PrimeScuba Blog

It’d be an understatement to say we love scuba. It’s our livelihood and our business, and we relish every moment we get to spend in the water. For those days we need to spend on land, we love to read scuba diving blogs, especially the Neutral Dive Gear Scuba Diving Blog.

We’re all about the always interesting posts on Neutral Dive Gear, such as “Profile in Courage: Jim Kennedy, Last Surviving WWII Deep Sea Diver”. It’s great to see a blog give homage to such a brave figure in our history. “Man Lobbies For Artificial Reef Off Florida Central Coast” is another great post – we must continually lobby to save what’s left of our reefs, or one day we won’t be able to see these beautiful natural creations.

Be sure to stop by and see our friends at the Neutral Dive Gear Scuba Diving Blog – here’s to spreading the great fun of scuba diving and raising awareness to preserve our oceans!

One of the questions I often get asked by students is “What about diving in the rain”? While I’m sure we would all prefer a bright sunny day to go diving, there is absolutely nothing wrong with diving in the rain – as long as some common sense rules are applied. 1st and foremost – IS THERE ANY LIGHTENING? IS THERE A CHANCE FOR LIGHTENING? If the answer is yes to either of these, do not dive. If the rain causes the visibility to deteriorate to the point that is out of your training and/or experience levels, do not dive. If the rain causes an increase in current that is out of your training and/or experience, do not dive. However if it is raining, as long as none of these, or any other counter indicating  conditions  exist, then go ahead and dive. After all, you’re going to be getting wet anyway, right? So why not have fun while doing it? Besides, you will probably find that your dive site isn’t crowded, as most people will probably be staying at home.
            Remember, once you get to the dive site, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure conditions are within your training and/or experience levels. If not, there is always plan “B”, right? Ehhh, you do have a plan “B”, correct………? (Dive Planning 101 – ALWAYS have a plan “B”)

Last year while solo diving in Bodine Lake, I had the scare of my life. I came face to face with The Kraken! Not exactly the type of thing you want to run into in any form of diving, let alone while soloing it.

            It was in early fall and vis was only about 10 very cloudy feet due to recent storms. Since I’d been in this lake hundreds of times that was no problem, or so I thought. I was cruising along nice and peaceful, enjoying the many fish and turtles when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw…..IT!  IT was sitting on the bottom and I could see its basketball size eyes, the outline of its long body and worst of all, a portion of its 8 arms and 2 whips. Not only was it looking right at me and following my every movement, but according to the direction I was swimming, I was going to pass right over those deadly arms and whips. Never in all my years have had I run into an apparition as frightening as this one. All of a sudden it hit me – not the monster, but the thought of “how can a giant/colossal squid live in a shallow fresh water lake”? In the ultimate act of defiance, I boldly swam up to it and right in front of my eyes, it did the ultimate shape shift – it made its body look like a sunken tree and its arms and whips to look like roots!

Needless to say, I had not only given myself one heck of a fright, but in the end one heck of a laugh.

            It’s amazing how the brain can take a partial image, fill in the details and come up with something totally different. Anyhow, now everytime I go diving in Bodine Lake, you can be sure I pay a visit to my very own Kraken friend, who now helps protect a variety of newborn fries.

Many years ago, I had a dog named Lady who loved the water. The 1^st time she ever saw me go diving, she went absolutely crazy. It was a shore dive and my buddy and I were getting ready to descend. I heard lady barking and whining, but I figured Mom had everything under control. We were still in water shallow enough to stand in when we deflated our BCDs and started swimming a few feet off of the bottom, following its downward slope. All of a sudden, I feel a tugging on my regulator hose. My buddy starts laughing so hard he spits out his regulator. There is Lady, trying to pull me back to the surface (we were down about 5’ at this time). It seems she must have thought I was going to drown, broke her collar and went to rescue me. Needless to say, while we all got a good laugh out of this, Lady got a steak for dinner in honor of her “rescue”. Eventually she got the idea that I wasn’t in danger, and would be waiting faithfully for us to return.