Shark's teeth anyone?

Dive Buddy Dee called me up last week and for the first time in a long time, she did not have to keep her young grandson over the weekend. It just so happened, when she called, M2 was in my cube visiting, so we decided to help Dee make the best of her weekend and we put together a quick dive trip for the three of us. Dee has an RV so lodging was no issue. All we had to do was figure out where we wanted to go. We had all discussed wanting to go to Cooper River in South Carolina and dive for megladon shark's teeth in the past, so M2 and I did a Mapquest from our town to Goose Creek, SC. Only 4 hours away!! Let's go shark tooth diving!!!

I called up a charter that was recommended to me by a person I met on DiveBuddy.com and spoke to the captain, Capt. Phil. He sounded like a a "good 'ol boy" and we got along good, so I asked him to be our charter for the Saturday we were coming. (www.backwaterdiversions.com)

Saturday came and the RV showed up at my house around 4:15 am. We got all the gear loaded and off we went. I plugged in "Gabby", my Garmin GPS, and she said we would arrive at the boat landing around 7:46 am. Awesome. After stopping for gas a couple times, we were getting close and Gabby said we would be arriving at 8:06. I had 7:30 on my watch, but we still had 80 miles to go. Something wasn't right. M2 grabbed Gabby and looked in her settings. She had been set on Central time and not eastern. He set it right and, beep, 9:06 was our arrival time. Crap. I got on the phone to Capt Phil and told him I screwed up our traveling time and we would be an hour late. He said it was no problem because we were the only people on his boat that day. Whew.. Thank goodness.

We got to the boat landing at 9:10, loaded our gear on the boat and parked the RV. Then we noticed the sign at the dock. Hmm.. This could be interesting. We get on the boat and head out to our first dive site. We get to the site and the first thing we see is about a 4-5 foot gator swimming just off the shore about 40 feet away from the boat. Kinda cool, but we've never jumped in water knowing there were gators in the immediate vicinity before. Capt Phil then gave us our briefing. He told us what we should, where we should be looking, what we were looking for and his only rule: Come to the surface when we had at least 500 psi left in the tank. Why? In case a gator is near you, you can go back to the bottom and stay until he leaves. Nice.

Dive Buddy Dee and I drop down together and we start searching. I finding nothing and only about 5 minutes into my dive, my dive light goes out. I can't see enough with the ambient light around, so I surface to get my spare. While I'm up there, M2 is asking for more details because he's not having any luck either. Capt Phil gives us a bit more and we head down again. This time, I go to an area that is more like the search area should be and I start me searching. Searching involves finding an area that look promising, waving your free hand side to side to blow the sand off the area and sift through the rocks you uncovered hoping to find teeth. Pot luck, shot in the dark, needle in a haystack? You bet your bippy it is. But, luckily, when we all surfaced, we had all found some teeth and/or artifacts. I thought I found a really old bottle until I surfaced and we noticed it was the very familiar shape of a Yoo-Hoo bottle. This dive had a bit of current, but not much. Just enough to move the silt out of the way when you stirred it up, but not enough to carry you way. Viz was about 8-10 feet max. I came up with 520 psi and had logged a whopping 110 minutes on that tank. Of course, the depth was only 17 feet.

After we all surface, we headed to site two where we would do our other two dives for the day. Dive two consisted of no current and visibility that ranged from 6 feet to zero when I kicked up silt searching. I brought up more pieces on this dive than any of the three. I had a depth of 21 feet, came up with 1100 psi and logged 83 minutes. Dive three had a ripping current at the end of it. The current got so bad, the boat had to keep cranking up because it was dragging the anchor. When I heard him crank up to get closer to me, I knew the other two had surfaced, so I went ahead and called my dive early. I had a depth 19 feet, 1300 psi left and logged 61 minutes on dive 3.

When it was all said and done we all had a good number of pieces that ranged from the actual megladon teeth we went for, Great White teeth, Mako teeth, Sand Tiger Shark teeth, petrified wood, whale bone, pottery, quartz, unknown materials and a couple of "Indian Sex Rocks." We asked Capt Phil what an Indian Sex Rock was and he said: "Just a F***ing rock." We only saw two gators all day. That small one at our first dive site and another about 10-12 feet long that was cruisng the banks when we were headed back to the dock. It was an awesome day!!! Capt Phil was a gracious host and we learned a lot about shark tooth diving. We will be going back and doing this again!!

After we unloaded at the dock, we took the RV to a campground and set up camp for the night. That's when I realized I can't make a campfire, but I can cook some good Brats after M2 gets the fire going. We all crash around 10:00 and get up the next morning around 7:15. M2 and I tear everything down outside and I start the coffee on the stove. The smell of coffee wakes Dee up and after we have our coffee and get everything ready, we're on the road again before 10:00 am. We get back to my house around 2:30 Sunday afternoon. It was an awesome trip!! Great trip, great dives, great times, great friends.

Gear Configuration Change?

Only my dive buddies will know what I'm talking about here, so if you aren't a diver, excuse me for leaving you out this time.

I'm seriously considering a gear configuration change. I want to go with the 7 foot primary and a bungee for the octo. I had thought about doing it last year, but since I was helping in O/W classes, I didn't do it because I had to look, more or less, like the students did in the class. I haven't been able to help out in classes in some months now and even if I did, I could just use a set at the dive shop instead of my own, so that's a non-issue now.

I look at a few pictures of me and, at times, I look like Dr. Octopus with the hoses going to every side and out from my body at least a half a foot. (See picture) I'm thinking the 7ftt, bungee method will be the best way to streamline that stuff. I'm already using a BP/W set up, so, I won't look like a DIR wannabe Stroke with a 7foot and a jacket style BC. But, don't get me wrong, I don't want to go DIR either. So, can anyone offer any pros/cons on my gear config change?

Seaworld Experience

Last week, we went on a short “Family” vacation to Orlando. Since I have a non-diving spouse, I promised her there would be “zero” diving related activities during the week. And I kept my word.

Although I didn’t dive, I did participate in something that was just as cool and would be very interesting to anyone that dives and likes marine life. For my first Father’s Day back in 2007, my wife gave me the go-ahead to participate in the “Marine Mammal Keeper for a Day” at SeaWorld, Orlando. I had seen this program during a Travel Channel show called “Top 10 Aquariums” and was dying to do it.
The morning of my experience, I arrived at SeaWorld around 0615. The experience started at 0630 and they asked us to be there 15 minutes early. Just a little after I showed up, the other two participants showed up. (They only have three people per day do the Mammal Keeper) Katie and Nicole; Two High School seniors that were on vacation from school in New York. Right at 0630, Johnathon, our guide for the day, showed up. He checked all the paperwork and then took us into the back lot of SeaWorld. This was where the main “Fish House,” where they prepared the 4000 lbs of fish for food each day, was located, along with the rehab area for dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, birds and sea otters. The vet’s office and surgery buildings were also located back here. We watched the keepers tube feed a sick dolphin and we helped feed mending dolphins. We fed the rehab manatees and watched Jonathon bottle feed Jackie, an orphaned baby manatee. We toured the vet/surgery areas, the sea otter/birds rehab area and fed the manatees in the exhibit area of the park. We also went in the Fish House and helped prepare the food and formula for the otters and Jackie.

After all of that, we went across the park and changed into our wetsuits. As we were coming back across the park, we noticed the park had opened and the people were filing in. Next, we went to the “Dolphin Nursery” to feed and play with that small group of about 9 dolphins. That’s when we noticed that not everything we do that do is going to be “behind the scenes.” We went out into the crowd with or buckets of fish and into an “Employees Only” area. All the dolphins came to our side and we started feeding them. Jonathon taught us hand signals to use with the dolphins and we actually performed a “show” for the crowd gathered there. It was VERY cool to here the cheers of the kids when the dolphins did their thing. There a small crowd of about 50 people at this exhibit. Next, we headed to “Dolphin Cove” where we did just about the same thing. The biggest difference, there were 22 dolphins and about 200 people gathered around. After about 30-45 minutes at Dolphin Cove, we headed to “Wild Arctic” where we did another interaction with Beluga Whales, this time. Same thing: Feeding, hand signal and small tricks. If you have never felt of a beluga whale, it’s like grabbing a thick piece of Jell-O. Not a hard part on their bodies except for the jaws and a small part of the spine. These three interactions alone were worth the price of the experience. But, we were also able to interact and “play” with seals, sea lions, sharks, sting rays and even a 900 lb walrus named Dozer. We saw behind the scenes with Polar Bears, Sharks and Penguins. The thing that kept amazing me was how clean everything was, even behind the scenes. Even the places where the fish was prepared all day were cleaner than an operating room. It was an amazing day.

If you ever decide to participate in this experience, here are a few things I learned to help you out: First, you are not behind the scenes all the time. If you are not comfortable in front of crowds, don’t do it. You are in front of the crowd for about 3 hours of your 8 hour stay. You need to bring NOTHING with you. They have the wetsuits for you to wear, including the booties. They have locking lockers for you to store your personal items in at the wetsuit building. There is even a towel in the locker for you to use when you get back. (Although, none of us got wet enough to warrant the wetsuit or the towel.. You never get “in” the water. Always just beside it.) The wetsuit building also has showers in case you need it. The SeaWorld photographers do follow you around during the Dolphin and Beluga Whale interactions and take about 180 pictures of the group. (Or, that’s how many they took of ours) These picture are available at the photo booth at the end of the day. Instead of looking through 180 pictures, I just purchased the CD with all of them and printed off the pics I wanted in album or on my website. They also give you a t-shirt and a book about SeaWorld rescue and rehab efforts. Although the experience is $400 for the day, I, personally, feel it was worth every penny.