Diving Tangent.....

BEN S

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Thought this might be best in a new thread....
The claim that Guantanamo Bay was the last great untouched reef was not just my claim, but that of Jaques Cousteau himself when he came through Camanerra Bay back in the late 80's.
The Base was shut off and isolated from the world in 1959 before the advent of the Demand Regulator hit the markets and created Sport Diving. There is NO industry in Camenerra Bay only ships come in load up sugar at north end. The Navy Base has been a nature preserve since 1959 and at most while I was there there was never more then about 2500 people on base. If you figure less then 10% would even dive AND it was all protected, you can see why it had remained untouched.
Now I have dove "the world over" as a Navy Diver and can say for sure 2 things, I never found a place as awesome as Cuba, and after being a working diver, scuba diving now is pretty dull...I will go with a bunch of looky-loos and end up with too much weight standing on the sea floor looking for something to "do"
because of this I don't do much recreational diving anymore and don't keep up with it. I am sure there are places now that would be considered pristine...and hell maybe Gitmo isn't the place to go anymore.....I dunno.
 
Ben:

Moved this here:

Spent time on a liveaboard off Sharm El-Sheikh and over a several year span also time diving in Micronesia, Sulawesi, Papua New Guinea, etc.
Sharm was good, especially up toward Eilat but my favorite was off Southern PNG about halfway to Cape York Australia! Those were the good days!

Before that - does not include the 4 - 6 dives per week while living and working on Okinawa for more than 9 years.

All late 80's to mid 90's
 
I hate cold water diving ops. One of the reasons I got out.
 
Agree, we dove in the colder water while we lived in Tokyo area. Hood, 1/4" wetsuit, not for me either. I don't do cold weather well and cold water is worse. Had several occasions while we were sailing up in Maine where I had to go in and cut lobster pot lines fouling our prop. BRR.
 
I did a lot in the south pacific while I was stationed in Hawaii. I loved the 2 weeks we spent diving Truk, oops sorry I think it is called Chuuk now. Beautiful water and the wrecks from WW2 were amazing to dive and explore. I was with friends who are Navy Divers EOD. So we also did Guam, they were stationed there and did some deep stuff exploring the Tokai Maru and the Cormoran II in the harbor. I love warm water wreck dives, I won't do cold water.
 
Chuuk was great, really enjoyed all the wrecks. Dove off the SS Thorfinn which was a great base. Also did Palau from a liveaboard and really enjoyed Peleliu.

One of our trips we did we based on shore in Pohnpei at a great resort. Boat dives each day and lots of exploring. Nan Madol was awesome.

Also did a small Island off the East Coast of Borneo, Sipidan. That was superb. Late 80s before it became to popular and they had to clamp down on number of divers. About 25 acre seamount...
 
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I did my south pacific tour in the late 80's, best ever dive sites back then. We had a private rental dive boat, 1 guide and then the 5 of us. lived on the boat for 2 weeks changing sites when the whim hit us....
 
I learned to dive at Sharm when I was stationed there about a decade ago. I thought the undersea wildlife there was amazing; haven't found anything better so far.
 
Worked for awhile as an abalone diver in Santa Barbara back in the early ‘70s. in the water all day in 1/4” farmer John, vest w hood and jacket on top. Never bothered me when I was 20 years old, but after tropical diving I could never go back.

But we spent 17 years sailing around the world and had a compressor on board. Dove a few places I’m pretty sure no one had ever seen before or since. The best dive spots we found have never appeared in any dive magazine and are too far from infrastructure to get commercialized.
 
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Thought this might be best in a new thread....
The claim that Guantanamo Bay was the last great untouched reef was not just my claim, but that of Jaques Cousteau himself when he came through Camanerra Bay back in the late 80's.
The Base was shut off and isolated from the world in 1959 before the advent of the Demand Regulator hit the markets and created Sport Diving. There is NO industry in Camenerra Bay only ships come in load up sugar at north end. The Navy Base has been a nature preserve since 1959 and at most while I was there there was never more then about 2500 people on base. If you figure less then 10% would even dive AND it was all protected, you can see why it had remained untouched.
Now I have dove "the world over" as a Navy Diver and can say for sure 2 things, I never found a place as awesome as Cuba, and after being a working diver, scuba diving now is pretty dull...I will go with a bunch of looky-loos and end up with too much weight standing on the sea floor looking for something to "do"
because of this I don't do much recreational diving anymore and don't keep up with it. I am sure there are places now that would be considered pristine...and hell maybe Gitmo isn't the place to go anymore.....I dunno.
We never cruised Cuba on our sailboat for insurance reasons, but friends who did before 2000 rated the diving pretty highly. Unfortunately much of the Caribbean has been badly bleached.
 
Well I was there in the mid to late 80s.
Im sure much of the worlds reefs have gone to shit.
Give me a helmet, some pipe flanges to work on and murky visibility and I will be far more interested in the dive then swimming around looking at pretty fishes.
Not to say I don't enjoy all the colors and such.
 
Well I was there in the mid to late 80s.
Im sure much of the worlds reefs have gone to shit.
Give me a helmet, some pipe flanges to work on and murky visibility and I will be far more interested in the dive then swimming around looking at pretty fishes.
Not to say I don't enjoy all the colors and such.
I dived Jardin de la Reina on the southern side of Cuba a few years ago; absolutely agree, the most pristine reefs I have seen in the Carribean. That's what happens when human interference is limited, in this case unfortunately by a communist dictatorship.
 
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Well I was there in the mid to late 80s.
Im sure much of the worlds reefs have gone to shit.
Give me a helmet, some pipe flanges to work on and murky visibility and I will be far more interested in the dive then swimming around looking at pretty fishes.
Not to say I don't enjoy all the colors and such.
Ben,

I dove in a helmet with lead shoes a few times- that was a blast. I worked at a dive shop in Santa Barbara in about 1973-75 and Bev Morgan worked out of the back of the shop. I assisted him a bit with the Kirby-Morgan band mask which you are probably familiar with. We also worked on the first UW housing for a giant IMAX camera.

Rob
 
Rob...This is my Xenon tangent to this thread....I never will forget you coming to my home town of Paxton, Il and giving me a ride in your Xenon. It was a very nice rotorcraft.
 
Rob...This is my Xenon tangent to this thread....I never will forget you coming to my home town of Paxton, Il and giving me a ride in your Xenon. It was a very nice rotorcraft.
And that massive storm after you took me to lunch.
 
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