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Here's a take on mini-season from a perspective I haven't heard yet... What mini-season does is allows the recreational yahoos to go screaming all over the keys (Florida) acting foolish BEFORE the commercial guys drop their traps. If sport season and commercial season opened the same day, I...

Well, I was hoping someone would get here before me, but no one did... Chris Sawyer has closed his Red Hook location. He is still currently operating out of the Wyndam Sugar Bay and Caneel Bay, St. John locations. Losing Chris's store in Red Hook is a blow to the diving community here and...

What we hear about is the times that an OOG situation becomes a spectacle with the divers acting and reacting poorly. The write-ups on the calm, orderly gas-sharing situations that happen are boring and not so much posted. It is still my experience that the reaction of most divers to LOA/OOA...

This thread should probably be split if this discussion is going to start, but... There are benefits and disadvantages to both live boating and mooring/anchoring. If a boat is moored or anchored, the return trip is easy to navigate and the boat is waiting. The disadvantage, of course, is that...

Many new divers do use their hands excessively, but the vertical, bicycle kicking is far more due to anxiety than *just* poor technique. It may be that the anxiety is due to lack of thorough training but the majority of comfortable new divers do not dive like that. My red flag is if someone...

Just to take a slightly contradictory point of view... a few years ago I was working as a dive instructor and came down with a pretty foul sinus infection. I was very hesitant to call my dives because it was my livelihood. I managed to descend on one fateful dive with some trouble equalizing...

I beg to differ, no dive made to 170'+ on a single AL80 is a well-planned dive. I'd love to hear what the exact profile was if you care to share. Rachel

I saw a slew of man o' wars on Deerfield Beach a few years back and me, not knowing what they were at the time, did the dive anyway, in a drysuit. After I got back to the hotel and figured out what was what, I decided I'd better give the suit a good ol' rinse in the tub. And this is how I...

For the record, no one else that works at the shop has the same level of bananaphobia that I do and I'm not mean about it, but it will get mentioned if I see them. On someone else's boat, house rules apply. Rachel

I choose to blame the bananas. Far easier to control and way more pleasant than having to hog tie the captain for toenail measuring and subsequent clipping. R

I am anti-banana. I have had equipment failures, poor dives, and once a family's car got hit in the parking lot back at the shop when people have had bananas on board. I don't make a big fuss about them beforehand, but if I see one I ask that it be ingested or returned to the car. On board...

Heh. Hi all! Yeah, I was in Provo and moved here to St. Thomas about a year and a half ago. My former boat is in St. Pete, FL and I hadn't heard anything about a new boat but I certainly wish them luck! If anyone dives with that operation, please give me a report as people still ask me about...

I cannot begin to speak for Doll Fin on color blindness because I suspect her situation is different from the one I'm about to describe, but I have a friend who is red/green color blind. I asked him if it was like seeing human blood at about 15' on a clear water day which, for anyone who's...

Well, we answered a bunch of these questions in your other thread, and you're going to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos. From Southside Marina which is where Caicos Adventures boat leaves from, the trip is 45 minutes to 1 hour to Northwest Point or West Caicos dive sites. You will also be...

Look no further, you can't beat DAN for $100 a year. I've never done a dive without it! Rachel

My certification dives were a solid 20 minutes each... in a quarry... 50 degree water below the thermocline, 65 degree air temperature and the second day it was cloudy and breezy. I don't care a bit that the dives weren't longer. Now that I'm teaching, I try and give my students a minimum of...

Slap strap and a bandana or Dee-rag(tm) are the best. I keep losing the Dee-rags, so I have a naked head these days. The easiest way to detangle is to bundle up all the gnarly hair without even trying to comb it out, get in the shower and put in the Biolage Conditioning Balm (oh yes, it really...

Is there any explanation as to why he didn't scooter back to the boat? Rachel

I am fortunate to do my DSDs in nice warm, clear water but they are NEVER more than a fin kick (maybe two on the second dive if they're awesome) away from me and I check on them about every 3.2 seconds throughout the dives. When I'm dealing with kids, I'm either bumping shoulders with them or...