident whale shark population. Yes, resident. According to fishermen in Kwatisore, a smaller bay within Cenderawasih, the whale sharks are there all year long. It seems that the fishermen believe whale sharks bring good luck, so they feed them small, anchovy-like fish called ikan puri. The sharks show up just before dawn, circling their boats for hours, almost like pets waiting for a handout.

But the largest fish in the ocean is not a pet. In fact, whale sharks are endangered and have been on the CITES Appendix II list for nearly a decade. I was quickly reminded of this when a crew member grabbed one of the Cenderawasih shark’s dorsal fin and began stroking it while the shark slurped the fish being tossed overboard. Titus, the park ranger traveling with us, went ballistic. I didn’t catch all of the conversation (my Bahasa Indonesia is still limited), but the gist of it was, “Are you crazy? You aren’t supposed to touch the wildlife!”

Left: Is it just too tempting?
Right: How it used to be done: a still from a Jacques Costeau film.

Who knew that a desire to feed and touch wildlife transcended cultural boundaries? I thought it was only something that privileged, bored westerners wanted to do. Apparently not, but I still do not understand what is it about getting close to a wild, albeit gentle, animal that makes humans from all walks of life try to physically interact with it. What ever happened to gazing in distant wonderment? I realize that for decades this discussion has taken up many pages in scuba publications, but to me it is still unresolved.

The way we relate to animals says a lot about us. A long while back humans went beyond the point where just observing nature was enough. We wanted to be entertained by “wild” animals, hence diving donkeys, circuses and Sea Worlds. But, the animals appearing in these venues can hardly be called wild. They are performers, even though they misbehave at times. I’m not a fan of shows like these. I restrain myself from staging midnight rescue missions at dolphin theme parks by rationalizing that the captive animal performers are really ambassadors, representatives of the real thing, who fulfill a valuable function by acquainting humans with creatures they otherwise might not have an opportunity to see, even if the contact is made in far from natural surroundings.

Left: holding on tight
Right: The human urge to pat animals seems to have no limits

I think “see” is the operative word. Some of us are lucky enough to spend a good bit of time in wild places and we have the chance to observe a lot of animals that live freely. People who don’t scuba dive, camp in Yellowstone, go on safari, and so forth have to get their nature fix wherever they can, even if it takes place in a controlled situation. That still doesn’t give us license to cross boundaries. We are ambassadors, too.

On the one hand, physically interacting with a wild animal presents a rare opportunity, mainly for us. On the other hand, these interactions probably harm the animal unintentionally, of course. I won’t go into all the reasons why: damaging their skin’s mucous layer, changing behavior patterns, and just plain old interfering with nature when we shouldn’t. If there is even the slightest possibility that our actions may hurt the animal, why do we do it? Is it a master of the universe kind of thing, or are we just not thinking of anything beyond the one-sided pleasure of an interspecies moment?

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In praise of Stan Waterman

15 October 2010, 09:06

International viewpoint comes courtesy of Undercurrent magazine, www.undercurrent.org , and this blog is by Bret Gilliam.

Left: Stan Waterman in his office
Right: Gret Gilliam with Stan Waterman

In 1959 Waterman participated in the first underwater archaeological expedition to Asia Minor to film a Bronze Age shipwreck. The resulting film, 3,000 Years Under the Sea, was a hit. His third effort in 1963, Man Looks to the Sea, won numerous awards including top honors at the United Kingdom International Film Festival. Following that success, he packed his entire family off with him to Polynesia for a year working on a film that became a National Geographic special.

For anyone lucky enough to catch one of Stan Waterman’s personal appearances, you undoubtedly came away with a lasting impression of his wonderful speaking presence and gift for oration. I remember my own feelings after seeing him from a distant spot in the audience for the first time nearly four decades ago. It was like listening to Lincoln or Churchill… but with a better vocabulary. And Stan talked about diving, my passion, in a way that no one else could.

Someone once suggested that he was the “Jacques Cousteau of American diving” and was promptly corrected by an observer to note, “Cousteau was actually more like the Stan Waterman of France.” It’s a fair statement.

In 1994 the Discovery Channel honored him with a featured two-hour special aptly named The Man Who Loves Sharks. The September 12, 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated had a profile of Stan remembering his first appearance in the magazine on its cover in January 1958. It’s hard to find a serious diver who has not been touched in some way by this gentle and eloquent man’s creative works.

But Stan is truly in his element when you discover him through his writings. That’s not hard to believe when you consider that he actually studied under Robert Frost at Dartmouth. Throughout his lengthy career, he has carefully chronicled his underwater rites of passage in a widely published series of articles, features, anecdotal musings, and interviews. Don’t miss his excellent book of essays titled Sea Salt (New World Publishing). This fascinating book recounts his career in a series of autobiographical chapters and others that simply relate stories of great diving adventures spanning close to eight decades now.

Stan Waterman, Al Giddings & Chuck Nicklin on site for The Deep

But one film was singularly most responsible for launching him into the consciousness of divers and the generally terrified viewing public: the astonishing documentary epic Blue Water, White Death. Released in theaters in early1971 after nearly two years in filming, the movie induced a primal gut reaction for most audiences that combined horror and fear with fascination. No one before had ever left the safety of cages to swim in open water with pelagic sharks. Waterman (with Peter Gimbel and Ron & Valerie Taylor) blew everyone away by leaving the cages to swim with hundreds of feeding sharks… at night. The film’s dramatic conclusion, featuring the first great white shark footage ever presented, left an indelible impression on millions and firmly established Waterman’s reputation. Following the popularity of the movie Jaws release in 1975, ABC television latched on to Waterman to film an American Sportsman segment with author Peter Benchley. A year later Hollywood came calling to ask him to co-direct the underwater unit for The Deep.

My own awareness of him began back in January of 1971. I was working as a diver for the U. S. Navy on a project that required us to film fast attack submarines as they whizzed past us underwater at great depths and speeds up to 70 knots. That alone had been enough to intimidate all but a handful of the Navy’s elite divers but it was the lengthy decompressions in the open ocean following the dives that had left more than a few battle-hardened veterans with soiled wet suits. It wasn’t the decompression itself… it was the zealous population of oceanic whitetip sharks that looked on us as so much sushi that was sparking a mass exodus from our project. These pugnacious pelagic sharks were attracted and stimulated by the low frequency sound transmissions that accompanied the sub tests and basically served the same purpose as ringing a giant underwater dinner bell.

It was exciting, frightening, and more than a bit out of control. The sharks would swim right up to us and bite cameras, cage bars, jet fins or anything else that presented the hope of a snack. Several had even bitten the support ship’s propellers, struts and rudders. The refuge of sturdy shark cages was our only solace at times. Those of us who persevered considered ourselves to be members of a fairly select team of divers who were certainly showing far more bravado than anyone else we’d met when it came to shark encounters.

However, our macho elitist personas were instantly dashed when we got a weekend off in February that year and took in a movie that had just been released called Blue Water, White Death. In the film’s stunning first half, a stalwart fellow named Stan Waterman slipped out of his protective cage along with his team and forever entered the pantheon of diving history as they became the first divers to ever deliberately swim with hundreds of actively feeding oceanic whitetip sharks. It was enough to make a bunch of semi-fearless Navy divers wet our collective pants.

At the time, it was quite simply the most daring act that we could imagine and we all returned to our regimen of diving with subs and sharks with a new humility and respect for our elders. After all, Gimbel and Waterman were in their late forties in age (old men!) while we were blessed (and cursed) with the arrogance of youth being barely past the legal drinking age and had heretofore considered ourselves invincible specimens of physical fitness and diving acuity.

Stan, of course, went on to glory in many ways with his filmmaking, published works and captivating public speaking appearances. Five years after seeing him in Blue Water, White Death I had the chance to meet him at a cocktail party during the filming of The Deep in the British Virgin Islands. While others beat a path to shake hands with star Robert Shaw or to simply ogle the transcendent beauty of Jackie Bissett, I maneuvered myself into position to meet Stan for the first time. From my perspective it was like being introduced to a rock star or to football god Johnny Unitas. I shyly proffered a hesitant handshake and was treated to a smile and a firm grip from my hero. I don’t think any single event in my diving history came close to that moment and I still remember it vividly along with the warmth of this stranger who took some time to chat with his youthful fan.

Stan and I have been friends now for years. We’ve shared many stages over the years as well in Chicago, New York, Houston, and Boston and I always look forward to hanging out with a true American legend. I stay over at his house in Maine and he visits mine. Lately I’ve been cruising over to his waterfront estate near Deer Island on beautiful Eggemoggin Reach. I anchor my motor yacht Encore in his snug harbor known as “The Punch Bowl” and we get together to share lobster, strong drink, and tell stories by the fireplace. There will never be a grander or more articulate spokesperson and ambassador for diving… or a better friend.

Stan will turn 88 in April of 2011 and still keeps to a diving and speaking schedule that would daunt persons the age of his grandchildren. I am moved to reflect on the wisdom of the wise man that said, “The Key to Immortality is Living a Life Worth Remembering.”

What’s in a name? I think his ancestors got it right when they handed down “Waterman” to this iconic figure in diving and steward of our oceans.

Thank you, Stan, from divers everywhere for inspiring and stimulating us to embrace the sport of diving. We are all better persons for knowing you.

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Helpful diving tips

30 September 2010, 20:22

Bret Gilliam has been professionally involved in the diving industry since 1971. logging more than 18,000 dives worldwide since he started diving in 1958. His background includes scientific expeditions; military/commercial projects; operating hyperbaric treatment facilities, liveaboard dive vessels and luxury yachts; ownership of retail dive stores and a Caribbean resort; and filming projects for movies, TV series and documentaries. Additionally, he is ex-Chairman of the Board of Directors of NAUI, former CEO of UWATEC, and recently retired as President of International Training Inc. (TDI, SDI, ERDI) when he sold the company in February 2004. Bret is a prolific writer and photographer, covering various subjects related to diving. He has been published in virtually every diving magazine in the U.S., Europe and Asia, as well as National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Time, Playboy, and others. Bret has twice been the recipient of NAUI's Outstanding Contribution to Diving Award, and the Beneath the Seas Foundation has honored him five years in a row from 2005 to 2009 by naming him a Legend of the Sea.

I started diving in 1959, so I had my 50th anniversary last year. That’s not as bad as it sounds since my father, a senior naval officer, indulged my fascination with scuba after watching the first episode of Sea Hunt with me the year before. We then moved to a distant outpost called Key West and my future career unfolded from the first day in snorkeling gear. I was only eight years old when I did my first dive in Garrison Bight under the watchful eye of an “instructor” who never left the comfort of his deck chair on the pier as I blundered through mask clearing and other exercises and occasionally surfaced to see if I was doing things okay.

“Yeah, you’re making great progress,” he assured me while opening another cold beer. “Now go under the boat and scrape the barnacles off the props and rudder.”

I guess that was probably the first edition of modern “specialty” courses. But I managed to survive over 18,000 dives to date and have developed a certain perspective over the years that might be useful to other divers.

Here are a few tips:

1.You can usually learn more by watching a diver unpack and assemble his gear than from reading his logbook.

2. A diver’s experience and skill is more often inversely proportionate to the number of patches on his jacket or c-cards in his bulging wallet.

3. The best insurance policy to make sure the boat captain picks you up after a drift dive is to borrow $50 from him prior to stepping off the dive platform.

4. Never exceed the depth of your ability and training.

5. To get in shape to look your best in a figure-hugging Lycra dive skin, forget the conventional weight loss programs. Try the Ultimate Motivational Diet: You can eat anything you want and as much of it… as long as you dine in the company of naked fat people.

6. If you get bored on long decompressions, try taking down a paperback book. Simply tear out the pages as you read them and keep the book in a bucket between dives. I’ve read the complete works of Ian Fleming, John Grisham, and assorted trashy fare while hanging at 10 or 20 feet. Plus it’s great to watch the other divers fight over the pages as they drift away.

7. My alarms immediately go off when any resort feels the need to advertise “world class” diving or that my room is “cooled by the trade winds”. Any diving operator that uses that shopworn cliché is usually suspect and any reference to “trade winds” means no air-conditioning or they don’t feel like running the generator after dinner.

8. If traveling on a foreign airline with a piece of heavy luggage, tell the ticket agent that it’s your golf gear. They don’t charge extra for that. For diving gear, just bend over and imagine you’re in a Turkish prison.

9. If you’re not in first class, always board the plane with the “need extra help” group that pre-boards. Yeah, you’ll be surrounded by kids in strollers and the elderly pushing their walkers, but you’ll get a space in the overhead compartment before everyone else boards with their appliance crates and tries to shove them in the carry-on bins.

10. Never… ever… consent to “buddy up” with someone you have not dived with before. Say you’ll stick with the divemaster until you can assess the prowess of your boat-mates.

It’s also helpful to know the real definitions to some diving terms in common use:

World class diving: Anything a diving magazine wrote an article about, includes Nebraska.

Unlimited shore diving: As long as you don’t mind the three-mile swim to the barrier reef.

Boyle’s Law of Dive Brochures: The actual size of your room will be inversely related to its wide-angle image in the photo.

Gillian hooks up with a seal after too much "trimix" circa 1982

Eco-Resort: No air conditioning, no hot water, fragrant outhouses, no phones, no internet, no deodorant, lots of rice. Feel good about yourself while you sweat.

Professional divemaster: Loads and unloads at least a thousand tanks a day and gets paid about what the second shift at Whatta-Burger makes.

Authority: A speaker from out of town.

Expert: He brings his own slides or Power Point presentation.

Underwater photography specialist: Knows how to set camera to TTL/auto mode.

High performance regulator: A TSA agent pulling on the rubber glove as you are led into the little private room at airport security.

Lifetime warranty: Until it needs parts or service.

Open circuit: A diver capable of rational thought process. Very rare species.

Closed circuit: The average DIR zealot or most blondes with Botox… including men.

Second stage: the “falling down” phase of too much Tequila.

Manifold: When a male diver’s belly laps over his Speedo.

Safety sausage: the use of a condom for post-dive hook-ups.

Wet suit: When you see your first great white shark up close… while still on the boat dive platform.

Dry Suit: What you wear to a meaningless job in an office.

Flow-Through Piston: Sweet relief in your wet suit after four cups of coffee.

Yoke: The yellow part of an egg; how stupid are you?

O-ring: Perfectly symmetrical belly button

Exhaust Valve: The orifice right below your nose where dive tales are emitted.

Dive tables: What you set your drink on at Carlos & Charlie’s bar in Cozumel.

Advanced Diver: All that’s needed from one agency is a total of nine dives. I don’t know about you, but advanced in other sports or activities usually means that you have more experience at something than you can get in a long weekend.

Emblemism: The phenomenon of sewing innumerable specialty diving patches on to your windbreaker.

Safety stop: What you should plan for after Indonesian curry for breakfast… before you get on the dive launch.

Out-gassing: See above

Buddy check: Nailing your partner with the dinner bill in Grand Cayman.

Bantin Syndrome: Passing yourself off as rock drummer Mick Fleetwood.

Nassau Groper: The patented move that a Bahamian divemaster makes to the chest area when patting down the female divers in his “gear check”.

Technicolor Yawn: Full-on projectile vomiting en route 400 miles offshore to Cocos Island.

Rebreather: The clown who drives around in his car passing gas with the windows rolled up after a Mexican meal in Cozumel.

Rescue breathing: Finally putting the windows down.

Critters: What you find in your underwear after a night loose in Costa Rica’s San Jose bar scene. Those aren’t waitresses or lady schoolteachers on holiday, genius. And you don’t really look like Brad Pitt…

Body Glove: What you better be wearing if you decide to make an acquaintance in a Thailand bar.

Feeding frenzy: Finding out that dinner was served while you were underwater on the night dive.

Certified: Technical term for the level of dysfunctional delusional psychosis you suffer from based upon what you’ll believe as truthful during diver’s tales of adventure following consumption of alcohol.

Waiver: what you’ll be doing madly with your safety sausage after about two hours in the water drifting when the boat doesn’t pick you up.

Recompression Chamber: The “drunk tank” during Pirate’s Week in Cayman.

Absolute Pressure: The effects of a particular brand of vodka the next morning on the rough boat ride out to the dive site.

Algorithm: the phenomenon that makes white people think they can dance after five blender drinks.

Gas switch: changing your menu from burritos one day to spicy meatballs the next.

Saturation: The end result of spending the entire day at the swim-up pool bar.

Narced: When the custom’s agent finds your stash hidden in your BC hose.

Bounce dive: When you ricochet off the side of the dive vessel on your blundered giant-stride entry.

Tender: How everything feels after slamming your way to the dive site in rough seas.

Trimix: Yeah, you got it… any drink with three primary liquors blended in frozen fruit juice.

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The ugly side of underwater photography

19 August 2010, 15:59

International viewpoint comes courtesy of Undercurrent magazine, www.undercurrent.org , and this blog is by Burt Jones & Maurine Shimlock

Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock are award-winning marine life photographers whose assignments have taken them around the world to portray diverse subjects including the world's longest underwater cave in Mexico and nesting sea snakes in Borneo. Their photographs have been published internationally, and Secret Sea, a collection of their photographs, was honored with the Benjamin Franklin award as the best book printed world wide. Since June 2008 they have been based in Bali while on assignment for Conservation International. Burt and Maurine's long-term project is to explore, photograph and produce guidebooks for the remote and uncharted dive sites around Papua's Bird's Head Peninsula including Raja Ampat and Triton Bay.

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We took a busman’s holiday last weekend and went diving on Bali’s north coast. It’s easy diving around Tulamben; porters carry the tanks and you just walk off the beach. Great schools of trevally surround the Liberty Wreck and the black sand slope to the east is a famed critter diving mecca. It should have been a beautiful morning dive, but what we saw underwater shifted our moods a full 180 degrees. We finished the dive almost ashamed to call ourselves underwater photographers.

About 50 feet down the slope, hovering close to the substrate, we spent about 15 minutes searching for unusual species of nudibranchs. We weren’t the only ones in the water-Tulumben is a popular dive area-and another group of divers was nearby. From the amount of silt that drifted our way we figured they had found an interesting subject so we finned over to take a closer look. There were about ten of them, armed with all manner of image-capturing gear, and they had surrounded a Wonderpus photogenicus, one of the recently described long-armed octopuses that is often confused with the Mimic Octopus. A few divers had still camera housings mounted on video housings, a few had both wide angle and macro rigs cobbled together with a tangled web of multiple strobe cords. One diver caught our attention; she had a small video housing and had settled down gently on the bottom, waiting patiently, and so we decided to hang around to see what happened.

For more than 30 minutes we witnessed one of the lousiest displays of buoyancy skills we have ever seen outside of an entry level class. You would have thought that the current was running at four knots, there was that much sand blowing through the water. The lone divemaster vainly tried to keep order so everyone in his group could photograph the creature, but he gave up after about 15 minutes and took off down the slope. A couple of photographers shot 50 or more frames (yes, I counted), and no one wanted to “share”. One anxious, double-rig-carrying oaf couldn’t wait for his buddy to finish with the octopus, so he positioned himself over the top of the offending diver and literally picked the guy up off the bottom by his BC and shoved him out of the way. One “good buddy” yanked so hard on on another’s full foot fin that he pulled it off and just tossed it aside, leaving the diver to try and catch up with his free-floating fin before it was out of sight. ”Well,” I thought, “that’s one way to to keep a subject for yourself. What’s next? Slicing regulator hoses?”

Just as it seemed like the lone, patient diver might get a chance, the octopus escaped and the group swam off in a cloud of silt. The remaining would-be videographer didn’t move for several seconds. The she looked our way, shrugged, and headed back toward the beach.

As we were ascending I thought about the octopus, the rude photographers, and I couldn’t help but mutter “get a life” through my regulator. What was so important about photographing that octopus that it could trigger mass behavior like that? I mean, we make our living selling photographs of marine animals, but being able to pay our credit card bill on time doesn’t mean that we need to trash a dive site, harass an animal, or endanger another diver. Sure we’ve all been guilty of taking too much time with a subject, with digital it’s hard stop photographing a charismatic subject. Still, perhaps it’s time to agree to and sign not only the standard CYA (cover your ass) diver’s release form, but also a Photographer’s Code of Ethics that covers how we’ll treat the reef, the animals that live there, and our fellow divers.

Some divemasters, celebrity group leaders, and cruise directors admonish their guests to take care of the environment and share subjects. Others don’t. Are we losing the joy when we senselessly compete for images? Recently a liveaboard owner called us with questions about our upcoming group. “What kind of people are they?” he asked. I wasn’t sure what he meant. He explained, “You know, do they like to sit on deck and watch the sun set or are they staring at their computers or taking apart their cameras whenever they aren’t in the water? I just finished with a group like that and let me tell you it was boring and awful.”

Taking pictures is just one of the reasons we like diving. We like the sunsets, talking about good books, sharing stories with friends, new and old. Let’s cut out the competition and bring back the joy.

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