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Newsletter 9 - June 2001
HD News Guest Comments & Photos Previous Editions
The Eye of the Hurricane
Finally! The first Newsletter this year, after a break of 6 months. We overcame the problems with the web design program and you'll notice a difference in appearance of our Website, for now in the Homepage and this page. We are working hard to bring the whole Website up-to-date. Please let us know what you think of it! We had a lot of pre-bookings over the internet in this period and that seems to work to everybody's satisfaction. It's definitely worthwhile to contact us before you come out and book your dives or a complete package with us. Besides securing our service and your space on the boat it generelly works out cheaper. We are currently working on a standard form you will be able to fill in and send so the whole process should go even smoother.
We at Hurricane Divers had a very busy "high season" which starts at Christmas and normally ends at Easter. This year it went on until the first week of May! We had several smaller groups coming diving with us and we finished the Divemaster training with Jony, our intern from Argentina. He went back home after that and is now working for a dive center there. We are getting a new candidate in June and if you are interested in doing your Divemaster Internship with us, please send us an e-mail. We finally got our little compressor going without problems and so far we have been able to fill all our tanks ourselves. We also increased our amount of rental equipment a little bit so we will be able to serve you even better. You could say that we are pretty much established now as a Dive Center here in Huatulco.
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"A Day like Today": May 2000
A year ago we received the first reactions from you on our Website which was released a month earlier.
We became the first DAN Partner in Dive Safety in Mexico!
Gerardo and Jorge were our candidates for the first "Preparation Program" we did (see picture on the right). They did their PADI Rescue, MFA and Divemaster Courses with us so they could participate in the IDC we did in June 2000.
We saw a Whale Shark and lots of big Manta Ray's in May last year!
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Diving Huatulco
After the last colder currents passing by in April we now have nice warm water, that is if you think 27ºC (86ºF) is warm, and it's heading towards the normal summer temperature of 30ºC. The visibility was at its worst ever in the last week of April (less then a meter!) for a few days but in the weeks after we had extremely clear water with several days visibility over 30m (100ft). The last couple of weeks it has been back to the average 10 to 20m, still very nice.
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What have we seen?
To be honest, too much to write it all down. Here's a few examples: Sea Horses, White Tips (sharks), Nurse Sharks, a school of huge (but huge!) Parrot Fish, lots and lots of Ray's and Turtles, big Manta Ray's, Whales playing and jumping out of the water, Dolphins playing around the boat and we see more and more Lobster and Octopus since compressor diving has been prohibited (fishermen used to take a lot of those animals out this way). One really funny thing was 2 Hermit Crabs fighting over the shell of one of them!
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What 's happening in Huatulco?
In general it has been very busy in Huatulco the last half year. It is still slowly developing, there has been some constructing going on, there are still new investors coming and with the changed regulations for selling plots of land by the government, a lot more plots have been sold. It also seems that more tourists discovered Huatulco because there were more people around then last year in the winter season.
We had a few clean-up events and in April we had a very succesfull Deep Sea Fishing tournament which again showed that there is lot of activities to choose from in Huatulco!
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Hurricane
On the satelite image on the right you see the first hurricane of this season. It's Hurricane "Adolph" and the image is from 28 May 2001 (image courtesey of NOAA). It's a perfect hurricane shape and you can see the outline of Mexico. We are on the right of the eye where a little point of Mexico comes down in the Pacific. The Hurricane Season is from May until November. After building up from a tropical storm the hurricanes usually go off in a North-Western direction, away from the coast and normally the only effects for us is a bit of rain, a bit of a rougher seas and lesser visibility for a few days.
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The World of Scuba Diving
One of the things going on right now is the discussion on fish feeding and especially Shark feeding. The people against it claim that it changes the natural behavior of fish and that it endangers the fish, the feeders and the divers watching it. The people in favor claim that it is safe and say that it is a way to increase the awareness and knowledge of divers and the general public where it's the aquatic world and it's endangered species concerned.
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PADI
PADI has come up with a bunch of changes and improvements again: the IDC Curriculum has been revised with more emphasize on business training for future Instructors and there is a more logic flow now with the first part of the IDC being the Assistent Instructor Course and the second part the Instructor Development Training. PADI also came with a completely new "Tec Rec" program for Technical Recreational Diving, something that has become more and more popular over the last few years. Go to the PADI Website for more info: www.padi.com
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Feature Article: Coral Reefs
Project AWARE launched a new campaign called "Protect the Living Reef" to save the worlds precious coral reef ecosystems. As divers we know how beautiful these "rain forests of the sea" are but do you know why they are so important? A few points: - they protect the shorelines from erosion, - their diversity provide an incredible storage of beneficail medical pharmaceuticals, - they support 4,000 species of fish, 700 species of coral and thousands of plants and animals, - they provide support for local economies, etc. Did you know the largest biological structure on this planet is a coral reef? It's the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Did you know that a lot of the reefs you are diving at, began its formation up to a thousand years ago? And that the coral reefs exist for over 200 million years? That they will be gone in the next 30-50 years if their current rate of destruction is not stopped? Scary, isn't it? What can you do to help stop this process?
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Here is a few tips:
Avoid purchasing souvenirs made from coral or any endangered marine animal
When eating or buying seafood make wise and responsible menu choices
Choose a dive or snorkel center that protects and respects the (aquatic) environment
When diving or snorkeling avoid touching or damaging the corals or other aquatic life by maintaining buoyancy control, secure dangling equipment and give the good example
Increase your awareness, knowledge and skills by taking specialty courses like "Peak Performance Buoyancy", "Underwater Naturalist", AWARE-Fish Identification, "AWARE-Coral Reef Conservation" and the "Project AWARE" Specialty
For more information go to: www.projectaware.org
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Cyber Diving
By now there are really a huge amount of Websites realted to scuba diving. I recently "discovered" the following interesting ones:
www.sportextreme.com www.diveguide.com
Have a look at them, they are full of usefull information, especially for the traveling diver. If you find any interesting sites, or you have one yourself, please let me know.
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Pauline's Bubble
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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
These pictures were sent to me by Antonio who did the "Discover Scuba Diving" program with us last year. He liked diving so much that he did his Open Water Course with Ivan Salazar from the diving magazine "Espacio Profundo" as his Instructor. On the picture left, you see him with Roberto here in Huatulco and the pictures below were taken in Veracruz were he went for his open water training dives. He is now doing his Advanced Course!
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Following is a small selecting of comments our divers wrote in our "Guest Comment Book" we have in our Dive Center. If you went diving with us and you didn't get a chance to write something in our book, please feel free to send us your comments by e-mail!
e-mail us
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Brian, UK, May 2001
"Nice people, appreciate safety and respect for underwater life - Great Fun - Very professional = the best I've had in Mexico, Bali, etc. Thank you for your hospitality, service and the great part of my trip here."
Joan, USA, April 2001
"The experience was fantastic. The three of us came here to complete our Open Water Certification. Being from Wisconsin we didn't have an opportunity to get into open water at this time of the year. And although we will still complete our "cold water" dive in Wisconsin we wanted to see a different world, the "warm water" experience. We were somewhat anxious and unsure of what to expect - a strange country - a different dive instructor to complete a course - and a whole new world to explore. What we experienced was far beyond our expectations. Roberto + his staff were fanatastic - from the moment we met him our feelings were at ease. His very "low-key" relaxing approach was refreshing. We immediately felt welcome. Throughout the 4 dives, and an associated snorkeling trip with our spouses, we were treated with friendship and respect. They were very professional and we recommend Hurricane Divers to all who visit the area. You will not be disappointed with your experience. Thanks!"
Kevin, Jeff & Brian, USA, March 2001
Dick, USA, March 2001
Kent, USA, February 2001
Michael, USA, January 2001
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