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Newsletter Summer 2007

Hurricane Divers News

The biggest news: A new, second Hurricane Divers dive shop in Tangolunda! The majority of our divers and snorkelers are staying in hotels in Tangolunda and with this second office we hope to be able to serve them better. We'll be able to take reservations and we'll have some equipment and tanks available. We will still leave for our trips from the Santa Cruz Marina, but we can meet at our new location and we'll offer transportation to Santa Cruz. We are also looking into offering "try-diving" and course training in the pools of the various hotels in Tangolunda.

The location is "Plaza Punta Tangolunda". It's on the left-hand side when you enter Tangolunda, just before getting to the Crown Pacific beach club. We're next to the spa that opened there a while ago and we face the ocean, looking out over the golf course. It's only a couple of minutes walking from the Barcelo, Gala, Camino Real Zaashila, Crown Pacific and Quinta Real hotels.

The Low Season (Summer)

First Choice had their charter flight from Manchester (UK) again, the one that started last year. We had quite few British coming diving and/or snorkeling with us again and in general they seem to really like what Huatulco has to offer, underwater as well as above the water. Hopefully First Choice will continue with this summer charter flight!  We also had many people from the Houston (USA) area again this summer, no doubt because Continental continues to fly direct from Houston to Huatulco. Another positive note is that the national tourism seemed up a bit from the last few years. It had been declining for years, hopefully this upward trend will continue over the next few years.

The coming high season (winter) looks like it will be very busy again and as usual, I'm already getting many bookings. Please people, if you're coming between Christmas and Easter and would like to go out with us, book as soon as you have your travel dates and avoid disappointment.

Staff News

During the summer, which is low season here, Natanael was basically our only working Instructor and Toño did his Divemaster Course with us. Yan, who was with us through the previous high season, left in May and went to work in Spain and Venezuela. Ken left too, in April, but he's is already back from Canada to help out during the high season again. Brian, who did his Divemaster Internship with us a few years back, will be back in November as well to work during the high season.

With the high season around the corner and with an additional location in Tangolunda we will have more staff than we ever had. Toño will do his Instructor Course with us in November, so we'll have a total of five Instructors working through the winter. Charlie is also still with us on a free-lance bases, that makes six! Pat will be in Huatulco again as well for the winter. Didier, who did his Divemaster Internship with us just after Brian will come on holiday in December.

Including Pauline, Ernesto and Javier, we'll have a full-time staff of eight for the high season, plus a few people helping out now and then!

If you are interested in making your hobby your living, check out the "GoPro!" page in our website.

New in Our Website

Following are some examples of recent changes and additions to our website:

I spent much of the summer doing a general revision and updating many of the existing pages. Nevertheless, please let me know if you think something needs to be updated.

In the previous newsletter I mentioned that we were working on a Video Gallery; well it's there. By now I have uploaded more than 200 video clips of Huatulco underwater and above water. Because of the amount of videos I created several galleries, such as: "The Latest", "The Most Popular", "Aquatic Life", "Dive- and Snorkel Sites", "Huatulco Above Water", "Guest Videos" and a page with all the available video clips. Some of those I divided into sub-galleries. In "Aquatic Life" you'll find "On the Surface", "Rays and Turtles" and "Other Aquatic Life" and in "Huatulco Above Water" you'll find "Bays and Beaches", "Driving through Huatulco" and "Other Huatulco Videos" (including a video of "Monte Alban", in Oaxaca City). I'm currently working on a "Hurricane Divers" gallery as well, with videos of our dive shop(s), staff, equipment, services, etc.

We will continue to upload lots more (I even contracted more server space), so make sure you come back to check out our new clips. You're also more than welcome to send in your own video clips.

Our Photo Gallery is also updated with a different album format with bigger photos and many more photos. As with the Video Gallery, I divided the (more than 2,000!) photos into various galleries and sub galleries to make it easier to find what you are actually looking for. The galleries are: "About Us". "The Aquatic World", "Huatulco, Oaxaca" and the "Guest Photo Gallery". The first three have various sub-galleries and our Guest Photo Gallery now has over 30 different albums and approximately 500 photos! 

Something that a lot of people asked for is a tool to identify the fish and other marine life they see on our dive- and snorkel tours. And we listen to you! This is why we spent much time on this project during the summer and it's ready! In our Photo Gallery you can now find a section called "Aquatic Life Identification", which you can find in the "The Aquatic World" Gallery. The section is divided into two sub-sections, "Fish" and "Other Aquatic Life", in which you'll find almost 200 photos species with their names in English, Spanish and Latin. You can click on the photos to enlarge them. Many of the species we have on video, in that case you'll see a link: "See available video(s)".

The pages with descriptions and photos of a selection of dive- and snorkel sites in Huatulco also appear in a new format. Under the photos you'll now find not only links to underwater maps of the sites, but also links to video(s) taken at many of the sites. We don't have videos of all the sites yet, we hope to get those in the next few months.

PADI has launched eLearning! You can now do the knowledge development part of the PADI Open Water Course online! This means you can do that part before you come to Huatulco and avoid having to study and do exams during your holiday here. You'll need to sign up for it through a PADI Dive Center and if you do that through Hurricane Divers, you will be able to interact with one of our Instructors while completing the theory part of the course at your own pace.

Many of you like to know ahead of time when cruise ships dock here in Huatulco, either to avoid them or to come see them. The schedule for cruise ships coming to Huatulco for the rest of 2007 is now available on our website. If you go to the bottom of the page you'll find a link to a printer friendly version.

Yahoo! Group

We now have a Yahoo! Group called "Friends of Hurricane Divers". It's a website where you can interact with the Hurricane Divers staff and other members, share experiences and post trip reports, photos, questions, remarks, suggestions, etc., etc. From our part we post news about Hurricane Divers, Huatulco in general and other stuff we think you may find interesting. It's a group meant for people whom have been out diving and/or snorkeling with us and you need to apply to become a member.  

"A Day Like Today": September 2000

This is what I wrote in our Newsletter seven years ago: "On the right you see Natanael with his daughter Azul visiting our Dive Center, a few more years and she can do her Bubblemaker with daddy!" She was only one year old back then and guess what............. she did it! In September Azul had her 8th birthday and that allowed her to do the PADI Bubblemaker Program (an introduction into diving for kids of 8 and 9 years of age). She did it, with her daddy, in La Entrega, and had a great time! I'm pretty sure she'll do the Open Water Diver Course in a couple of years from now!

Diving & Snorkeling Huatulco

In general the ocean was pretty calm, despite it being the hurricane season here in the summer. There were few days that we couldn't go out because they closed the port. Diving and snorkeling was nice and we saw our share of interesting marine life. One occasion was really special, this is what Natanael said about it:

"We were on an excursion and found some dolphins surrounding a big school of fish, Toño, Diane (one of our divers that day) and my self went into the water to see them, just that was great: they were feeding and after some minutes, Toño pointed and I discovered a big Sailfish swimming around the fish and coming very close to us (5 ft. at the most). After watching all this scene for at least 15 min. a big Manta Ray came as well, then a turtle appears!!!!!! This was a really amazing snorkeling experience!!!! Clear and warm water as a plus... I will remember this for ever..."

Unfortunately Nata did not have a camera with him on that occasion, however by now we have some 200 videos, most of which are taken during our dive- and snorkel trips, see our Video Gallery.NG WITH US!

By May the water temperature was up to a comfortable 28°C (84°F) and it went up to 30°C (86°F) quickly after that. On the surface it even got up to 32°C (90°F). As usual in the summer we didn't get any thermo clines, so it was very pleasant the whole season. Right now, in October, it has gone down a little over the last few days, but it's still 27°C to 29°C (81°F / 84°F) and it may still go back up.

The visibility was generally around 10m to 12m (30 to 40 ft). We didn't seem to have many days with less visibility than that. We did have a few periods of several days with a very good visibility, up to 25m (80ft), usually to the West of Santa Cruz, towards San Augustin. During the rainy season we generally avoid going towards the East, because of the river Copalita coming into the ocean.

In general, between April and October, the water was nice and warm, calm for the time of the year, and with better-than-average visibility.

For more detailed information about the water temperature, visibility and general diving conditions, check out our "Weekly Huatulco Weather Report" and our "Dry and Rainy Season Weather Reports". The latter include graphics and you'll find them under "Archives". See Weekly Huatulco Weather Report.

Huatulco News

This summer season seemed pretty much the same as last year, in terms of the amount of tourist coming to Huatulco. We had the British charter flight from Manchester again as well as the direct flights from Houston, USA. The last two summers have definitely been busier than the previous years and this summer the number of national tourists seems to increase again, after having declined for some years. There is still a steady development going on in Huatulco, with some new projects having started during the summer months.

As far as I know we will still have the same amount of charter flights coming in from Canada and the US, and from the amount of emails I get, I think it will be another busy high season coming up.

Hurricane Season??

The weather has been remarkable for this hurricane/rainy season of 2007. That's remarkable in a positive sense, the weather has been beautiful and we had practically no effects from tropical storm systems. It has rained very little, which was obviously nice for the sun seekers and tourism in general.

The beginning of June we had Tropical Storm Barbara within a couple of hundred kilometers off the coast and it wasn't until the end of August that we had another one close-by, Tropical Storm Henriette. They only affected us a little bit, Barbara only caused a bit of wind here and Henriette brought us two days with light rain. So far, In the Eastern Pacific Region, we have only had 11 tropical Storms, of which 4 became hurricanes and only 1 became a major hurricane. That was Hurricane Flossie, which reached category 4 status. The first hurricane, Cosme only had hurricane status for 6 hours. The above numbers are well below average. I will publish a full weather report of the hurricane/rainy season soon.

Swimming the Nine bays

On October 19, Luis, the owner of the "Los Portales" and "Onix" restaurants in La Crucecita, attempted to swim from San Augustin Bay to Conejos Bay, covering the Nine Bays of Huatulco. He had been training for that feat for 3 hours daily, since October last year. He had already swum from Conejos to Santa Cruz and from San Augustin to Santa Cruz on two previous occasions. The effort was supported by the "Asociación Civil Club Sports Tri Huatulco". The event was dedicated to a good cause: to provide breakfast for the 200 school children of the poor mountain community of San Felipe Lachillo, a few hours driving North of Huatulco.

Luis was planning to cover the 22 km/14 miles stretch in approximately 8 hours and the Tourist Delegation of Huatulco had arranged a beach party in Conejos to celebrate his achievement. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photo, the weather was not cooperating and the rough seas forced him to stop his attempt near Cacaluta, after 6 and 1/2 hours of swimming. He is not giving up though, he plans to give it another try in November.

If you would like to support his cause, please contact one of the following people:

Luis Estavillo: losportales_hux@hotmail.com - phone: 958 587 0070
Elva Medina Valles: elvacosmo@yahoo.com.mx - phone: 958 581 0448
Valerie Verhalen: Valerie@PalmPrincessMexico.com - phone:958 587 2527

USA: Stephen Sardeson: Stephen.Sardeson@Sardeson.org - TAX DEDUCTIBLE; e-mail for details

Huatulco Videos

We have been very busy shooting and editing video clips over the summer months. Many are now available on our website (200+). We started off with underwater videos, but many of you have asked for videos of Huatulco "above water". Well, we have been working on that, we still are actually, and we have some 50 video clips available on our website now. If you go the video gallery "Huatulco Above Water", you'll see three sub-galleries: "Bays and Beaches", Driving through Huatulco" and "Other Huatulco Videos". The latter also has some videos of places outside Huatulco, such as the airport and Monte Alban. See our Video Gallery.

Hurricane Dean

As every year, the Caribbean side of Mexico and specifically the Yucatan Peninsula, had to cope with a lot more hurricane activity then we did. The biggest hit came from Hurricane Dean, which hit the Yucatan as a category 5 hurricane. It made landfall close to the Belize border, very close to the Mexican city Chetumal, and caused major damage in Mexico as well as in Belize. Cancun, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen were spared major disaster because they are further North. Dean weakened crossing the Yucatan and emerged into the Bay of Campeche, only to strengthen again and make landfall for the second time, only this time as a category 2 hurricane, near Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz. About a week later Dean was followed by Hurricane Felix, another category 5 hurricane, which course would also bring it to the Yucatan Peninsula. Eventually it turned more South and made landfall in Nicaragua. Dean and Felix were two of the strongest hurricanes ever, as well as two of the very few category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in known history. And all that within two weeks!

Source: www.nhc.noaa.gov 

Underwater Hotel

Currently under construction in Dubai, Hydropolis is the world's first luxury underwater hotel. It will include three elements: the land station, where guests will be welcomed, the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel, and the 220 suites within the submarine leisure complex. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London's Hyde Park. "Hydropolis is not a project; it's a passion," says Joachim Hauser, the developer and designer of the hotel. His futuristic vision is about to take shape 20m/66ft below the surface of the Arabian Gulf, just off the Jumeirah Beach coastline in Dubai. The $600 million, 220-suite hotel is due to open at the end of 2007 and will incorporate a host of innovations that will take it far beyond the original blueprint for an underwater complex worthy of Jules Verne.

Source: www.divenews.com and  www.designbuild-network.com

Surfing Dolphins

As this astonishing picture shows, this group of at least 20 Bottlenose Dolphins couldn't resist "catching a giant wave" when it came along. The friendly animals often come close to the shore at this spot some 300 miles north of Perth in Western Australia and rub their noses against swimmers and surfers in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. But sometimes the Bottlenose Dolphins that live along the 1,500-mile coastline like to enjoy time off from entertaining the tourists, and do what humans do. It is not the first time a whole group of dolphins has been caught leaping over a wave in such a seemingly choreographed fashion, but wildlife experts say the phenomenon is extremely rare.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk 

Cenotes and NASA

NASA scientists theorize that the best route to Jupiter and its frigid moon "Europa" runs through an underwater cavern in Mexico. "Clemtine" is a giant orange robot that will explore the microbial mysteries of the El Zacaton cenote. The robot is 8 feet wide and 6 feet tall and weighs 3,300 pounds. A team of scuba divers, engineers, biologists and geochemists are working on this $5 million, three-year Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer (Depthx) project for NASA. NASA experts believe information gathered by the robot will assist them in in their goal of travelling to Jupiter's moon "Europa". The project also tests various underwater robotic vehicles which will play a pivotal role in the exploration of remote places where humans dare not tread...

The El Zacaton cenote is over 350 feet wide and an estimated 1,000 feet deep. Clementine senses changes in temperature, sees shifts in topography using 56 sonar sensors and obtains water samples for further study.

Source: www.courier-journal.com

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