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.
To see a short video clip of the new location, click here 
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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.
Our email for reservations and information is info@hurricanedivers.com
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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 GoPro!
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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.
To have a look at our new Video Gallery, go to Video Gallery
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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!
Fish Identification
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)".
To check out this new section, go to Aquatic Life Identification
To see our updated Photo Gallery, go to Photo Gallery
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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.
To see these updated pages, go to Dive- and Snorkel Sites
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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.
For more on PADI eLearning, go to eLearning
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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.
To find out when cruise ships are scheduled, go to Cruise Ship Schedule
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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.
If you would like to check it out, go to Friends of Hurricane Divers
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"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
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