Scuba With Bill

The giant sand pit where the remains of a mammoth and saber-toothed tiger were once discovered may soon be filled with more modern artifacts.

[Click image for a larger version] PAT SULLIVAN/AP
AP
This huge mask is at a Clute, Texas, sand pit, which will be turned into a diving lake. The mask will be in the seascape.

There are plans to throw in a bus, a couple of antique firetrucks and even a space shuttle look-alike that once thrilled visitors at the now defunct Astroworld amusement park in Houston.

Developers are hoping the items and many others – including an old F-5 Navy jet already in the 50-acre pit – will help create one of the nation’s largest lakes reserved for scuba divers seeking to explore large objects.

“This is a dream come true,” Mike Cryer, who runs Hydrosports Scuba Shop in nearby Lake Jackson, said as he gazed over a hole as deep as 70 feet. By next year it should be at least partially filled with water and become Mammoth Lake. “We’re in such a unique position. No one has ever started a dive lake from the ground up. They’ve always inherited a hole of water.”

Dive right in: Artifacts will fill lake

Between June 1 and June 6, my father and I enjoyed Grand Cayman’s charms. During our well-deserved vacation, Don Foster’s dive operation took us out as we explored the reefs and the marine life off the western and northwestern edges of the island. Ultimately, we managed to squeeze in a dozen dives, all of which were at least “very good,” and some of which were “spectacular.” Topside, we did some exploring, too.

12 Dives in Grand Cayman: A Trip Report - Divester

The 36-year-old Leander-class frigate was sunk off Island Bay last November amidst a storm of protest that it would break up and bits would be washed ashore.

However, professional divers said today the ship was an amazing dive and was rated as one of the best in the world, proving the critics wrong.

Old warship wreck has become a dive bonanza

This particular trip also had a tremendous amount of activity outside the water because we had a VIP guest on board for a day. President GMA scuba dived with us! Flying in by helicopter, GMA landed on a navy boat near ours and then took a smaller chase boat over.

Of course the first order of business as soon as she arrived was picture taking! As various setups were being organized—GMA with crew, GMA with etc., etc.—I had a non-Kodak moment when I handed my camera to a simply dressed man in the entourage and asked him to take our picture. Horrors! He turned out to be Rep. Tony Alvarez of Palawan. Luckily, the good congressman is a friend of my uncle, Mauro Prieto, and was only too happy to oblige.

GMA actually did two dives with us and showed her good underwater skills when our second dive hit a moderate current. After the diving, she took time to visit the Ranger Station on the reef. One wonders what the election results were among the eight men who take three-month stints patrolling the marine park.

Scuba diving with President Arroyo

Proving that scuba divers will go anywhere that the diving is great, East Timor’s first tourists are scuba divers.

Simon Jeffery, 36, who has worked for Dive Timor Lorosae for three years leading guided dives and captaining their boat, waxes lyrical about the potential for diving in the young nation.

“Big tour organisers come out here and love the place — it’s world-class diving,” he says, comparing it to Bali and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

“The exciting thing about it is that it’s all virgin territory — there are virtually 1,000 — or 10,000 — dive sites out there that have never been dived before,” he enthuses.

“At traditional dive destinations like Thailand and Fiji now there’ll be 200 people at a site and you can’t see the fish.”

An excellent piece from Dive Happy on diving the Similan Islands:

One of the reasons why diving the Similans is such a great experience is because there’s a natural sense of build up over the four days of the liveaboard . You start off in the Similan Islands proper, doing some easy reef dives that offer spectacular bommies like East Of Eden, which is so covered in fan and soft corals and alive with different fish species that it’s been regularly filmed and photographed by the likes of National Geographic. By the second day, you get to dive the more challenging big boulder sites like Elephant Head Rock and North Point, where truly huge rocks several storeys high have rolled together to create a labyrinth of swimthoughs and shelter for the fish. There’s something exhilarating about being at 20 metres passing over the top of one of these rocks - and then watch it drop away another 30 metres below you as you fly off the side. Turtles chewing on coral hide around them, and within the canyons formed by the rocks you can find clown triggerfish, probably my favourite fish of all.

DiveHappy has a good write-up on the best dive sites in Thailand. Worth checking out if you need a reason to drool this winter.

Ran across an excellent recap of the post-tsunami diving conditions in the Thailand area in PADI’s Sprt Diver Magazine. From the sound of the article things do appear to be improving:

The local tsunami dive camps’ effort to systematically clean any and all damaged reefs and sea bottoms around the Phi Phi islands has made noticeable differences, which is encouraging for all involved. Andrew Hewett, general manager of the Adventure Club on Koh Phi Phi, says that he has been overwhelmed by the efforts made by people who have travelled across the world not only to assist on the dive project, but also to help the local people and victims of the tsunami. “It is a pleasure and a privilege to work with these people, who are devoting all of their time and energy. Their efforts are totally selfless and they wish nothing in return, just to know that they have made a difference. My hat goes off to them.”

If you’re planning a scuba trip to Thailand, here’s a nice directory of dive ops.

Wham! Reality check, Roger. It’s 9:30 on a perfect, tropical April morning off the shore of Ambergris Caye, Belize’s largest island.

. . . Read Theresa Storm’s introduction to scuba diving.