Hurricane Divers News
Special IDC Offer
For those of you whom are interested becoming a PADI Instructor, we have a very special offer for our Instructor Development Course in November. The offer includes everything you need for the course as well as extra diving and accommodation! Check it out: "IDC Special" 
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Summer Season
It has been very slow for us this summer, the picture on the right shows it all! Empty beaches everywhere this summer in Huatulco. Ever since April it has been very quiet and even the school holidays in July and August didn´t bring the amount of tourists and divers we normally see. I´m afraid there isn´t a lot to report about Hurricane Divers in this newsletter, except maybe that the owner of our building finally had the roof replaced. And the fact that we´re getting ready to close up for the month of September, like we do every year. Remember you can still come diving, just book it in advance, by e-mail or give us a call when you´re in Huatulco and we´ll see if the weather will permit us to take you!
Winter Season
It looks like the coming high season is going to be as busy as the last one. I´m already taking reservations for the Christmas time and January/February. Last year we were fully booked for Christmas by the end of October, so if you would like to come diving with us around that time, start thinking about booking it now! I will be answering e-mails and taking reservations in September....
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Go Pro!
Another PADI Divemaster Course succesfully completed! In the photo on the right you see Natanael and Roberto, celebrating this accomplishment with Didier, who is the new Divemaster. As usual we did that in the Dublin, but I´not sure if Didier remembers that! At the moment we have Kat and Ken from Canada finishing their Divemaster Courses with us and getting the required amount of dives in to do their IDC with us later on. They did parts of their Divemaster Courses in Canada and in Asia, but they like Huatulco and even bought a condo here. Their condo will be available to rent from January onwards. Roberto will be going to the States in October to attend a Course Director update with PADI and to visit the DEMA Show, which is held in Las Vegas this year from 4 to 7 October.
If you are interested in making your hobby your living, check out GoPro!
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New in Our Website
We now have more pages with pictures in our Photo Gallery. Between photos of the underwater world, the Huatulco area, the "bays and beaches" and "Hurricane Divers in Action", there are eight new pages with 80 new photos! To check them out, go to our Photo Gallery
Apart from the photos above, I made a section with photos from Monte Alban, taken in June 2004, see Monte Alban
By the way, did you know there are over 600 photos in our website, of which 300 in our Photo Galleries?
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"A Day Like Today": September 1999
Six years ago in September, we opened our dive center in, what was then called, "Junior Plaza" at the big roundabout in Chahué. The photo on the right shows you what it looked like when we opened. Two years later, in September 2001, we moved to our current location on Santa Cruz Beach, because the Junior Plaza was converted into a hotel, now called "Plaza Fiesta Mexicana". Boy, a lot has changed since then! In our Photo Gallery you can see a little of our 6 year history, expressed in images, go to "HD in Action"
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Diving Huatulco
This time a photo of an animal we think may be a so called "Sea Hare". We´re not sure though, so if anybody has an idea of what this animal is, please send us an e-mail. We didn´t go out diving all that much in the last few months, but as usual the ocean was full of aquatic life. Lots of Eagle Rays and turtles, we even saw a Leatherback Turtle, which is not very common here. On one of our dives some weeks ago, Ken discovered a pretty big Nurse Shark in one of the small caverns at the dive site "El Violín".
The water temperature has been around a comfortable 30°C (88°F) ever since April and thermoclines and cold currents are gone. Normally it´ll stay like that until December. The visibility hasn´t been very good the last few months. Instead of the normal 10m to 20m (30 to 60ft), it generally hovered around 10m to 12m (30 to 40 ft). We had some better days with up to 25m (80ft) and of course, also days that it was less then 10m (30ft).
Diving with Hurricane Divers has recently become even more comfortable: we now provide you with a padded pocket weighbelt!
We issue a "Weekly Huatulco Weather Report", including diving conditions over the last week, see our Weekly Huatulco Weather Report
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HD News Huatulco Miscellaneous Guest Comments & Photos Previous Editions
Huatulco News
As I mentioned elsewhere in this newsletter, Huatulco seemed much quieter this summer than the last few school holiday seasons. Nevertheless there were some interesting things going on, the music festival "Musica de la Tierra" took place again and was a succes, as it is every year. For the first time this year we had the "Guelaguetza" here in Huatulco! Normally a big event in the Oaxaca City, with many people visiting Oaxaca for just that reason, we now had a smaller version of it here. It´s an event dedicated to Xilonen, the godess of the earth and 159 dancers 50 musicians made it a exciting spectacle to watch!
We had more foreign tourists than normal in Huatulco this summer (usualy we see mainly national tourists in the summer) probably because of the direct flight from Houston, operated by Continental, continuing to fly over the last few months. It appears however, that they don´t fly between the beginning of September to the beginning of December.
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Parasailing
In the Bay of Tangolunda parasailing is now being offered! You get ten minutes of flying and you can go up to 100m (300ft) or 200m (600ft). They have a brandnew boat especially designed for parasailing and you take off and land on a platform on the boat. Guaranteed fun and impressive views!
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Huatulco Recognized
Huatulco is the first community in the Americas and only the third in the world to have achieved the prestigious Green Globe Certified status under the worldwide Green Globe Certification Program, which recognises the operation’s commitment to operating at the world’s highest environmental standard. Green Globe 21 is the worldwide benchmarking and certification program which facilitates sustainable travel and tourism for consumers, companies and communities. It is based on Agenda 21 and principles for Sustainable Development endorsed by 182 governments at the United Nations Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992.
For more information on Green Globe, go to www.greenglobe21.com
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Hurricane Season
So far we have had eight tropical storms, of which three developed into hurricanes. The first one was Adrian, the second one Fernanda and at the moment, August 23, we have Hurricane Hilary out on the ocean (see photo). Apart from a bit of wind and rain and the port being closed for a few days, they didn´t influence life in Huatulco very much. That was over a period of more than three months. Over the next four or five weeks we´ll probably get the same amount of tropical storms and hurricanes, which will cause rain and wind at least half of the days in September. The other half will probably be nice and sunny. I´ll let you know how it worked out in the next newsletter!
For more on NOAA´s 2005 outlook and up to date info about tropical storms and hurricanes in the area, go to National Hurricane Center
We issue a "Weekly Huatulco Weather Report", including hurricane activity over the last week, see our Weekly Huatulco Weather Report
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HD News Huatulco Miscellaneous Guest Comments & Photos Previous Editions
Miscellaneous
Project AWARE: Whale Sharks
PADI´s Project AWARE recently launched an international eco-tourism initiative to promote conservation of one of the most beautiful and impressive marine creatures and the biggest fish in the world, the Whale Shark. Part of this project, is a Whale Shark Photo Identification Website where divers and snorkelers are encouraged to report their sightings. It has been designed to help divers to contribute vital information to researchers studying whale shark migrations and producing the information that is essential for the protection of these huge, harmless animals. If you have photos to submit or if you would like more information on the project, go to www.whalesharkproject.org
Source: www.projectaware.org
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Various New Species Found
After an almost five month expedition to explore the South Pacific a team from the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory returned with lots of interesting material. At depths below 200m (660ft) scientists observed many suspected new species including a so-called "donut fish", a small tadpole-like fish that forms itself into a donut shape and drifts with the current. The fish and the purpose for its behavior were unknown to scientists. At a depth of about 700m (2,300ft) near Jarvis Island, scientists discovered a previously undescribed species of electric ray, a fish that produces a strong electric shock to stun its prey and unwary predators.
In the photo you see the "Pisces IV", on of the research submersibles used by the team, exploring the deep (photo courtesy of "NOAA / NURP").
Source: www.noaanews.noaa.gov
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Interesting Reading
It´s not really news since the book was published in 2002, but I recently read it and thought I would share it with you anyway. The book is called "Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World" and is written by Tim Escot, a BBC journalist and Divemaster living in England. It describes some of his diving and diving related adventures along with some history of diving and encounters with famous personalities in the world of diving. I don´t honestly know why he didn´t mention me; I have actually been diving with him when he was working on the book and I was working for a dive center on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. Anyway, I found it a little hard to get into, but once I did I found it very fascinating and it´s definitely worth reading for anybody interested in diving.
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HD News Huatulco Miscellaneous Guest Comments & Photos Previous Editions
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