Last Dives

Miles from Home - 3037.4 miles
Firsts / Highlights - Last day of diving, Dolphin Academy.
Activity - SCUBA diving, nitrogen purging
People - Just me.

This post if for August 23-24.

Over the course of 14 dives, I have undoubtedly accumulated a little nitrogen in my blood. That is not a problem unless it turns into bubbles when ascending or getting into an airplane. To be conservative, I decided it would be a good idea to skip diving on my last day to give myself a chance to purge some nitrogen, particularly since I have a very early flight out tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures from my last day of diving, wandering around the resort, say goodbyes and a trip to the Sea Aquarium.




Suzy & Mark - a couple of Brits making a go of operating a dive shop on Curacao.


Mark calls these "biguanas"


Dolphins getting big air:

Around Curacao

Miles from Home - 3037.4 miles
Firsts / Highlights - First days with a rental car. First independent shore dives.
Activity - SCUBA diving
People - Marco & Barbara (Austria)

This post if for August 21-22.

I broke down and rented a car for the first 2 days on my sabbatical. It was getting close to the point where I didn't want to rent one just to see if I could complete this entire adventure without a car, but I concluded that would be sacrificing part of my trip to Curacao just to make a point. To whom? I needed a car to see parts of the island on my day out of the water and to get to some good shore dives on the next day.

Curacao is an interesting place. It has no natural surface water, so the only source of fresh water is a very industrial-looking desalination plant along the waterfront. There is an even more industrial refinery on the interior. There seems to be a lot of angst among the locals over a deal where Shell Oil walked away from its environment remediation requirements by selling the refinery to the Curacao government for 1 Guilder. The deal was needed to preserve jobs, but apparently it caught everyone off guard when they learned that Venezuela would process the oil on the island, but require that any gasoline be re-imported at a very large markup. It's hard to tell how much of the story is supported by fact, but I don't sense a lot of warmth toward either Shell or Venezuela.

This is the industrial Curacao that you don't see in the brochures. It's interesting that this small island can have both a large oil refinery and a thriving diving / beach tourism-based economy. The two co-exist in close proximity, but are barely aware of the other.

The humidity is so high that I couldn't really take pictures as I drove around the island. As soon as I stepped out of the air-conditioned car, my camera (and sunglasses) fogged up. I could have driven around without air conditioning, but that just was not going to happen at 97 degrees and 80% humidity. A few images were worth waiting for the camera to warm up to the surrounding air temperature, but casual snapshots weren't practical.


Here is the image of Curacao that most people have if they have one at all. I arrived in Willemstad just as the sun was going down and the pontoon bridge was opening to allow an oil tanker to go through.


Suzy from the Dive Bus recommended that I go to a "Snack" for some local food, but I never worked up the nerve to shoulder my way through the locals and walk up to the barred windows to say, "So, what do you sell?".


After a day out of the water, I got together with Marco and Barbara from Austria for some shore diving on the west end of the island. They are both teachers living near Innsbruck - very close to where I was riding in Bormio earlier this summer. This was my first time diving without a dive master, but I felt like we did a good job of taking care of each other out in the big blue. We planned to do a night dive together the next night, but it had to be canceled due to strong currents.




Barbara was startled to see Neptune waiting for us in the depths.


Let's try a couple of movies. I don't know how well these will work. Give them a couple of minutes to start playing after you click on them. For people who receive e-mail notifications, you may need to go to the blog to view the videos (www.randyhowie.blogspot.com).

I believe these organisms are called Feather Duster Worms. Watch how quickly they retract when they sense that my swimming over disrupts the water current. I didn't touch anything around them. The only disruption I caused was the flow of water.



This one is of nothing in particular. I just turned the video on for a few seconds and captured what was going on in the reef. I started showing a soft coral flowing in the current, but when I panned away I saw a school of blue fish in the commuter lane. It is always busy down there.

Dive Re-Do

Miles from Home - 3037.4 miles
Firsts / Highlights - First day at Lions Dive Resort
Activity - SCUBA diving
People - Mark & Suzy Pinnell (owners of The Dive Bus), Marco & Barbara (Austria), Family of 4 (Netherlands)

This post is for August 20.



I moved from the Marriott (see above) to Lions Dive Resort today. There was nothing wrong with the Marriott, but today was the first day that Lions Dive had availability. Lions Dive is not quite as luxurious, but I prefer the island atmosphere. It doesn’t feel like an American fortress in a foreign land. There are a series of resorts linked together here, so the choice of restaurants on the beach is great.

Due to strong currents caused by the hurricane brewing in the east, we dove the same sites as yesterday. Here are a couple pictures from today’s dive.

Fish explosion:


Squid:


Spotted Eel:

Wreck Diving

Miles from Home - 3013.0 miles
Firsts / Highlights - First wreck dives
Activity - SCUBA diving
People - Mark & Suzy Pinnell (owners of The Dive Bus), Alex & Kimberly (D.C.)

This post is for August 18-19.



In the past 2 days, I have completed dive numbers 22, 23, 24 and 25. Until now, I had never done a wreck dive of any kind. Now I have done 4. They all have interesting names like “Car Pile”, “Superior Producer”, “Tug Boat” and “James Bond Pier”. They also have interesting stories. Superior Producer, for example, was a large freighter that sank right off shore in 1977 (see picture of me in the cargo hold and someone else’s video below). It was carrying whiskey and blue jeans, both of which were scavenged by divers within hours. It sits in 80 – 110 feet of water, so it was right at the advisable limit for my new nitrox certification.





Yes, I completed my educational objective for my trip to Curacao yesterday by passing my final exam for nitrox certification. While traditional SCUBA tanks contain 21% oxygen (the same as ambient air), enriched air (a.k.a., nitrox) contains a higher percentage, typically 32% or 36%. The higher O2 percentage means that you absorb less nitrogen, which means that you can stay underwater longer without requiring decompression. The official benefit is the greater bottom time. The unofficial benefit is that you get less fatigued by repetitive dives because of the reduced nitrogen accumulation.



You couldn’t have proved the reduced fatigue benefit by me yesterday. After two 100-foot dives and a ripping-strong current on the Superior Producer, I was ready for some power-sleeping. I went out for 11 hours! The current we ran into on the Superior Producer was the only affect we have seen of the hurricanes brewing further north in the Caribbean. We are too far south to be directly impacted.



Here is a picture of my reflection in a chrome bumper in the Car Pile dive site.



Yesterday was an exceptional treat. Although I have not had to dive with any big groups on this trip, both my dives yesterday were just me with the dive master, Mark. With only two of us, Mark was able to take me on some deeper, more advanced dives. There is plenty of good diving around here at shallower depths, but it was good to get those dives in when Mark didn’t need to be concerned about divers who he didn’t think were ready for them.

Here is an unsually bold Scopion Fish. They usually sit motionless on rocks where they blend in so well that you can very easily miss them. This one was laying out in plain view on a sponge. He was still sitting motionless, so I assume that he thought he looked like a sponge.



The James Bond Pier, whose name does not appear any any guide book other than Mark’s head, was pretty cool. It is an old commercial pier where the pilings are fully encrusted in coral. We saw the BAB (big-ass barracuda) there. Mark figured it was about 4 ½ feet long and “gurthy”. Unfortunately, he swam off before I could get close enough for a decent picture. I’m not sure who got away. Maybe it was me.

Getting Wet

Miles from Home - 3013.0 miles
Firsts / Highlights - First time diving Curacao
Activity - SCUBA diving
People - Mark & Suzy (owners of The Dive Bus), Bas (divemaster), Chip, Janette & Jarett (New York), Mike & Bruce (NW Connecticut).

This post is from August 15-17.

Greetings from 12 degrees north latitude.



I have been successfully and safely reintroduced to SCUBA diving. I spent the first day at the Marriott’s dive operation just getting my feet (and the rest of me) wet. I snorkeled in the morning and went for a boat dive in the afternoon. It was a good dive, but I never intended to dive with the Marriott (Caribbean Sea Sports) operation throughout my stay.





I read about a small operation called The Dive Bus on www.undercurrent.org, and decided to spend most of my time with them. They use a bus (van actually) rather than a boat to get to their dive sites. Their approach allowed me to take advantage of the great shore diving on this island while still having a dive master along as a security blanket. With an experienced “buddy”, you could easily do all of your dives right from shore and not really need a dive operation except for tank rental. Since I am alone and fairly inexperienced, I feel better diving with a pro.





The owners of The Dive Bus are Mark and Suzy. They moved to Curacao from England about 6 years ago and are working hard to make the business work. Very nice people. Mark drives the bus and leads the dives along with a staff divemaster from the Netherlands named Bas. Mark is the guy diving with the rubber chicken. Suzy runs the hut at their house reef and was my contact as I set things up by e-mail. She got me started on a specialty diving course to learn how to dive on Enriched Air (nitrox) yesterday.



One of the keys to an enjoyable dive is to keep the group to a reasonable size. With The Dive Bus, I have never been in a group of more than 5 people, and tomorrow it looks like it will only be me for both dives (along with Mark as the divemaster). Until now, the dives have been fairly shallow (mostly less than 50 feet). Tomorrow, weather permitting, we are going to dive the “Superior Producer” and “Car Pile” sites. Both of these are going to be in the 80-100 foot range.



I’ll explain more about “nitrox” tomorrow when I will hopefully be certified.

Traveling Again

Miles from Home - In transit
Firsts / Highlights - Traveling to the Southern Caribbean
Activity - None
People - Just me.

This post is from August 14, 2009.

It has been a while since my last blog post. I have been in Steamboat recharging my batteries before deciding what to do next and continuing the adventure. I considered a few options ranging from flying lessons, home repair work, bike touring, road trip and SCUBA diving.

After a good deal of thought, here is what I decided.

1) Although I would love to fly an airplane, the initial and ongoing costs of getting licensed were a bad match for my current no-income status. That one will need to wait.

2) My original plan was to do a self-supported bike tour from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific Coast. After staying in Europe a little longer than planned, I wasn't anxious to simply touch-down in Steamboat and head right back out. I needed a little time to live my routine life in Steamboat so I could be ready to absorb more new experiences. Those two factors left me a little short on time to ride the Pacific Coast at a fun pace.

3) Home repair - well... that will always be there. It would probably be a good learning experience and needs to be done, but not the way I want to spend my (perhaps) once-in-a-lifetime sabbatical.

So that covers what I am not going to do. Here is what I AM planning to do.


View Curacao in a larger map

1) I am currently on a plane heading to Curacao in the southern Caribbean. It is part of the A-B-C Islands (Aruba, Bonaire & Curacao) just off the coast of Venezuela. From the earliest days of planning this sabbatical, I was disappointed that I had not been able to figure out how to incorporate SCUBA diving into my itinerary. I earned my certification last April, and have been anxious to do it again ever since.

There is no practical way to carry both a bicycle and SCUBA equipment on any trip (add the big camera and it would be like a full-blown expedition). Either sport makes for heavy travel, and combining them just wasn’t possible. By returning to Steamboat and making Curacao a separate trip, I should have better quality diving than I would have found in the Mediterranean and avoid having an anchor around my neck while cycling in Italy. Curacao appears to be a prime destination for diving just like Italy was prime for cycling.

I am making use of the flight time to review my SCUBA certification training materials. Most of it is still pretty fresh, but a little review can’t hurt. I would rather be reminded of something I forgot at 35,000 above sea level in the plane than 60 feet below sea level in a panic.

I will be in Curacao from August 14-25.

2) From Curacao, I will return to Steamboat for a couple of days, and then head out on a national park road trip. I visited my first park last week on a bike trip over Trail Ridge Road and a hike to Mills Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. That was a quick 2-day intro to the national parks that I hope will be just the beginning.

Kristen Lodge was the instigator who organized the Trail Ridge ride along with a friend of hers named George. Trail Ridge road is the highest continuous paved road in North America. It tops out at a little under 12,200 feet. We originally wanted to ride up from Grand Lake, up and over to Estes Park and return back over the pass to Grand Lake in one day. I think we could have done it, but the weather turned nasty at 12,000 feet. The wind blew so hard that I had to angle the bike into the cross-wind in order to track a (more or less) straight line down the road. It was an adrenaline rush, but literally being blown off the road was a distinct possibility. Combine the wind with a bit of cold rain, and we made the rational decision to turn around at the summit rather than dropping down to Estes Park. Although a disappointment for a goal-oriented cyclist, it was a great ride. I will post pictures when I return.

When I get back from Curacao, I plan to load up the car with cycling, camping and photographic gear and head north. I am a bit conflicted about how much driving I want to do, but here is the full loop that will most likely be cut short at some point when I’m tired of driving or the calendar says I need to get back to work.

a) Steamboat
b) Teton National Park
c) Yellowstone National Park
d) Glacier National Park
e) Banff
f) Lake Louise
g) Jasper
h) Vancouver
i) Olympic National Park (at Eric Weaver’s cabin)
j) Oregon Coast
k) Redwoods National Park
l) San Francisco
m) Yosemite National Park
n) Zion National Park
o) Arches National Park
p) Canyonlands
q) Steamboat

Next post should have some underwater pictures.