We’re changing how we teach our Master Scuba Diver Trainer Classes! The new change allows Instructors to pick which specialties you want to teach. In the past we taught only the most popular specialties to our new instructors to help them along their career paths. The new change allows you to pick what specialties YOU want and can interchange them* as you wish. Starting August 2013.
Our PADICourseDirectors teach more than 30 specialties so there is a long list to choose from. You can now pick the specialties that interest you and that you want to teach. We know Instructors and divers are very enthusiastic about the classes they teach and take. Ocean Divers wants you to be enthusiastic professionals who happily teach the classes you love. We feel this change will encourage more new Instructors to choose to continue their education with our MSDT Prep course.
Since we’re talking MSDT…. Did you know that ANY PADI Instructor can benefit from taking PADI Specialty Instructor training or a full MSDT Preparation course? Our Course Directors teach you the ins and outs of how to teach specialties and add their years of experience in the dive industry to give you every advantage they can. They will equip you with sales and marketing strategies that have proven to be effective. You get that right from the start so you don’t have to try new ideas on your own.
You get to dive and gain experience in each specialty area while diving with a PADI Course Director. Did you know that taking Specialty Instructor training also lowers the number of required dives that each instructor is required to have to teach a specialty? It does! This way you get to teach specialties sooner!
Would you like to learn 1 new specialty and not take the whole MSDT Prep? YES! We CAN do that too! Call for specialty Instructor pricing.
Have you heard about Public Safety Diving? Side mount diving? Full face mask? Not only can you be a certified diver in those specialties, at Ocean Divers we can teach you how to be an Instructor** in those new specialties! Enroll in a class today!
Please note some specialties require you to be certified in that specialty prior to being an Instructor for that specialty.
*Specialties can be switched for another specialty with the same number of dives. This is due to the limited number of days that the MSDT prep course is conducted.
**You must meet eligibility requirements to enroll in a Public Safety Diver or Public Safety Diver Instructor course. Call for eligibility details.
The Statue of Christ in the Deep is now covered in coral. Photo Courtesy of David R. Molzof.
The Christ of the Deep is a 9 foot bronze statue weighing in at 4000 pounds. The statue sits on a concrete pedestal at a depth of approximately 25 feet. It is a duplicate of ‘Il Cristo Degli Abissi’, the work of the Italian Sculptor Guido Galletti, which stands in the waters off San Fruttuoso in the Mediterranean Sea. The story goes that both statues face one another. In 1961, seven years after the creation of the original statue, the European industrialist and diving equipment manufacturer Egidi Cressi commissioned a second figure of Christ. It was cast from the same mold and donated to the Underwater Society of America. It was decided to place the statue off the Florida Keys in 1965 near Dry Rocks in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.
Key Largo Dry Rocks is not only home to the Christ of the Deep Statue but also has superbe specimens of brain coral. The eastern side of the reef is shaped in coral fingers which are rich in marine life. You can see a multitude of fish including the rare Townsend Angelfish. The Townsend Angelfish is the result of interbreeding between the Queen and Blue Angelfish. This makes it an ideal location not only for scuba divers but snorkelers alike.
Most people that come to dive with us have heard of the Christ of the Deep but not many know its history. We go every Monday and Friday afternoon. Our charters leave the dock at 1 pm and check-in is at 12:30 pm. Due to it being a little further out, we tend to come back to dock around 5:30 pm. Come and join us and share this amazing site. You will not be disappointed!
The 510 foot long and 84 foot wide Spiegel Grove is a retired U.S. Navy Thomaston-class Dock Landing Ship (LSD-32). She was named for Spiegel Grove, the home and estate in Fremont, Ohio, of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States.
The Spiegel Grove was commissioned in 1956 and decommissioned in 1989. She was one of the eight vessels in the Thomaston-class of landing ship docks that transported troops and landing craft around the world. At her stern, she was equipped with a 170 foot long , 45 foot wide and 40 foot deep well deck for military landing craft. With 2 steam turbine powered engines and two shafts the vessel traveled at speeds of 21 knots.
After many years of red tape and financial problems the Spiegel Grove finally moved from Virginia to Florida in May 2002 to become the largest ship intentionally sunk to turn into an artificial reef. However, the ship sank prematurely on May 17th 2002. During the sinking, the Spiegel Grove suddenly started rolling on her starboard side, ending up upside down on the sea bottom and leaving her bow protruding slightly out of the ocean.
On June 10th 2002, the Spiegel Grove was rolled onto her starboard side at which point she sunk to stay. She is located 6 miles off the coast of Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The depth of the wreck requires divers to be at least Advanced Certified. In July 2005, Hurricane Dennis shifted her right side up due to surge and currents. There are numerous mooring buoys on the Spiegel Grove which provides easy down-lines for divers.
Here at Ocean Divers we get great enjoyment from diving on the Spiegel Grove. The ship attracts numerous marine life from large Goliath groupers to schools of shimmering small fish and colorful tropical fish. There are some amazingly huge midnight parrotfish! There is also a lot of coral growth as we have just celebrated the Spiegel Groves 10th year since her sinking.
Diving Education Extension Program (DEEP) was started in 1979 by Bob Sparks at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Project Deep was started to teach students how to scuba dive and and also to give them warmer waters to equal out what they experienced in the cold waters of Massachusetts. In the beginning of the program college credits could be earned for completing a scuba course. In 2004 the program lost its ability for students to earn credit and enrollment dropped.
Dave Stillman, himself a graduate of Project Deep program, took charge and had to restructure the program. He spearheaded the program under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Programs already being conducted at UMA. The credit program was again restored. All they needed next was some interested students.
I remember his numbers dropping drastically in this time period, to the point we all thought it would surely go under. Slowly, the numbers grew into what is again a thriving program. They are again gracing our boats with eager, energetic and fun divers.
If you want to see ‘organization’, come to the dock with a cup of coffee and watch this group conduct itself like a well rehearsed orchestra. They work magic. The students themselves are just a true delight to be around.
I have had the privilege to watch many in this program through the years and have become friends with a few of their members.
I have seen them come with as many as 73 students at a time. They either carpool or come in by the van load. It is always a joy to see the parking lot filled with cars dusty and a bit grimy from the road trip all sporting Massachusetts plates.
Project Deep has again arrived for their December and New Year diving trip. They come at least twice a year. Spring time is their Hell Ride which lasts 5 days. They have been doing this now for 33 years and we hope to see them for another 33 years.
Looking forward to having yard bird with you soon!
This is THE classic Spanish dish. What I love about this dish is it’s a one pot meal!!!
You can buy a steel paella pan and cook over hot coals or an open fire which is truly authentic or just cook in a shallow large fry pan on your stove.
(serves approx. 6 “normal” people, which I am not one of!!). The Saffron is key and it’s not as expensive as you might think, I can get 3 uses out of 1 pack
Chop all vegetables, remove seeds and pulp from pepper and tomato, remove skin from all but one thigh.
– Ingredients –
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper
1 med onion
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot
1 med tomato
smoked paprika
6 chicken thighs
saffron
5-6 cups chicken stock
1/2-1 cup white wine
a little hot pepper flakes or sauce
6 inches of cured chorizo sausage
2 cups short grain rice
(Risotto rice)
1 cup green peas
1 lb shrimp
2-3 cups clams or mussels
Parsley to taste
– Preparation –
Soak crushed saffron in warm/hot chicken stock. Brown the chicken in oil, then remove chicken from pan and cook pepper, onion, garlic, carrot, tomato and add salt & black pepper. Cook fairly well then add the smoked paprika.
Add the chicken, wine and chicken stock and stir well. Let boil for 5-10 mins.
Add hot peppers or hot sauce (but not too much). Then add rice evenly around the pan but don’t stir it in. Next add the chopped spanish chorizo sausage.
Cook mixture adding stock or water if needed. When the rice is almost done add peas, shrimp, clams, mussels and cook for another 10 mins.
Garnish with fresh parsley.
Cover pan take off heat and let sit for 10 mins before serving.
Imagine that you are swimming along the reef and you notice something you have never seen before. A beautiful gray angelfish is right in front of your mask. I don’t mean 2 feet away, I mean six inches away. You almost have to shoo him away to continue your dive. Lets imagine another dive: you are on the wreck of the Duane. You are floating a foot above the bottom at the bow of the ship. Out of the blue water you see a shape starting to form. As you focus on the shape it becomes apparent it is a shark. Not just a shark, but one of those infamous bull sharks you have heard so much about. It swims within five feet of you, then slowly turns away. You stay still for a few minutes and the shape reappears. He is back, to take a second look at you, only this time he hangs around for a few minutes before leisurely swimming away.
Now let’s imagine that you are not imagining this, but that it really happened to you. Or that it will, someday, because it happened to me. I tried something I swore I would never do, I dived a rebreather. And everything I ever heard about them is definitely NOT TRUE! What is true is this: marine life will approach you with less apprehension because there are no bubbles that are so foreign to the fish. They swim up to you just as if you were one of them. And they will stay there for a while because they are curious and want to see this new fish that is sharing their home on their reef.
Another thing I noticed is the ease of breathing. It is completely different than breathing from a scuba regulator and definitely easier. Breathing from a rebreather is not much different than breathing on land. But with the lack of bubbles I am now able to hear sounds I had never heard before. One example is the sound of the water gently lapping against the side of the boat. Bet you never heard that before, well at least I never had before I started using a rebreather.
When we were diving on the Duane with the Bull Sharks (please do not abbreviate BS, because it really happened) I was able to spend over 45 minutes along the bottom just off the sand exploring all the things I never had the time or air to do. How often are you able to do a non-decompression dive for 45 minutes to over 120 feet deep? While on the boat we were watching the other divers changing over their tanks and getting ready for the next dive. As they were doing so, some of them started noticing that we were just sitting there talking about the last dive and everything we saw, and mostly what the others didn’t see. They noticed that we were not busy changing our tanks for the next dive. This started a discussion as to how these rebreathers work and how one could become certified to dive with a rebreather. Our 45 minute surface interval went quickly as the impromptu rebreather seminar came to an end. Oh well, back to the Duane for another no-decompression dive for 45 minutes while everyone else had a 20-25 minute allowable bottom time. And all this without having to change tanks!
So what will it take for you to stop blowing bubbles. Actually, not a whole lot. Just call Ocean Divers and sign up for the class. You will need to read the book, PADI’s Rebreather and Advanced Rebreather Diver Manual, do the normal obligatory knowledge reviews and have one of the most informative class sessions that you will ever have had since maybe your first certification class. Now you are ready to take the units into the pool. There are several skills you need to learn before going onto the reefs. The hardest skill you will have to re-learn is your buoyancy control. I have never felt like such a first time diver as I did that day in the pool. While doing a face plant into the bottom of the pool, I realized that diving with a rebreahter is somewhat different. From this I developed rule #1 (well, maybe not the first rule, but it felt like that for me), and that is don’t think your breathing will help to control your buoyancy. I think an indentation of my face is still on the bottom of the pool! After a few dives on the reefs and wrecks of Key Largo I was a newly certified Rebreather Diver (woo-hoo). These dives were anything but uneventful, and I was ready to do it all over again.
As I stated in the beginning, I never thought I would try a rebreather. Like many people the stigma rebreathers have had and the feeding frenzy that the media whips up every time there is a fatality involving a rebreather, I was sure diving with one was never going to be in my future. Once I took my class and learned all the safety features that the Poseidon MKVI has, I was truly impressed. You start by turning it on and observe it while it goes through it’s 55(yes, that many) self-safety checks. On one of my training dives the unit gave me a visual warning and the mouth piece started vibrating (not caused by my shaking; this is a warning system. Looking at the large display it gave me the signal to switch from the loop to open circuit (scuba). After doing so completing a normal relaxed ascent (with an elevated heart rate of about 5 million beats per minute) we exited the water and checked out the unit on the boat. It was functioning fine, but basically it said it had lost “confidence “ in the diver (that’s me) and figured it should end the dive. How about that for safety! How about that for making a Course Director feel like a real chump! After a little reflection on my own diving skills and self worth, I put everything into perspective. Any machine that does all that has to be an incredibly safe unit to dive (or “fly”, as these rebreather divers call it). I was sold on the Poseidon MK-VI unit.
If you would like to try a new adventure, or just re-excite yourself about diving, a rebreather could be in your future. I may joke around somewhat and kick myself a little, but every time I get into the water with the rebreather, it is like my very first dive all over again. To start your diving adventure all over again, call Ocean Divers. Our rebreather Instructors will be happy to get you started. Just ask for “Faceplant”.
If you thinking of becoming an instructor and are interested in rebreather technology, Ocean Divers will be offering a rebreather experience as part of our Instructor Development Course in 2013. We will also be offering the PADI Rebreather Instructor Course for those instructors interested in teaching the programs.
Ocean Divers is excited to announce our participation in Mote Marine Laboratory’s Spotted Eagle Ray Conversation Program by encouraging our divers and staff to report eagle ray sightings as part of a larger research project.
In 2009, Mote Marine Laboratory, along with the National Aquarium in Baltimore, initiated a conservation research program on the life history, reproduction and population status of the elasmobranch Aetobatus narinari, commonly known as the spotted eagle ray. The nonprofit laboratory is now expanding the observation of these beautiful creatures into the Florida Keys waters.
What This Project is About
Fishing pressure, combined with their low reproductive rates, make spotted eagle rays a vulnerable species. But there’s not enough information to determine how much danger they are in. The distribution, migration, feeding habits, growth rates and reproductive biology of spotted eagle rays are poorly defined.
What is known is that it is illegal to fish or kill spotted eagle rays in Florida waters. However, they are not protected under federal laws, and international protections are limited as well. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an organization that establishes the conservation status of species worldwide, lists them as near-threatened with a decreasing population trend.
Since the program’s beginning, Mote biologists have sampled, tagged and released more than 300 spotted eagle rays off the Southwest Florida coast to gain a better understanding of the population structure and life history of this species in the Gulf of Mexico.
Mote’s goals are two-fold:
Gain knowledge about species populations in Florida water through the study of key life history traits;
Raise public awareness and enhance conservation outreach and education on spotted eagle rays.
Mote Marine Laboratory has been a leader in marine research since it was founded in 1955. Today, the organization incorporates public outreach as a key part of its mission. Mote is an independent nonprofit organization and has seven centers for marine research, the public Mote Aquarium and an Education Division specializing in public programs for all ages.
Odie Hammerhead and the Ocean Divers crew look forward to catching a glimpse of these beautiful creatures and to participating in the Mote Marine Laboratory Spotted Eagle Ray Conservation Program!
Ingredients – Serves 6-8 normal people (1-2 Louis type people!)
1/2 pound med/large de-shelled (and I prefer de-veined) shrimp,
4 med/large fresh tomatoes (good ones, not those sad, pale and light industrial tomatoes!!!, the heavy deep red preferably organic ones!!, sorry I get carried away),
8-12 chopped (or ripped up!) FRESH Basil leaves (ok dried if you must, by the way Basil is extremely easy to grow, especially in warm climates, but I digress….),
1/2 finely chopped medium onion (I prefer red onions but yellow or white will do fine), Freshly ground black pepper and little sea salt and a little hot red pepper flakes (optional, but I only add a little for “background taste”),
A couple a tablespoons of olive oil to your taste (preferably extra virgin, the first and best tasting press of the olives, extra virgin olive oil is more important when using the oil at room temperature because the flavor is not affected by cooking).
Slightly oiled and toasted Italian or French bread sliced somewhat thin (you can use crackers if you’re in a lazy mood, though I’ll never admit to suggesting this, even though it’s in writing!!!)
Preparation –
Boil the shrimp until they just turn white, immediately remove from water dry them with a paper towel and set aside in a bowl and chill them in the frig, ice helps to cool them fast but keep the ice and shrimp separate so they don’t become soggy. You want them completely chilled before adding them to the rest of the ingredients. Chop them up after they are chilled. I gently wash my de-shelled shrimp before cooking in cool salted water (I’ve been told by fishermen that salted water is good for keeping seafood firm while washing).
De-seed and de-pulp the tomatoes (cut through on the “equator” and squeeze out seeds and pulp, then chop into approx.1 inch cubes).
Add the finely chopped onion, basil, salt/black and red pepper and the olive oil.
Gently mix it all together and chill in frig if you have time, if not don’t worry. Lastly place a generous portion on each slice of toasted bread and ENJOY!! (that’s an order).
This is a Vegan dish!! I’m not getting political here.
PS – You can add a little grated Parmigiano Reggiano (or American Parmesan if you must) and/or Pecorino Romano cheese if you want, though I don’t think that is traditional Italian. Be careful!!!!!
We live in a world where information is instantly available to us. We can type a question, the Internet immediately responds. No phone books, catalogs, just our laptop. But do we always get the information we need? Is this dependent on the web pages to which we are connected? Well, not always. And is it always ‘easy’ to glide along the web? And: Is it fun to do so?
Ocean Divers has taken a close look at our website and we have decided that it needed a change. Our new site is designed to be user friendly – it is much easier to locate the information you need – using the shortest route possible. You won’t have to access page after page anymore. With just one or two clicks, any information should be readily available.
Our dive schedule will be easy to follow. Which dive sites are planned for a particular day, including photos and descriptions of the locations you will be visiting on a particular trip.
The most exciting section of the new site will be our blog. Part of our home page, updated regularly, now includes information on new equipment, training suggestions, diving tips, and, of course, the most anticipated restaurant and food review by our own “Chef Louis.”
Enjoy our new site, take some time to poke around and see what Ocean Divers has to offer. And remember to become friends with Ocean Divers or ODie Hammerhead on Facebook for quick updates on reef conditions, pictures of the day’s dives, as well as any specials we may be offering.
We’re changing how we teach our Master Scuba Diver Trainer Classes! The new change allows Instructors to pick which specialties you want to teach. In the past we taught only the most popular specialties to our new instructors to help them along their career paths. The new change allows you to pick what specialties YOU want and can interchange them* as you wish. Starting August 2013.
Have you heard about Public Safety Diving? Side mount diving? Full face mask? Not only can you be a certified diver in those specialties, at Ocean Divers we can teach you how to be an Instructor** in those new specialties! Enroll in a class today!
America's Local Dive Shop. 