Last Saturday, Joe Dormer, Jeff Raykos and myself helped staff the premier of Howard Hall's newest Imax movie.  The Whitaker Center played host to several thousand parents and kids all trying to get a peak at what we experience every week!  The 3D Imax movie visits some of our favorite dive sites, from Vancouver to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the Texas Flower Gardens. One of our favorite segments had to be the one on North Carolina wrecks and sharks.  Over the course of the day, we went through more than 150 Polaroid pictures of kids in BCD's and tanks, and answered probably as many more inquiries about scuba. We may not have gotten wet, but it was a lot of fun.

From Rick Huck ...

The main reason for not attending either Beneath the Sea or the Deep See 3-D:

You can have Bainbridge to yourself and your buddy!  You can't beat that for the price.  Chris Mayo and I met at the shop up at the quarry.  It was a little chilly and a bit breezy but definitely not the dead of winter.  We were amazed at the fact that we had the place to ourselves.  It was our own private dive site!  We planned a 45 minute dive (no, not really.....see an earlier dive report)!!!  Actually, we planned on finding the boiler down in the hole.  Chris led us out to the usual boats, cement mixer, dozer and the deep boat.  The vis was pretty good at the 90' level.  You could see the entire deep boat. The cloud layer had settled into the pockets on the bottom making it look like little ponds.  Some of these flowed like rivers over the wall making them look like water falls but more surreal.  I find myself very inspired to capture this look in a piece of art work.   Once we got to the stepvan Chris and I dropped over the wall and down into the hole.  With a little bit of searching Chris soon located the tracks that lead to the boiler.  The vis was pretty good down there, 12'.  We did a once around and ended at the back of it.  Our lights shone inside to see the silt covered remains of a large trout.  Chris signaled me to go into the open ended back side.  Seeing it as a challenge to my buoyancy I headed in.  It didn't take long for my air bubbles to dislodge rust particles above my head turning the vis to zero.  I quickly backed out as we both had a good laugh.  After here we headed across the hole and up the wall.  We took a compass reading west to the far wall.  The bottom was cloud covered making it feel like we were flying.  Even though the the water temps were 39 degrees I didn't feel the cold until we did our hangs.  We both had about 25 minutes of deco.  We ended the dive at 79 minutes.   After the dive we did have some company.  We met up with Steve Mooney and his buddy, Dave.  It was a good of diving.
Huckster

From John Katerenchuk - Bahamas!!

Well I was off to Freeport Bahamas for a week long company conference.  Being one to not look a gift horse in the mouth I arranged to try out some of the local dive sites with Sunn Odyssey Divers.  Sunn Odyssey is a small husband and wife operation that has been providing exception customer service to divers for over 15 years.  Karen Rolle runs the shop and is the primary contact for customers until they are ready to board the boat.  At this point Nick Rolle takes over as captain and dive master.  Having dealt before with a large number of shops around the world  I can truly say that the Rolle’s run a very efficient, safe and customer focused operation.  If you truly want personal service and a operation that take a maximum of 8 divers out on any trip then you should check them out.

Ok now to the diving.  I was able to get in 2 days of 2 tank diving.  On the first day our first dive was at a site called Moray City.  This site was a  reef  at 60 – 80 feet with many crevice areas between the hard coral formations.  Often the crevices would have an old truck tire at the bottom.  We found turtles, barracuda, crabs, lobster and the other normal reef inhabitants except for Moray Eels.  Apparently, as the story goes back in the 70’s a bunch of naturalists were so impressed with the number of Moray Eels at this site that they decided to place the old tires within the coral crevices in order to further promote the Moray population.  I guess the Moray’s had a different idea and decided to move their living accommodations to other reef areas that were absent of the new rubber donuts.  Water temperature was 75 degrees and dive time 45 minutes.  The second dive of the day was at a 20 ft site known as the Aquarium.  The coral and small reef fishes were plentiful.  Two nurse sharks were observed along with about a dozen lobsters.  Dive time was 60 minutes.

On the second day our first dive was on the Theo wreck.  This is a 200ft plus cargo ship that was sunk as an artificial reef.  The wreck sits on its side in 100 ft of water with relief at 65ft.  You can swim thru the cargo hold and see several tube sponges and small fish life.  Visibility on the wreck was about 80 ft with water temperature of 75 degrees and a dive time of 45 minutes.  The second dive was shallow again on a site close to the Aquarium with similar coral and fish life.

All in all I would have to say that Sunn Odyssey is a superior operation.  The Freeport reefs are healthy and if someone is not expecting the same quantities of coral and fish as they would see in Cozumel or Bonaire then Freeport provides some relaxing and easy diving that can fit the beginner to advance divers needs.

And of course - from Tom Pritchard!

3/23 - Willow was cool, clear, and crisp last night, at least in the parking lot.  Below it was cool, crisp and Willow, in other words, about 8-10 ft viz. With hopes high, Gerhard, Terry, "The Younger" Parsons, Colin, Wild Bill, and yours truly set off to see what was growing where in Willow this week.  With Bill in the lead, it was near sprint to the Quest.  Colin busted his cherry last night by finally swimming through the Quest behind Gerhard who was traveling "light" with his double 120's and an aluminum 80 stage.  I took the high road for a change.  Off to the fire truck and then to Dave Bally's truck, where my lawn mower was looking its best in the rear bed.  A fitting end for a crummy lawn mower.  We set out in search of the springs, but after milling around aimlessly for close to 10 minutes, finally gave up. We were still five strong when we got back to the fire truck.  With GM in the lead, we compassed across the bowl and the group splintered a bit.  Bill left, while the rest of us swam through the school bus.  The four of us went to the Minnow, but not necessarily at the same time. Colin, whose "torch" was barely lit, was easy to spot with his new orange gloves, a nice complement to his banana-man dry suit.  Back in the shack the usual list of suspects.  Kulp, Jay Bell, George Heck, Joe, T-Bone, Rick Rupp, and Big Bill were living life large with Italian wedding soup, beans, cake, apple pie, and some singe-your nostrils spicy potato chips.  We almost had a Mark Myers sighting last night; perhaps another night.  Vern was going to bring Vern's Balls, but it turned out his balls had another engagement.  Come next week when Huck and Vern (with Vern's Balls, no less) will be there to liven things up.  The Spring Clear Out should be upon us in a few weeks.  For some reason, the viz goes from 8-10 ft to 20-40 ft in early April, although last year it waited until May.  The Clear Out only lasts a week or so.  If you missed it 2 years ago when the viz hit 40 ft, don't miss it this year.

Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!