Cozumel in April

Hi folks, I am new to the site here, but, I just wanted to pass along a big thanks to Ken for a quick solution to an equipment issue, his adjustment would have been very helpful underwater. I recently had a dive trip to Cozumel with a group of divers and we rented the Villa Princessa house with 7 beds and 6 baths. The house was fine and plenty big enough. the thanks go to Ken as I had my Aux reg start freeflowing as I went down on a dive. I had some buddies make attempts to halt the freeflow, as well as myself, but with no success. Ken made the adjustments and all should be fine for the next trip. Coz is a great place to dive, the weather for the first day of dives did not cooperate, but, the remainder of the week was fine, albeit, a bit rough on the sea. There were some incorrect adjustments on the strobe, so I ended up with natural light photos, but, some are actually pretty good. The photos are too big to upload here but I will work on shrinking them a bit. All in all, it was my first Dive trip to Cozumel and I enjoyed it greatly. The Santa Rosa wall is great, and looking up from 100ft is spectacular with the reef wall and all. Next trip is to Jamaica and it will be a first there as well. Enjoy…just add water!

Glen Marier

Mountain Divers Shop

  Hello fellow divers. Those of you haven’t visited the Mountain Divers Shop recently, you need to go! The dive shop is looking better with new gear every day.  Ken has a new line of pretty cool looking t-shirts, the 2008 Diving Almanac & Yearbook and more. I bought the almanac yesterday and it’s well worth the cost. It has a little bit of everything related to diving.  But the main reason for this blog is to tell you about, probably one of the most unique and revolutionary dive fin on the market.  The “NEW” AquaLung Slingshot.  I have done a lot of research on this fin and I’m convinced it is the best fin for all divers on the market today.  Learn about the Power Bands, Gear Shift, and Mid-foot Flex Joint, pretty nifty names for a fin. And Ken has all three colors in stock; black/silver, blue/silver and red/silver.  Get yours while you can!! I have been drooling waiting for mine.

   My Marine Corps Fly toy. The CH-53E Super Stallion!!!

Happy diving & Flying, Bob Bush (Buffalo).

 My other love!

THE SNOW IS HERE,BUT IT CAN’T LAST

Hey….. it may be cold outside but I’ve been diving for a month online. I’ve been online planning a few trips to North and South Carolina, but I am going to a new place in S.C. (charleston). Does anyone know any good charters for offshore wreck diving there? I have already booked the Cooper river trip…I can’t wait. As far as N.C. goes I’ll be doing Discovery Divers there as a repeat customer. Iwould like any feedback on Charleston, SC, thanks.

A special thanks to Ken for the help with our Rescue cert. . I will be back next month for more.

Mark, ULFA

Local Dive Season Ending

Hello Everyone:

I wanted to take this opportunity and thank everyone for making all this possible. It has been one hell-u-va ride in 2007. The shop has went through many changes, and I must say it looks good. The growing pains have been, well, growing pains. The one thing that was hard to keep up with this year was,  service work. Not having a consistant Dive Shop for the better part of 8 or more years, created a little servicing nightmare. I am a big advocate of customer service, and I will continue to do everything I can do to make things better for you, my customer. It’s a simple formula for me…..honesty & integrity. I always try to do the right thing in everything I do in life. I sincerely appreciate each and every persons input, sweat & hard work no matter what the project is. Trust me, I wouldn’t have come this far without each and every person that has helped. Thank You again, and thanks for supporting my little slice of heaven. Looking forward to a very bright future!

Ken Parent 

Bonaire

Hi Mountain Divers.  Pam & I just returned from a week in Bonaire.  We stayed a week at the Divi Flamingo Dive Resort & Casino. This was our second trip there.  We had great weather and did 18 dives in 6 days of diving, including 6 night dives.  I would recommend this resort to any level diver.  The dives are easy and there is always lots to see.  Most are reef dives from 35-85′.  The price is very resonable. What makes this resort stand out is the dive shop and dock is very close to your room (Our room was about 35 yards to the end of the dock where you either caught the boat for your boat dives as well as where you enter the water for any other dive you wanted to do.  On their dock they have a covered building with personal dive lockers for your gear to dry between dives and tanks to go diving 24/7.  Right off the end of the dock you enter the water to a great reef that goes from 35-105′.  We saw numerous different eel’s including a 9′ giant green morey, hundreds of very colorful reef fish, coral (both hard & soft) and numerous sponges.  At night we always has at least one friendly Tarpon follow us on our dive.  We also saw sea-horse’s, ocytopus shrimp, lobsters and more…  After diving the resort had a couple first class resturants to dine.  Over all an excellent holiday.

Bob & Pam Bush

Many Memories

  It seems as only yesterday that I took my first breath under water. My instructor had just returned home from the military, and I was still in high school. I had been given something special from a special person, the opportunity to see things most had never seen before. A whole new world had been opened and it was all mine to explore.

  My first open water dives came on learning experience for the both of us, Morrison Springs, Fl.  Not only did we dive the springs, but a wreck in the Gulf off of Panama City. Things I could never imagined was surrounding me. I will admit to being very intimidated at first but quickly realized the creatures around were also nervous, and my instructor was there coaching me.

   A couple of years passed with many local diving trips. Many other people were being certified. Some I knew and some I’d meet. Each dive was interesting in its own way, and each person the same. My instructor and I had grew a little distant due to the popularity of diving. He was teaching and I was diving. Summersville, Florida, North Carolina, Bahamas, are all still vivid in my mind, yet my instructor was still with me.

 Seventeen years has passed since that first breath of air. My instructor has traveled the world in search of the next memory. He gave me many to hold onto and will be cherished forever. Thank you brother for coming home and giving me chance to make more. And thanks for always being a big brother, and instructor. I feel  many “Mountain Divers” will have memories to last a lifetime.          Bryan

SCuba diving is cool

I love scuba diving with mountain divers

Dive Tahiti

Wow, to think that it was just last year I was getting certified with Ken.  I have always wanted to scuba, but now that our family was scheduled for a trip to Tahiti, I was hugely incented to go get it done. Let me tell you it was well worth it. The islands are beautiful above the water, and even more so under them. It was like paradise. Diversity of life, rich brilliant colors. I enjoyed looking at the micro level as well thinking about this eco-system all being alive and dependent on one another.  Tahiti is also known as French Polynesia, so the folks on the dive boat all spoke French. I speak none. They also all use metric instead of imperial math. I am so glad I had my own dive computer with me. Needless to say the briefings before the dive in French Metric were not that helpful. The good news is that the hand signals underwater were just about the same. I just stuck to my buddie assigned to me, no problems.  One thing to keep in mind if you dive Tahiti, it is one of the richest shark populations on earth. They are everywhere!!!  This was somewhat un-nerving at first but, they are just fish and treated that way by all the locals who thought I was crazy.  I soon realized that they were right. They acted just as any other fish would, and pretty soon I forgot they were even there, and was lost at looking at the reef inhabitants. Here are a few photos I took there. If anyone is thinking of diving Tahiti, give me a call, I would love to discuss it with you. And thank you mountain divers for getting me ready for this once in a lifetime trip.

RC

The First Night (My first night dive)

A dark mirror of the summer’s night sky.  We donned our suits and gear.  Loaded down to the point of being unrecognizable to others.  One by one we jumped in without a thought or care.  Coolness wrapped around our bodies like a cool breeze in heat.  We bobbed like toy boats in a child’s tub before descending into the night.  The only light coming from beams in our hands.  Finite light in the inky darkness.  Swiftly we went searching the surroundings.  Night changes everything, even our surroundings.  Like a formation of birds in the sky, we went along in our v.  Gliding through the black night we searched until the moment arrived when we could stay no longer.  Our time was up.  Resurfacing and yet not wanting to leave this enchanted other world we slowly made our way back to where we had come.

Total Dive Blog System Information

Hi Divers. I hope you enjoy this site. Coming soon will be a forum where we can hold and maintain discussions. This should be pretty cool. All I ask is that you please refrain from posting pictures, because if they are not compressed and resized appropriately they will clog up the server and it will run really slow.

Keep in mind that I would love to post your pictures on the web site! Just email them to me and then I can resize and compress them properly.

Thanks for blogging and remember: if it’s not a Mountain Divers Total Dive Blogging System, it’s just a blog.