.  Home  Newsletter 8 - December 2000
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 Hurricane Divers News
We had a busy month in November although it was a very quiet month in Huatulco. Joost, who was at our opening last year, came back and did his PADI Scuba Diver Course with us. He is the guy on the left in the picture on our homepage. We participated again in a big beach clean up of the Bays of Huatulco and we helped clean up one of the beaches of Conejos. .
 Paola
Paola (see picture on the left) finished her PADI Divemaster Course with us, she was with us for three months to do her course as an internship which worked out very well. She already found a job with another dive center here in Huatulco.We wish her all the best with her career as a PADI Professional and hope she will be back soon to do her instructor course with us! The picture of the turtle you see above, was taken by Paola near the beach of "La India" with a disposable camera. Although we have a few candidates, you can send us an e-mail if you are interested in doing your Divemaster Course with us as an Internship, which means doing your course while working for it. .
 "A day like today".....November 1999
A year ago we had our Open House, our "official" opening. We also did our first PADI Courses as a PADI Resort Center, the first course being an Open Water Course with Gaby, Louise and Peter from Holland (see picture on the right). We completed the training with our first Master Scuba Diver, Richard (also from Holland), who proposed to Gaby (now his wife!) during the deep dive of their Advanced Open Water Course at a depth of 30 meters!
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 Win a Mask!
We give away a high quality Sherwood "Magnum" mask to one of the contestants that send in the correct answer to the following question: "what is the biggest fish living in our oceans?" Send us your answer by e-mail, with your name, age and if your a diver, your certification level. We would appreciate it if you would also let us know how you found out about our website and what you like or don't like about it. The winner will be notified by e-mail and appear in the next newsletter with the correct answer.
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 Dive Safety
Did you know that riding a bike is one of the activities with the highest percentage of people getting injured? Did you know that scuba diving has an extremely low percentage of less then 1% of the participants getting injured? Diving can be very safe, as long as you follow the rules and safety standards! Remember the last newsletter? We talked about the necessity of seeking proper education while this newsletter we will look at the law in Mexico and at some internationally accepted general safety standards with regards to diving. This way you will know what to look for when you enter a dive center and/or go diving with them, so you can easily verify if you are taken care of in a correct and safe way. Following are some examples or requisites a dive center in Mexico is obliged to comply with according to the Mexican law. These requisites are very similar all over the world and more often then not, regulated by law in the country where you are diving. A lot of these regulations come from the standards & procedures that diving organizations use and apply to their members. If you find yourself in a place where regulations don't excist and the dive center and/or its staff are not affiliated with a diving organization, you and your dive guide or instructor should still follow the rules to ensure a safe and enjoyable dive. In the shop the dive center has to: - inform the diver (to be) clearly about all the options available, - use up to date materials that are easy to understand, - have certifications on display that show that the staff is properly trained and prepared. .
 Dive Boats
When a boat is used the dive center has to have the following on board: - medical oxygen equipment in working order, - Medic First Aid kit, - somebody of the staff trained in MFA and the use of oxygen equipment, - basic tools and spare parts, - diving equipment in perfect condition, - communication equipment, - dive flag, written emergency plan that can be understood by everybody, and, for every diver: - full scuba tanks with a capacity of atleast 50 cf., - regulator with alternate airsource, - buoyancy compensating jacket with low pressure inlator device. Before every dive the dive guide has to give the following information: - general description of the divesite, - environmental conditions, - how to protect the environment, - what risks excist and how to prevent those from becoming a problem, - general organization and conduct (buddy teams, formation, signals, etc.), - how the equipment works, - how to enter and exit the water, - descent and ascent procedures, - maximum depth, time and air consumption, - emergency procedures. .
 Diving
During the dive: - the dive plan has to be respected, - the aquatic environment has to be protected and damage to it avoided, - on the surface there has to be a person who knows the dive plan and is trained in emergency procedures.
The dive guide is obliged to abord the dive if, at his or her consideration, there are potential risks present that may endanger the group of divers.
He or she also needs to verify that the person that wants to dive has a valid scuba diving certification or that the person has completed an Introductory Course or Program, given by a Scuba Diving Instructor. .
 That introduction has to consist of the following:
1 - Knowledge Development session with an explanation of: - the diving equipment and how it works, - the potential risks if a dive is not conducted the correct way, - the importance of adequate buoyancy control, - the basic underwater (hand) signals, - the safety and emergency procedures.
2 - Confined Water Training session with the student practicing the following: -bouyancy control, - mask & snorkel clearing, - equalization techniques for ears and mask, - techniques to recuperate & clear the regulator, - use of an alternate airsource, - use of underwater signals, - moving underwater (use of fins), - proper descent & ascent techniques.
. Maximum Depth Limits for recreational divers: Non-certified divers after completing introduction - 12m/40ft Divers with basic certification - 18m/60ft Divers with advanced certification - 30m/100ft Divers with deep diving training - 40m/130ft
So far the Mexican law which is a lot more extensive on this subject, in this article I am just giving you some examples. If you see a dive center or its dive guide(s) or instructor(s) not following these rules, you know that they may not only be breaking the law but they are also putting their divers at unnecessary risk!
 Do's and Don't's
Below a short list of internationally accepted general safety standards for recreational scuba diving.
These are more practical do's and don't's that every recreational diver should follow to prevent decompression illness and other injuries or accidents. Try to stick to these standards even if your buddy or dive guide doesn't! More information on this subject you can find at the website of the Divers Alert Network (DAN). DO:
a thorough Buddy Check before every dive make a Safety Stop at the end of every dive ascent as slow as possible plan your dive and dive your plan dive within your limits maintain buoyancy control at all times stay within the limits of your dive table or computer dive with a center that follows the safety standards continue your diving education
DON'T:
use alcohol and/or drugs before diving exceed the max. depth for your experience level exceed the maximum depth limit of 40m (132ft) dive with unfamiliar equipment dive in unfamiliar conditions without a guide fly or go up in the mountains within 24 hours of diving exceed the maximum ascent rate of 18m (60ft) p.m. attempt diving without the proper training harass or touch anything in the water hold your breath at any time while using scuba
Information sources:  Diario Oficial de la Federación (de los Estados Unidos Méxicanos)
Federación Méxicana de Actividades Subacuáticas (FMAS) Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Diver Alert Network International (DAN)
More on Dive Safety will appear in the next Newsletters. If you are interested in a particular subject, be it dive safety or something else that has to do with diving, please let us know.
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 Diving Huatulco
On the left and below you see graphics of the seawater temperature and the visibility (in meters!) as we measured it this year except for December because when writing this the month was not over yet. What you see are the averages over the months, whereby you have to take into account, especially regarding visibiltiy, that the conditions vary from day to day here in the Eastern Pacific and are generally not as stable as in some areas around the world. The temperature is pretty much the same at depth as on the surface, although now and again we suddenly have a warmer or colder currents come through. The visibility is something that varies a bit more here, especially in the "hurricane season" from May until November. During those months we have a regular build up of storm systems right here in this area. Although this happens hundreds of kilometers off the coast and usually those systems tend to go off to the north-west (away from us) when they gather strenth, we notice the effect sometimes here in Huatulco when the sea is a bit rougher then normal which can bring down the visibility for a few days. Some of the bays are also affected by heavy rainfall in the mountains in this period, which can bring down mud with the rivers. The graph shows the normal average visibility without taking the few extreme days into account that occured few times over this period. A strange fenomena is that usually in the hurricane season we also have the month with the best visibility, either July or August. As you can see, this year August was the month with really clear water. You could say in short, that in the wintertime the water is a bit less warm but the conditions are more stable and in the summertime the water is really nice and warm but there is a bigger chance of a few days with less favorable conditions. In the wintertime, by the way, we have more opportunity to see some "bigfish". I hope this gives you a better idea of the diving conditions here in Huatulco and helps you plan your (next) dive trip to our "Rediscovered Paradise" on the Emerald Coast of Oaxaca! .
  
Above you see pictures of "Scuba Oaxaca" and the memorial plague they placed for their brother, friend and fellow diver Miguel Angel Gómez Sandoval Hernández, who died last March at the age of 32. November 20th they came to Huatulco to place the plague in a small cavern at one of Miguel's favorite dive sites "El Violin". Charlie a local scuba instructor and friend of Miguel helped them and sent me the pictures. The picture in the middle was taken by Charlie some time ago and is showing Miguel doing his favorite sport: diving.
. e-mail us Please keep on sending us your reactions, suggestions and pictures! .
 The Bays of Huatulco
One of the main events in Huatulco in November was the 7th "Musica por la Tierra" festival that took place in the Bay of Tangolunda with concerts on two days. A variety of groups & artists came to perform, amongst others, Aleks Syntek and "La Lupita" from Mexico, "Los Auténticas Decadentes" and "The Sacados" from Argentina, "Radio Caos" from Chile and "Aterciopelados" from Colombia. A nice touch was that the artists also participated in the big beach clean up, organized by "Atrévete!" on the Sunday after the concerts and theorganization "Musica por la Tierra" gave away T-shirts for the people helpingwith the clean up. Hundreds of people from Huatulco cleaned up al the baysand some other areas. We helped with one of the beaches of Conejos where morethan 20 bags of garbage were collected. A good example of how we keep the bays Huatulco clean! .
 National Park
Another example of care for the environment in our community is our National Park of Huatulco that stretches from "Punta Violin" to the Bay of San Augustin covering 5 of the 9 bays underwater as well as on land. This huge area was designated years ago by the Mexican government as a National Park but so farno managment had been implemented yet. An important step was reached in November with the direction of the park, headed by marine biologist David Ortega, coming out with their managment plan after years of study of the area. Also an advisory commitee was chosen with representatives of the government , the local community, the local university UMAR (Universidad del Mar), the association of local fishermen, the private sector, etc., with the mayor of Huatulco elected as the president. Roberto from Hurricane Divers was chosen as one of the represenatives of the private sector. As the improvement of environmental protection, awareness and education is one of our missions, we hope the managment plan will be effective soon so the beautiful Bays of Huatulco will be actively protected by everybody, before it is too late! . Calendar for December & January With Christmas and New Year on the doorstep, we haven't planned any special events for December. For January though we a project planned fora group of school children, involing scuba diving and the environment, similar to what we did last summer. We will take them out for a Discover Scuba Diving experience and combine it with the PADI Specialty Course "Project Aware" and an introduction into marine biology.
We will also be doing another IDC Preparation Program with the PADI Courses: Rescue Diver, Medic First Aid and Divemaster and the DAN Oxygen Provider Course. In the interest of dive safety here in Huatulco we will offer the same DAN O/2 Course to a group of local divers at a special rate. . 
. For anybody interested: we have all the Old Newsletters on file!
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HD News Guest Comments & Photos Previous Editions
Guest Comments & Photos  
The pictures you see here were sent to us by Danae and Shigueru who came diving with us in October. Top left is a picture of them with Natanael, in the boat between dives. Top right is Natanael with his daughter Azul visiting our DiveCenter, a few more years and she can do her Bubblemaker with daddy! Below left you see Juan and Lorena again, who did their Open Water Diver Course with us in October. Below right a view of the marina of Santa Cruz from which we do our boat dives.
 
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Please send us your suggestions, comments, questions, pictures, etc. . Following some comments out of our Guest Comment Book in the Dive Center: "Thanks for a great experience. After several "illegal" dives it was time to do it the proper way! And it has been worthwile. Pleasant and well qualified staff, interesting sites, good training and enough time! I will certainly come back next year to complement my education with Hurricane Divers. Anyone who is not afraid of water should go for this! An experience not to forget. Thank you!!!" Joost, Holland, November 2000
"Tack förtvâ fina dyk! Jättefint dykcenter -fräscht & snyggt-ger seriös tintryck. Bra dykledare. Tyvárr var det gans kadâlig sikt men trotsdet var dyken bra. Det ár alldd skóntatt dykamed ett seriöst Föketag som sátter sákerheten fórst."
Marie-Thérèse & Fredrik, Sweden, November 2000
"Me pigento moltissimo! Ritorne sòpresto!!! Saludo"
Domenico, Italy/Mexico, November2000
"Very professional! I enjoyed the service and the friendship of the staff."
Milan, USA/Mexico, PADI/NAUI Instructor, November 2000
"It was a fun day. Thanks Nata. Next time we'll go looking for whales, OK?"
Julie, USA, November 2000
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