Now if you don’t know me, you’re just going to assume I am crazy on this one, but here goes nothing.

Being a diver, you are well aware of DCS (Decompression Sickness) A.K.A. The Bends. Well one thing as a diver you may not be aware of is Diverticulitis. I mean why would you, after all, it has nothing to do with diving. In short, here is a quick snippet on Diverticulitis just to catch you up to speed a bit. Now bear with me, it gets to a diving point at some time.

Many people have small pouches in the lining of the colon, or large intestine, that bulge outward through weak spots. Each pouch is called a diverticulum. Multiple pouches are called diverticula. The condition of having diverticula is called diverticulosis.

About 10 percent of Americans older than 40 have diverticulosis. The condition becomes more common as people age. About half of all people older than 60 have diverticulosis.

Diverticula are most common in the lower portion of the large intestine, called the sigmoid colon. When the pouches become inflamed, the condition is called diverticulitis. Ten to 25 percent of people with diverticulosis get diverticulitis. Diverticulosis and diverticulitis together are called diverticular disease.

Read more »

            Well here it is October already and the pumpkins are popping up everywhere, even underwater these days.

            My dive shop, and notice I call them MY dive shop, and not the local Dive Shop. A local dive shop is someplace you go on occasion to browse dive equipment. My dive shop is where I go to get great gear from close friends that know what you need and like, and give ya a good ribbing while you’re there too. But to be fair, I do deserve it I am a ball buster and love a good joke (My wife is still laughing at Tim’s Prank). So no harm no foul I guess, right?  

            Well Kalipso decided to start a new annual event. An underwater pumpkin carving contest where you can only use your dive knife to do the carving. Not only was this a fantastic idea, but sounded fun as heck to do with the wife and kids, who as you know from past articles are my dive buddies.

            We all met at Kalipso Dive shop on Sunday 10-26-08 to “gut” our pumpkins. We did this so as not to offend anyone but just “gutting” the pumpkins in the ocean and letting the waste material pollute our view and waters. A good idea, but my wife was hoping to find some cute little pumpkin loving fish and stuff him so full of food he would survive a famine. I told her that I am not familiar with any fish that eat vegetables from shore, but she was hopeful anyway. She is an animal lover, and especially loves animals that eat good. For some reason she treasures this natural act with such high regard, that any animal that eats good and needs a home, has one waiting for them at my house, yea no stopping her, I once had a 50 Lb Sulcata tortoise walking around my home for a year or so while she fattened him up to donate to a Reptile zoo. Yea he was 30 Lbs when we got him mal-nourished, fattened to 50lb off some of the best eats money can buy, and yes he would have loved the pumpkin “guts”, he ate a ton of it when he was with us.

Read more »

                Well it’s been a while since I wrote my last story, but this week is all about turnabout being fair play.

Every week we divers head out to our favorite spots to dive. Once there, our shore support team kicks into high gear and gets us down below so gracefully, we never really appreciate what they go through to make our day so great. Well this week, I learned a valuable lesson.

                You can tell school is back in session, you can tell this by the amount of rampant infectious disease floating through the air. By this I mean simply you cannot make it one month with a family of 4 children, 3 in 3 different grades,and two different schools, from bring home a cold or flu. I mean come on, is this really necessary? Many people simply refuse to keep their sick kids home. Why, I don’t know, nor do I care about their parenting “issues”. What I do care about is the fact that their kid infected my kid, and my kid infected me, and if I am infected with a cold or flu, I can’t dive. Plain and simple you just cannot equalize with a stuffy head or any form of congestion.

                Well this isn’t the only reason I have not written in a month or so, I mean come on, if my cold or flu lasted that long, I would have had to have a talk with some of those parents. The real reason that I have not written so much, is that I just haven’t been diving that much. You may ask why such a devoted diver just didn’t dive so much, well technically I did, but it was in a pool, and not much to write about down there, unless you count the one carat diamond I found at the bottom of the local college’s pool. And before you ask, yes it was returned to the college, I mean someone must be missing that diamond from a very nice ring I am sure. So you may ask “why are you diving in a pool”. Good question. And here is a good answer.

Read more »

Well here it is another Saturday, and another dive day. Well this week is as good as it gets.

We decided on doing a two tank dive this week. The weather was perfect at the beach. 75 degree’s a slight breeze and sunny. What better time for the shore support team to enjoy the beach right? Our shore support team consists of my wife Amy A.K.A. Goobs as we call her, my 2 daughters Amber and Ansley, and my Newest edition to the clan, Grady, our 1 year old son. Granted he don’t offer much in the way of support, but he sure is cute all full of sand walking around the beach. Our goal this week was simple, 1st round up some nice Fillet of Tautog, then on to some Buffahogs. The Tautog fillets are pretty straight forward, but the Buffahogs need a little explaining. You see, my Son and dive buddy Greg II is a fanatic for Hot Sauce, much as many boys in the age group of 10 – 16 seem to be lately. Everyone I talk to with a son in this age group says the same thing, that their kid has an unexplained desire to drink it straight from the bottle. We were beginning to wonder if he was “normal” or if he had something wrong with him. Well turns out he is normal, so if your son suddenly is sneaking around with a bottle in his pocket, as long as it’s good ole’ hot sauce, he’s normal. If he is not, you need to buy some and let him try it, you never know. Well anyway on to what a Buffahogs is. You take a medium sized Quahog, steam it until it is nice and open, then while it is on a half shell, use a butter knife to totally separate it from its shell, put a pat of some real butter under the clam meat so it melts, add a good splash of Hot Sauce, and just a dab of lemon juice freshly squeezed onto it, and slurp it from the shell. You can also add things such as some fresh chopped Cilantro or whatever herb you like best. Let me tell you, this is an addicting little treat, so much so that even my daughters are starting to cut into our supplies.

Read more »

Well here is another dive day. This Saturday we figured we would head down to a little place called King’s Beach in Newport RI. We figured we would head here for some Spearfishing action since this is the spot where the U.S. Championship Freediving Spearfishing Tournament is going to be held. I mean how could you lose at a spot where the Championships are held right?

Well here is how. First what you need to do is wait until the perfect hurricane forms off the Florida coast, then wait till it kicks up a notch or 2, then head down to your favorite spot and watch visibility drop from 0 feet to a negative number. I know it seems impossible, but trust me, been in New England all my life, good visibility here is a myth. Yea yea, we sometimes get 10 – 15 feet and once in 2 years now I seen visibility hit 20 – 30 feet. Was the best dive I ever had too, but on average, you’re lucky if visibility hits 5 – 10 feet on good days. Some dive spots are notorious around here for poor visibility in the summer months, like Fort Wetherill, King’s beach, our coastline in general.

You see, a lot of people don’t realize a few things about Rhode Island (not an Island, it’s just its Name) for instance that here, we get the Gulf Stream just about touching our shore line. This means that yes we have warmer water then the two states next door on average, but it also means we have less visibility. You see, when a hurricane or tropical storm forms on the Atlantic Ocean, the gulfstream is always in its wake. This kicks up debris in the water and that fast moving, warm current, Gulf Stream pushes all the debris right into our shoreline. So if we even hear of a storm of any type “forming” in the ocean, we know we’re in for a tough time.

Read more »

Well another Saturday and another Dive Day. The weather was perfect for diving today. 85 degrees, a slight breeze, and Full high tide at 4:30 PM. Perfect.

We started out as we normally do; we packed the truck full of gear, food, and kids. We were heading to the beaches at Point Judith Harbor of Refuge. When we got there, the place was loaded like a cattle holding facility in the Midwest. The place was packed, wall to wall people all soaking up the sun and enjoying the mild waves lapping at the shore line, who could blame them, surely not me. The beach was so packed, and unlike usual, the air even at the ocean was still hot by any standard. Usually at home the temperature reads 85 or 90. By the time we actually hit the beach, the temp falls by as much as 20 degrees on some days. Not today my friend. Hot as hell, and just about as packed too. We decided to shoot over to another dive spot that we have visited a couple of times just over the Newport Bridge in Newport. Fort Adams. Fort Adams is a great little place to dive. Good, clear, nice, deep, fish filled waters just waiting to feed a family of 6. The parking is about 10 feet from the water, unlike Point Judith where the parking is like a ½ mile hike to the water in full scuba gear in 90 degree heat. A great diving spot, but on some days, the price can be a little too much. I mean ever try to walk ½ a mile in full scuba gear in 90 degrees with 85 to 90 % humidity? It will sure make a person reconsider their hobbies let me tell you that. Well not the case at Fort Adams. At Fort Adams you can park along side of a dirt/tarred road that borders the water.

Read more »

Man oh Man I love Mother Nature and the way she toys with man. The Blackfish season is open again here in Rhode Island. I love hunting for Black Fish. They are actually called Tautog but their common name is Black Fish. Whatever you call them, they’re delicious. Nice thick fillets, tender mild flesh, no matter how ya slice em, they’re good for everything from Fish and Chip’s (my favorite), to some good old fashioned Fish Chowder. We love to hunt them in one of their favorite haunts in this area. Sure you can find them at Fort Wetherill, along the cliff walls that drop down to 50 feet or so and are littered with boulders everywhere, But The breakers at Point Judith are tops.

That long strip heading southeast, is about a mile long, made of boulders, and all of them are covered in Tautog food. Mussels, Lobsters, Crabs, heck you name it, it lives in the boulders here. We start at the beach you can see in the picture above, on the eastern side of this wall. We swim all the way out to almost the tip of these breakers. At high tide it’s about 25’ – 35’ deep, and loaded with fresh food for everyone. We tend to descend about 25 – 50 feet from the tip, due to the fact that the current at the tip can be some of the worst Rhode Island has to offer. To explain this area better, to the east is another breaker, not much chance of being able to miss them if you tried, to the west is Europe.

Read more »

Diving Point Judith Harbor of Refuge 6/28/2008 Fluke & Clam Hunting

Written by: Phaleg

Tide was going to be high at 4:05 PM today, so we figured we would head out to the fluke waters before full high tide and have a look around. The water is getting pretty warm around New England now with most places well into the 60’s for an average surface temperature. The bottom temp at say 20’ – 35’ is much cooler with an average in the low to mid 50’s. The Flounder seem to like it at around 60 for a bottom temp before the real monsters move in for the feeding frenzies that seem to linger for days on the New England shore lines.
 
At around 10’ or so the Flounder started appearing everywhere. These were the Winter Flounder though and season on this little fella is closed until September. The state of Rhode Island has a very limited season on Winter Flounder trying to get the populations to rebound a bit. We have a heavy fishing industry in this state, and the state is working very hard to make sure Fishing regulations work hand in hand with commercial and recreational limits.

 As you can see they blend in quite well with their surroundings in this Eel grass / Sand mix breeding heaven for Flounder of all types. We have 4 types that inhabit our waters on a regular basis. Winter Flounder, Summer Flounder, Yellowtail Flounder, and Witch Flounder, all are truly delicious. My wife and children don’t really care too much for fish, but flounder is top on their list of good stuff to eat. They love several types of the fish I hunt here in New England, and Flounder is their favorite, I personally like Tautog the best. The picture above is of a Winter Flounder, you can tell by the mouth most of all. A Winter, Yellowtail, and Witch Flounder all have very small mouths, while the highly aggressive Summer Flounder (A.K.A. Fluke) has a very large, toothy menacing mouth, and uses it to chase down prey and gobble them up whole.

Read more »

There seems to be a manufacturing error on the inner bladder that is mounted in Poseidon W50 wings, that causes the seam that holds the two inner bladder halves together, to break, making the wing unfit as a floating device.

It seems to be inner bladders marked with batch number 5445 (see picture above) that is effected by the manufacturing error.

These inner bladders have been mounted in W50 wings sold during the period: 2007-09-16 - 2008-06-10.

To check if you have an inner bladder effected by this manufacturing error, do the following:

Between the two ´legs´ of the W50 wing, there is a zipper. Open this zipper.
 
You should now see the inner bladder. Between the two ´ legs´of the inner bladder, there is a tab with the article number, batch number and manufacturing year.
 
If the batch number on this tab reads 5445, the inner bladder might be defect.

If there is an other batch number, then the bladder is not effected by this information.

If you have an inner bladder from batch no 5445, Poseidon recommends that you DO NOT dive with the wing, until the inner bladder has been replaced!

Poseidon Diving Systems AB will replace all W50 inner bladders from manufacturing batch no 5445.  Anyone who has an inner bladder from manufacturing batch 5445, to contact the dive store where you bought your W50 wing as soon as possible, so that your W50 bladder can be replaced.

Unfortunately, the manufacturing error was not detectable at the quality control that each inner bladder is put through prior to delivery.

Poseidon Diving Systems apologizes for the inconvenience this is causing and hope to replace the blades as soon as possible.