Different Kinds of Diving

On my way back home from vacation in Cozumel Mexico. What a great time it was. I had the opportunity to do 13 dives in my 10 days away and, though all of them were wonderful, safe, fun dives there were some distinct differences. Most of my diving was on the colorful reefs off the south west portion of the island. This type of reef diving is what attracts so many tourists to this area and I can see why. From my first reef dive to the last I was blown away by the color and diversity of life down there. Bare in mind, I live in Toronto and I am not a fair weather diver. I dive where I live which is usually in the great lakes, the St. Lawrence river and Tobermory. We dive all winter long and it is awesome! Sure, there is lots to look at back home but mostly we dive on ship wrecks and other various sites that certainly lack the diversity of life and color found here.

There are literally hundreds of dive companies on the island of Cozumel and I dove with two of them. Basically you get to the peer with all your gear, load on a boat (cattle boat) and head out to the site with a dive master and 6-12 other divers you may have never met before. Rebecca doesn’t dive so I am almost always on my own paired up with someone on the boat. There is not a lot of time to get to know your new dive buddy and before you know it you are all in the water descending towards the reef. Everyone will have basic training and a “C” card but probably not much more. Many of these folks only dive on vacation which is probably once or twice a year and let’s just say that many of them could be a little more fit. Though diving is not particularly strenuous things can happen down there where you will require good fitness. Diving is physical and the best divers I have met are always in good shape. It helps with pretty much everything about the dive from your efficiency in the water to the bodies ability to off gas the absorbed nitrogen. The gear is very safe but let’s face it, you are breathing underwater and that should never be taken lightly.

On my reef dives I almost always felt a little rushed, a little un prepared and usually unsure of my buddies skill level. This adds stress which in turn detracts from the dive. I witnessed dive masters yelling at a boat full of clients to “just get in the water and get down now” to tanks falling off BCDs underwater (that were put on by the dive company) and even two instances of decompression illness. Most of the dive companies schedule the first dive as a deep dive (80-130’) and the second a shallow (30-60’). We always take a “surface interval” between dives to allow the body to off gas nitrogen but this is often shorter than it could be. My buddy who got decompression Illness got separated from his group at over 100’ so he came up (maybe a little to quickly). When he was up he saw the group below so he descended to meet up with them, finished the dive and promptly felt tingling limbs and fainted. He spent 5 hours in a decompression chamber and is fine but it didn’t sound like a good experience. At the end of the day each diver is responsible for their own well being but I think the dive operators could possible be doing a better job as well. My buddy was diving in the morning and afternoon so he was basically doing deep, shallow then deep dives again which is not good. He should have known better (and did) but perhaps the dive operator should have had a chat with him too.

My other dive here was my cavern diving experience. My guide spent over an hour briefing me on the dive at the cafe before we headed out and we spent a bunch more time at the cenote discussing everything about the dive. By the time I was in the water I knew exactly what to expect so I saw a lot more along the way. There was no rush at all and I was put in such a relaxed, confident state that I had my best dives ever and I felt that I dove better than I had in a long time. The difference was that I felt great, relaxed and I was in exactly the right state of mind for the dives. I will admit that cavern diving is a whole different deal than ocean dives but I don’t think either should ever be taken lightly. You can die on any dive and it is so important to dive consciously. That means being prepared for the dive, no matter how “easy” it is. Not drinking your face off the night before, eating too much for breakfast or not hydrating yourself. I believe that you should stay fit and healthy and practice, practice, practice. Good diving doesn’t happen by accident. If you haven’t been in the water for a while do some pool dives at home before getting back in the water.

My advice is to dive safe and dive often. Dive with god dive operators who come with references from folks you respect. Spend time on the dive forums (here is mine) and become part of a conscious community. Don’t dive if it doesn’t feel right. Thumb (end) the dive if anything feels wrong in the water. Get a good buddy and if you are diving with people you don’t know get to know your new buddy. Communicate! Stay fit and stay hydrated! I strongly believe in practicing skills and drills. Don’t get paranoid but spend some time thinking about things that could go wrong and then mentally run through how you would deal with them. As my friend Will Gadd calls it, “the positive power of negative thinking”. Rehearse bad situations in your head and practice your responses to these situations. Do this over and over. You can do it anywhere and it is an invaluable exercise. On a plane, waiting for a taxi, wherever. This mental rehearsal combined with physical drills and practice will make you a much better diver (or anything else) and more capable with whatever the waters send your way.

These are my thoughts on diving as I sit in the departure lounge at Cozumel airport. Goodbye 79 degree water and colorful reefs full of fish, sharks, turtles and chorals. Hello Humber Bay and 34 degree winter dives. Bring it on!

Never Say Never - Cavern Diving Rocks!

I remember quite distinctly a few years ago watching some documentary on Mexican cave diving and saying that that must me the craziest, stupid, scary thing ever. Certainly something that no sane person like myself would ever attempt (this coming from someone who once made a living juggling chain saws). That was before I was a diver (obviously) but I figured that even if I was to dive I certainly wouldn’t do a thing like that.

Guess what I did today? Tough one huh... Yup, I went on a cavern diving tin Mexico and IT WAS AMAZING!!!

We are staying in Cozumel and the cenote (mayan for well or cave opening) diving is mostly on the main land south of Playa Del Carmen. It was a bit of an adventure to get there with all our gear. Taxi to ferry, ferry to Playa Del Carmen, cab to Puerta Aventuras to meet our guide then a pickup truck ride to the cenote.

If you don’t know much about cave and cavern diving let me just say that it is pretty much the bleeding edge of diving right now. The main gist of it is that you can’t fuck up as you are in a water filled cave deep in the ground. With most open water diving situations there is always the option (though usually not a good one) to surface and get back to where the air is. Not so much with cave and cavern diving. Therefore safety, redundancy and skill mastery are foremost with this kind of diving. You surface at the cenote opening and deal with what ever happens under water. Fix it or die!

Cave diving is a very serious undertaking and involves a bunch of intense training and loads of certifications. The difference between cave and cavern diving is that with cavern diving you can basically always see the light from the opening so that you can therefore always find your way back to the exit point (surface). There are some other things too like you can’t go more than 200’ linear feet from the surface, you can’t go deeper than 70’ and there has to be 50’ of visibility. Let me make one thing very clear - I am not a cave diver. I am actually not even a certified cavern diver as that involves a three day course that I didn’t have the time for this trip (already making future plans though..). What I did today was a cavern tour. I hired a certified guide, Natalie from Diablo Divers and she made sure I got back in one piece. I had to have decent skills under water like good buoyancy and trim but she did all the hard stuff like make sure we didn’t die etc. That being said, she was kind enough to drill into my head the path home even if she vanished through some mole hole in the space time continuum or whatever and I found myself in there all alone.

The first site was named Ponderosa and is basically just a dirt road off the highway. The road leads to a parking lot and a hole in the ground full of fresh water. It felt great to get in the water and escape the heat. Once we submerged a whole new dimension opened up and it was diving like I had never experienced before. The viz (diver slang for visibility) was awesome as the water is so pure and clear. Everything took on a dreamy etherial quality with shafts of light streaming down through holes in the cavern roof. Air expelled from previous divers is pooled in little pockets on the ceiling that looks like shimmering mercury. We follow a set guidline that leads us of a tour of the cavern. Along the way we go up and down and pass various other openings in the cavern rooftop (other cenotes). We don’t surface at these other openings but enjoy the amazing light show they provide for us below the surface. At times the roots from the mangroves above can be seen extending down into the clear water. Spectacular!

The highlight of the dive for me had to be the halocline. It is a long story but basically the lower depths of the caves are salt water and the upper levels fresh. The halocline exists where these two densities of water meet. Most of the cave is clear but this couple of foot deep layer of cloudy water exists between the two. Natalie described it best when she said it would look like swimming through vaseline. Sure enough, she dropped into the halocline and her form pixelated before my eyes. She was “fuzzy” and it felt like my senses were seriously messed. If I hadn’t been told about this phenomena in advance I would have freaked. When I dropped into the halocline everything went really weird. I couldn’t read my dive computer a foot in front of my face and all I had to follow was Natalie’s goopy, distorted form in front of me. Once below the halocline everything jumped back into focus and the water got warmer. It was amazing!

One of the rules of cave diving is the rule of thirds. We budget a third of our air for the trip in, a third for getting back and a third for any emergency should one come up. Therefor once I used up a third of my air I signaled Natalie and we turned around and headed back the way we came in. Simple.

Back in the truck and of to Tajma ha. Another cavern site in the middle of nowhere. This time the dive involved a lot more ups and downs and slightly tighter quarters. Loads of formations (stalactites, stalagmites etc.) and fossils. Oh yeah, and another one of those wicked haloclines. When we got back to the surface there were a whole load of dorky tourists standing there staring at us. That was kind of weird.

I have to say that the dives today were two of my my favorite dives ever and the whole experience ranks right up there with pretty much anything else I have done. It was a spectacular day and I am so thankful to have had such an amazing trip. It just goes to show you. In life never say never. I have to say a heart felt thank you to our awesome guide Natalie and to Rebecca for coming along for the ride.

I do apologize for the picture quality of the dive pics. They are just video stills from helmet cam. I didn't want to take still camera along on this first experience as I find it distracts from diving that that was my focus today. I'll upload video upon my return to Canada and post here.

Scuba Diving - Cozumel VS Canada

Happily for me today I find myself scuba diving in sunny Cozumel Mexico. Last year Rebecca and I to our first vacation ever (Cayo Coco Cuba) and a yearly trip to the sun has become a tradition. Nice! Before the trip last year I took scuba lessons as I was worried that I would be bored sitting on the beach. I am not sure that I would have been bored at all but I sure am happy to have taken up scuba diving! Today was dive number 70 and I truly love it. The diving was the reason we chose to come here. I guess to be honest I chose as Rebecca doesn’t dive. She does like to snorkel and loves the quantity of fish here. Cozumel has some of the best, most easily accessible reef diving in the world and it is just a short plane ride from our home in Toronto. Perfect!

Before this trip I had a grand total of 2 salt water dives under my belt. I have to say the diving here is much different than diving in Canada. In my short diving career I have embraced diving Canada’s cold waters. After the Cuba trip last year I immediately bought a dry suit so that I would have the ability to “dive where I live”. It just made sense to me. I have met too many divers who live in Canada and only dive on their once or twice yearly vacations. That makes no sense to me. If you love something wouldn’t you want to do it as often as possible? I would and do.

Last weekend we were diving Humber Bay just west of downtown Toronto. It was 34 degrees fahrenheit and there was pretty much nothing to look at but a bunch of concrete blocks. Somehow we had fun and I enjoyed the dive. Today it was 79 degrees F and so far on my trip I have seen huge sea turtles, nurse sharks, massive lobsters and crabs, sea dragons, rays and many, many more colorful fish than I could ever hope to learn the names of. The reefs are teeming with life and color and we drift along on the current and fly through these foreign landscapes. It really is spectacular!



At home we look at perfectly preserved wrecks of ships from the last couple hundred years or as I like to say “broken rusty machines underwater”. Here is is nature at its best. Both are amazing and what I find even more amazing still is the contrast. If I didn’t dive at home I probably wouldn’t appreciate this quite so much and vice versa. I certainly wouldn’t be as experienced of a diver as I wouldn’t have nearly the dives that I do. I make a point of telling my dive buddies on the boats here what the temperature was of my last dive back home and you should hear them erupt. They simply can not believe it. I can’t imagine not doing it this way.

More Pictures HERE.

My Take on the Vancouver Olympic Opening Ceremonies

So the opening ceremonies of the Olympics turned out pretty much like I thought it would. A little underwhelming but what wouldn’t be after Beijing? Even in comparison to Torino or Athens though this was a bit of a sleeper opening ceremonies. Yes, I am biased as they did not hire my company Circus Orange but I feel that I have a lot of perspective on events such as this as this is the field that I am in. I have watched most of the opening and closing ceremonies over the years and there is always those magical visual moments that I will remember forever. I think back to being a kid and watching the LA 1984 opening and seeing the guy fly in on the jet pack and how much that blew my mind. I am sure it somehow changed the course of my life. I remember that vertical wind tunnel effect from Torino and how incredibly awesome that was. Huge scale gags these never get presented as performance outside of these events. Not to mention the pyrotechnics! If Olympics ceremonies mean anything they have come to mean serious pyrotechnics. Athens was HUGE, Torino was amazing and Beijing, well... let’s just say the Chinese invented black powder and leave it at that (even if they faked the footprints). Somehow this scale of performance and spectacle was sadly lacking in Vancouver and I found it upsetting. I understand times are tough and that it was a covered venue and all the rest of it but if these ungodly expensive events are meant to happen at all they should seriously kick ass!

BC Place had to be a very difficult venue to work in and I will say that they did a fantastic job of making that 25 year old dinosaur look somewhat elegant. The roof did not collapse and they made the room look a lot bigger than it actually is. That snowboard fly through to snow/talcum powder bomb effect was original and nice. It made for some great stills but it really didn’t sustain. Rebecca liked the northern lights bit and the aerial thing was sort of OK. Obviously there were HUGE problems with the cauldron and four way flaming ice crystal gag at the end but that is the nature of technology. I am surprised that they pulled it off with just three crystals and I commend them for what must have been harrowing “on the spot” fixes.

My big beef had to be the lack of connection between performance, technology and the overall show. The humanity of the performance just didn’t come across and aren’t “people doing amazing things” what the Olympics are supposed to be about? When the performers were not Native they all appeared to be dressed in GAP costumes. Perhaps this is what best represents many Canadians but it is most certainly NOT what I want to represent my country on the world stage.

Overall the show was better than I feared it could be. It looked good but somehow lacked real soul. Perhaps the closing will be a little more kick ass. We’ll see.

Get Me Away From The Olympics

So I have to admit that the Olympics is pissing me off a bit. I’ll be honest, I’m more than a little bummed that my company is not taking part in some aspect of the performance and celebrations that are soon to be taking place in Vancouver. The city I was born in and what would have been a perfect stage for our stuff.
Our Ring Gag Proposal

My only consolation is that I really do feel like I gave it my best shot. From three years ago through to last year I met with key people in Vancouver on three separate occasions. I had good, solid introductions and presented our company overview and proposals representing original content that we could offer the event. Mainly I was after a coveted opening or closing ceremony spot but there were certainly many more opportunities to be had. For a while things were looking promising but it just didn’t go anywhere.

Processional Ring Gag Intro Proposal

Now here we are on the cusp of the great event and I am forced to watch from the sidelines. I hope for a truly spectacular show and I just pray that some of the old school “Canadiana” gets passed by. I remember my horror watching the handoff ceremony in Turin four years ago and how disgusted I was at how, culturally, Canada always seems to get distilled to ski-doos, mounties, maple syrup and hockey. Let’s broaden our horizons Canada. I know we can do better than that. I’ll be watching (from the beach in Mexico)!

Ice Climbing & Scuba Diving

Working hard going from one adventure to the next these days. Isn’t that what life is supposed to be about? Mine sure is! Splitting my leisure time between two fairly intense pursuits - ice climbing and scuba diving. Yes, some would say opposites but somehow strangely complementary. Here’s why...

Clawing my way up a frozen waterfall wielding ice tools with crampons strapped to your feet may seem completely different from exploring the depths of Lake Ontario (yes, we dive there) but these two activities actually work really well together. Take the last two days for instance. On Saturday Jonah and I drove the three hours north from Toronto to Bancroft to check out the ice there. We climbed all day and had a ball and by the end we had pretty much toasted out arms and calves from the exertion. We left elated as we finally found a decent sized piece of near vertical ice in Ontario to get some good runs in on. Since Colorado all we have been climbing is road cuts and little frozen dribbles here and there and, quite frankly, we were starting to get bummed out. Funny how I started climbing ice after I moved to Ontario from BC. Whoops! In Bancroft at least there were a couple descent pitches and we could feel like ice climbers again and that was awesome!

Sunday morning is a dive training day so by 8:00 am there we were under water down in Humber Bay just off downtown Toronto working on buoyancy skills and trim for as long as we could stand the cold. The water was 34F and the outside temperature was -10C (I don’t know why we measure water temp in F and air in C but that just seems to be the way of it). Davis was helping me find my way in the water and is very patient (thanks D - sorry you missed the waffles). Even after 63 dives I still struggle with my trim (horizontal position) in the water. I gravitated early on in my dive career to a more technical style of diving and that means a big double tank setup with redundant everything in case of emergency. The diving style we follow is known as DIR (Doing It Right) as set out by the Global Under Water Explorers. They are a bit like PADI only with a much more holistic approach to the sport. Way more emphasis is placed on excellence, fitness and skill mastery and I find it really resonates with me personally. Heck, their last newsletter had a whole section on yoga for divers. Nice! I like diving with GUE trained divers like Davis mostly because the tend to be darn conscious divers and really good at what they do. They are also really safe as they constantly practicing drills so that if (when) anything ever does go wrong they (we) will be ready.

So I took up both these adventure sports within the last year. Both are super intense, physical, mentally demanding. Each endeavor can be scary or ecstatic depending on the day... or second. Both would be considered dangerous by some and crazy by others. Both require terrific physical fitness in order to get to anything but a basic level and both require constant practice in order to improve at all. On dive days I get to rest my forearms and calves and ice climbing affords me copious amounts of fresh air and perspective. In short I am really grooving on both my new adventure sports and I plan to write all about both a whole bunch more in posts to come. Here are some of my goals for both activities and I’ll keep you up to date with my success and possible failures with each.

Dive Goals For 2010:
-Get up to 150 dives under my belt.
-Do my GUE fundamental training.
-Dive the wreck named the Comet as that is my name.
-Dive in a cave - something I never thought I would do or want to do (now I want to do this)
-Dive on three salt water wrecks - so far I don’t have a lot of experience in salt water.
-Master my buoyancy and trim.
-Learn to fin backwards.
-Master all basic skills.
-Learn how to take fantastic photos underwater.
-Get an awesome “hero” dive portrait for my inspiration wall (and blog).

Ice Climbing Goals For 2010:
-Do at least 3 multipitch ice routes.
-Get on some sustained WI5 routes and climb them with confidence.
-Get to the point where I can lead WI4+ with confidence.
-Get on a bunch of mixed routes and become a better mixed climber.
-Get an awesome “hero” ice climbing portrait for my inspiration wall (and blog).
-Ice climb in the rockies.
-Go ice climbing with Will Gadd (part of my philosophy of “why not learn from the best”)