W W Meixner
Banned
L...
My little one...wishes you well...
W...
My little one...wishes you well...
W...
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My two cents:
I think the more ambitious your dive trip (flying overseas with multiple connections through multiple countries, going on a liveaboard) the longer you are likely to face disruptions, which I would guess these would last through the end of this calendar year at least. I had tentatively booked a liveaboard in the Red Sea for August, for which the liveaboard operator did not request a deposit. I am holding that reservation, purely out of wild optimism, and because there is no financial penalty to cancel. But I sure as hell have not bought plane tickets yet. I don't know whether there will be direct flights from the US to Egypt in August, Egypt seems to have wildly underreported its COVID cases and I could see a ban on US flights to Egypt extended for quite a while. And it potentially gets dicier if adding a European connection.
I suspect airlines and liveaboards will be forced to offer much more flexible cancellation terms, and that might take some of the financial risk out of the equation (for us as divers, not for them as businesses).
But as for local diving that you can access by car? That seems doable even now, depending on how rigid "shelter in place" restrictions are.
I was planning to drive from the Washington DC area to Jupiter/WPB, Florida this week to do some shore and day charter boat diving, and I postponed it because I still had a dry cough from a cold from two months ago, and my doctor said I should self-isolate out of an abundance of caution, which I have been doing. But as far as I can tell, there would have been no practical impediment to doing that trip: We were going to stay at an Airbnb that was still available, we were bringing our own food in a cooler, there was no prohibition on travelling by car, dive shops were providing air fills, the dive boats were still going out, and the beaches where one can shore dive were still open for shore diving. Of course, many of of those things could have changed at a moment's notice, so it would have been a roll of the dice, but I would have been willing to roll the dice.
I am thoroughly addicted to diving, it's one of the things that gives my life meaning and keeps me sane, and for me personally, I don't regard local diving as a frivolity even in these times of the pandemic. To me, it's analogous to a walk in the park, and in the case of shore diving, something that can be done by oneself (not looking to start a debate about solo diving). There is some added risk to going on a dive boat, but even there, you are outside, you can still spread out to keep some distance, and you are definitely at no risk of contagion while underwater.
Well, lots of people have opinions. Some pretend to have the skills of reading into the crystal ball, it seems the more you attend social medias, the more skillful you are ...
Since the correct answer is "nobody knows", at least I think the best answer is the one that won't harm and set you into a deep depression right now.
So I'll throw in an optimistic prediction made by a Nobel Prize in biophysics, mind you. (I like the statistical approach because not only I have a statistician background, you see that in the end when you don't know anything, the numbers are still there.)
Why this Nobel laureate predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: 'We're going to be fine'
NM...
It's not the water...it's all the steps you have to get through...to get to the water...
Our Provincial Government had stated yesterday that they were going to mandate the temporary shutting of all non-essential businesses...so for those without home based compressor installations...there's little chance of going too far...any time soon...
W.M...
I wonder if that Nobel laureate happened to read Sylvia Browne’s End of Days book?
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The Governor of Florida seems to be resisting shutting down all "non-essential" businesses. I personally think that's a good thing (and I am not of the Governor's political party). But in California, they've gone to the other extreme. No shore diving there either. I'm not sure that snorkeling is allowed in California either.
Exactly. This forced a complete shutdown of everything, in the whole Italy.Check out the angry mayors in Italy videos on YouTube. People weren't heeding the lock-down even when they have news of how bad it was there.