1/12/2007 - Update on Cristal Clear Charters- Good news!

1/8/2007 - Very unpleasant experience with Cristal Clear Charters in Key Largo

Jan. 2, 2007 - New Years Day Dive

The new year must be started off with a dive, regardless of conditions, so off we went to my favorite dive site~ the P38. Why is it my favorite?  First, it's not a commonly dived wreck (the coordinates are not freely given to people). Second, its a beautiful site- the plane is fairly intact & the amount of life on it is amazing. Third, I have a fondness for things that have a history behind them.  I have many dives on the 38, and have loved each one...

 The ocean wasn't playing nice that day and the boat felt like a toy in a washing machine Got to the site and anchored (which was tricky because there were some major currents & swells going on).. By this time, nobody on the boat was feeling well, me incuded, so I threw on my doubles & jumped into the water- which was COLD! I was using a new mask and although I'd toothpasted & defogged it, well... it just wasn't being cooperative, so I had someone from the boat hand me another one of my masks... Ok, much better. Dropped down the anchor line into thick green murk and upon hitting the bottom, the vis had not improved.. 2-5 ft at best, and the current was blowing.. Needless to say, I never made it to the wreck (it's very small and without good vis, its not easy to find, even w/ good coordinates).. After heading back up the line, I let the current pull me over to the boat and grabbed the ladder.. Took off a fin and tried to toss it onto the boat~ unfortunately I missed and the fin bounced back into the ocean, several feet away Black fins tend to sink but I was able to grab it after several tries.
The ride back was equally unpleasant as the ride over- except that the swells and wind had both picked up.. We did go through a huge pod of dolphins (prolly 80-100- I've never seen SO many!)...
Not a good dive~ but it was a New Years dive regardless.

12/29/2006 - Why I'm glad I didn't shore dive this past week....

12/25/2006 - End of year ramblings...

12/24/2006 - Key Largo Diving, Dec 12, 2006

17/12/2006 - Christmas Thieves

It makes you wonder where everyones Christmas Spirit is over the what is meant to be the 'Happy Holidays'.

Found out today that a guy from work had his house broken into over the weekend, and they stole money and worst of all, the Christmas Presents under the familys Christmas Tree.

How sad is that!!!

I can't believe someone/people could stoop that low, during this special season.

Thanks for listening guys!!!

15/12/2006 - Only 6 months late....

OK people, I know its been one helluva a long time, but I thought I'd stick post photos from my last diving weekend - yes it happened 6 months ago!!!

Nevertheless, I had some awesome sinkhole diving!

Above: Me trying out this new horizontal business, coming out of Pics Ponds.

Above: Snot check after Pics Ponds.

12/14/2006 - Key Largo Diving, Dec 11, 2006

Dive #1 
Location:  The Eagle, Key Largo (Islamorada) FL
Buddy: Dick from NY
Gas: 30% enriched air
Max depth: 112 feet
Dive time:  43 minutes
Ocean conditions:  3-5 foot swells, heavy surge, chop, minimal current, with 50 foot viz.  Water temp 75 degrees more or less.

Dive #2
Location:  A reef in the Keys. :)
Buddy:  Dick from NY
Gas: 33% enriched air
Max depth: 43 feet
Dive time: 48 minutes
Ocean conditions: 3-5 foot swells, moderate surge,  chop,  no current,  50-60 foot viz. 76 degrees


Well after a bit of a hiatus from diving, Ed and I made it down to Key Largo for some diving with Conch Republic Divers.  He got his advanced open water and Nitrox done, I just went along for the ride...er...dive....whatever.

Conditions Monday were ROUGH (Ok rough for Florida...I'm a WWW now) with 5 foot seas on the crossing over to the Eagle.  Half the boat was sick, but we splashed down for a lovely dive on this very quaint Key's artificial reef.  Intentionally scuttled in 1985, she is a freighter that lies in 115 feet.  The bow and stern are seperated in a gash down the middle, with the bow and stern sections resting to port on a sandy bottom.  While not my favorite Keys site, it's in the top 5 and I always enjoy a trip out there.  I was buddied up with Dick, a diver on his first Keys trip who was visiting from cold Buffalo, NY. With the conditions being what they were, and knowing how surge can be, I told him I'd meet him at the bottom.  I descended first down the line, and awaited the others.  When they didn't show up and I didn't see them coming down, I took my own little tour of the ship, swimming thru some of the corridors close by the bow mooring line.  I returned to the line and saw them descending about 8 minutes into the dive. I guess a surface gear issue had caused a delay.  So no solo dive on the Eagle, darnit. I took Dick around on a tour of the boat, heading first where the big Goliath grouper likes to hang out.  He wasn't to be found today, so we toured the stern section, then back up to the bow, through some cargo holds  and along the structure of the boat.  We  made our way back to the bow and swam around til our bottom time was dwindling.  As I made it to the mooring line, one of the smaller Goliath groupers (200 lbs or so) had decided to make an appearance.  I got Dick's attention, as I knew he wanted to see one.  He was able to snap a few pictures before we had to ascend.  A very nice dive. 

On the surface, the seas quickly got the best of half of the boat, even the instructor was ill.  As is the norm, I was fine.  We made it over to the second dive, a reef.  I should remember the name but I don't. :) I can't be bothered with little details like the NAME of divesites!   It was your typical reef.  I tried to show Dick some of the interesting marine life...like a moray eel and a spotted drum.  But everytime I looked around he had disappeared.  I didn't mind much, I'm not the most attentive buddy anyway and he obviously was competent, had loads more experience than me.  We did find each other throughout the dive, and managed to surface (both of us a long ways from the boat.)  I let them come and get me this time, but in hindsight I should have swam because trying to get on a free-floating boat in surge and 5 foot seas isn't very fun. 

Since the boat was sick, we bagged the afternoon dives.  Bummer because it was scheduled as a twofer on the Speigal Grove.  But seas were not cooperating, everyone was sick ( well not me ) and I knew it wasn't the best for Ed to try and do 3 deep dives as much as he was feeding the fish.  So he went back to do his classroom work...and I took a nap. :)

Tuesday morning we did three dives, the Duane, Pickles Reef, and Conch wall. I'll post a report on those later...it's my naptime.  Happy Bubbles!!!

11/12/2006 - Double Diving Day

Saturday was a good day for diving, the tide was high ( hahaha sounds like a song title ) and the whether was fine.

High Tide was at 11:05am 1.74metres.

Two mates and myself went to Halifax ( at Nelsons Bay ) and dived here. My friends are from Sweden and they were gettting sick and tired of diving Swansea and Boat Harbour so they needed somewhere different. I mentioned that Halifax was a Marine Reserve and its hailed as one of the top places to dive in NSW.

So, you could say they were looking forward to this fantastic dive....

Must of been bad luck though.

We had 3metres vis, and there was so many jelly fish things around you were swatting them like flys throughout the whole dive.

So you can imagine what came out of their mouths when we emerged from the water..

" thanks for the great dive Sal, we will definately miss that one next time "

But they have given me one more chance to show them Halifax in better condition.

I did get to show them the Southern Silver Drummers which frequent there. It was the best part of the dive ( the only good part of the dive. )

From here, we packed our gear into the car and raced down to catch the Swansea tide 2.5hours after.

After talking to a few familiar faces down at the waters edge, we got into the water. And the dive was great. Around 6 - 8 metres vis, wasn't too cold. A lot of changes had happened under there in regards to the bridge work.

One thing i wasn't happy about was the baskets that they were placing on the bottom to create new habitats for the fish, we found two which were actually covered in rock rubble. I can see how this is meant to help the growth of many fish species ' NOT '.

Couldn't see much of the bridge, as the tide turned quite fast during the dive, so we just kept to the areas where we weren't caught in the current.

But a fabulous dive as always at my favourite dive site.

This weekend coming were off on another Double Diving Day / Weekend. Heading to South West Rocks. They have their annual Christmas Party on this weekend. And the three of us will be helping them celebrate.

Dec. 11, 2006 - No Birthday Dives :(

B-day dives are usually a requirement... however it seems that the ocean had other plans. The water has been rough all weekend, so I stayed high & dry (which was ok because I finally got my Xmas shopping DONE).

Now.. birthdays & diving do go quite well together~ even when you don't need any new gear (what?? I always "need" new gear!).  Anyways, I just celebrated the anniversary of my 29th birthday again- oh wait-- I think I turned 26 this year-- well, irregardless~ the birthday gods were pretty good to me.  Got this little doohickey:

Cute, yet it's awfully heavy so I doubt I'll be wearing it much..  Next was the GPS thing- the one you put in your car with the touchscreen that talks to you as you drive.. ok well, apparently someone who must love me doesn't want me to get lost on the way to divesites.. hehe... So I keep setting the thing in various languages~  now if I visit Italy or China, I'll be able to speak the language (of course I'll only be able to say "turn left in 1 mile" "your destination is 300 ft on the right")...   Next, a dear friend gave me a 5 lb book all about diving (and I'm trying very hard to read it but..)...  Ok there were other presents, but yanno what? I did not get a cake!  Ok so I'm *supposed" to be on a diet... but still.... at least give me a cake with a flavor that I don't like so I wont eat it... lol...    :o)      It was a good birthday... but I wish I could've gone diving....   

11/29/2006 - This isn't about diving: But you'll want to read it.

This is about bedbugs.

I had (have?) them last week.

It started with me waking up with what I thought were mosquito bites on my arms and feet. Seeing as I actually killed 2 mosquitos in my room on the two days following the bites, I wasn't worried.

On the third day, I woke up again with new bites, and thought those end of season buggers were really struggling to the last. On that day, my boyfriend said: Those aren't mosquitos those are 'chinches.'  'Chinches' is the word he used, in Spanish, and I wasn't sure what exactly that meant.

Day four. Again, two or three more bites. And the old ones are burning and itching periodically without fading, as a mosquito bite does. The bites were irregular, and some round... and blotchy. I thought maybe they were shingles (used to get shingles periodically when there were extreme changes in the weather).

Day five. Another bite. Too many days have gone by and my shingles only take 3 to break out fully. Maybe they are spider bites?

On day six, a Friday, I go to my mother's home in another state for a day-late Thanksgiving day dinner. Afterwards, I leave with my sister to spend some time at her house. As I leave, my mom tells me: Your poor sister, she's so sensitive... I gave her poison ivy just from kissing her! (My mom had poison ivy from doing some fall weeding last week.)

When I arrive at my sister's house and we start talking, she points to the 'poison ivy' spot on her face that she supposedly got from my mom.

That's when I panicked. It looked like the bites I had on my body. And, in those 3 hours I'd been home, a new one had appeared on my arm.

Nonchalantly, i go to my sister's computer and google 'chinche'.  Waiting for the results, I'm thinking: okay, it's not fleas, that word is 'pulga' and we would have seen them jumping.... it's not lice, there'd be eggs in my hair or clothing or somthing... it's not......

The results: 'Chinche. Chinche de cama.'  Oh no, I think: bed bugs!  and then.... What are bedbugs?

Of course I'd heard of them... but i was thinking about some things we used to yell at eachother as kids: Keep away from Todd... He has cooties!    What was a cootie?  Nothing. It was an imaginary disease or bug... Bedbugs are imaginary too, right?

No. wrong.

Known as the 'traveling bug' (because it hides out in your clothes, bags, and you take them to your home) these nocturnal, blood-sucking beasties live in cloth, first infesting the seams of things: the seam of the mattress, the box spring.... and later curtains, wood, behind picture frames. They thrive in warm environments, move real fast for their size and scurry from light. When babies, they are barely the size of a grain of sand, without color or translucenty brown. In other words: really hard to see. (And difficult mentally, to conceive of when you have never had experience with them.) When older they can be a couple millimeters long and darker brown (they are hard to miss when they are mature). The female can lay between 200 and 350 eggs in her life span. I don't know what their life span is. But, they can live for up to a year without any blood meal. I also don't know how long it takes them to digest their 'meal' (a.k.a. your blood. If I knew that would give me an indication of how many I may have had. 15 bites in 5 days could be 3 bedbugs who feed once daily, or 15 bedbugs (or more) if they feed once a week.) But after biting you, they retreat to their 'home' (i.e. into your boxspring or mattress) to digest. The tell tale sign of an infestation is small round, blackish stains on the underside of your mattress, especially concentrated at the edges/seams/corners. This is their fecal matter.

When I realized what I had, and how easily they travel, I was more than dismayed. Horrified.

I left my sister's, depressed, barely giving her a kiss, and not tucking in my niece with a story as I normally do on visits home.

My boyfriend was on the way in the bus from New York to spend the night and go with me the following day to visit some of my relatives. I call him: we are going to have to go back tonight. I can't bring this to my family. He understands.

When he arrives, I pick him up at the bus station, and after I get back to my mother's house, I tell her what I think we have and that we are going to have to go back home to NY. A look: like simultaneously remembering and imagining, eyes distant, disturbed, washes over her face. She says in her loving, sing-songy, rich tones, but quickly: Okay honey, well, i can give you a credit card and you can stay at a hotel for tonight, okay?

Ugh! My own mother! So terrible is this thing I am probably carrying that my own mother, without hesitating, invites me to stay in a hotel rather than in her home.

I gather my things and she drives us. After checking in. I cry. Shower thoroughly. And sleep naked. Blissfully 'untickled' in my sleep.

People out there reading this.... this thing is terrible. I have been afraid to stay at home, and afraid to go out for fear of spreading it to other people. I feel like there is something crawling over my body constantly. I am lifting up my shirt, looking for something and never find it. When it gets dark, I start to get really nervous, and turn on all the lights. At night, I lay awake for hours flinching, hitting at the slightest tickle or movement of the hairs on my body. I feel like something is crawling in my hair.  But they don't live in hair, I believe. Although they wouldn't hesitate to crawl there if you're in bed with them.

Everybody I read online seems to go through similar experiences when it was the first time they had them: Confusion, Denial, Realization, Depression, Terror, Paranoia. Hypersensitivity. Panick. Paranoia, terror, panick, paranoia...

On getting back to NY, I contacted my landlord immediately.  He has provided us with a spray that others in my building use. This spray (Permakil-25 Bonide) seems to be doing the job. I have slept 2 nights with no bites. We have sprayed the mattresses, couches, door frames, baseboards, carpeting. We have sprayed our clothing and have done about $100 in laundry. (By the way, washing your clothes may not help the situation. People say to dry on the highest temperature setting, but that laundering is no guarentee.) Also, regular insecticides won't necessarily get rid of them. The insecticide must target bedbugs.

My landlord promised an exterminator, but seems to be dragging his feet on delivering. I'm almost positive it's his duty to provide one. If not, we'll be getting one on our own and taking it out of next month's rent.

I have a feeling he's being slow because he knows something we don't. Something like: Bedbugs are the eternally returning. Fumigation  may get rid of what you have, but if neighbors or visitors have them, they can come back: on clothing, through the walls, over door frames, across the carpets and back to your bed. Okay, so who has them? Where did we get ours?

We had a mouse last week in the room where they started. We thought the mouse brought them. Who knows, though... bedbugs aren't like lice or scabies (which I also found out about online while researching this). When asked frankly about if our apartment had them before moving in (we moved in just 7 weeks ago), he said no. What about the apartment across the hall? No. BUT! The apartment above ours, he admits, had (have?) them!  Fantastic!!!! Also, he thinks the building next door (sharing a wall with ours) has them.

It seems that there has been a flareup of bedbugs in the last couple years.... and in places like NY where people live and travel in close quarters, there are no end of the nightmarish stories online (once you start looking for them.) But people don't volunteer information face to face. And it's no wonder. Some may not know what they have. Other's know perfectly well, and are loathe of the alienation that happens when others find out.   When I walked into home depot and said 'Excuse me.' I got a warm smile and 'How may I help you?' When I said I'm looking for insecticides and things to kill bedbugs, the clerks backed up a step and pointed to the appropriate aisle, eyes jarting, when they found the opportunity, nervously over my clothing.

That's why I've written this non-dive entry: Some people don't know what they have and wait too long to do something about it. Some are afraid to say anything because  others think you are dirty if you have them. Although, anyone who backs up a step is justified in doing so since these invisible, sprinting monsters are difficult to battle, costing you a ton in time, cash, and emotions.

Anyway.... that's the end of this story for now.    The moral: Be warned. Buy Permakil-25. And don't wait to go through the confusion, denial, depression or panick stages if you wake up with bites one morning. Throw out your mattress and do something!

21/11/2006 - My Newspaper Clipping ( Part Two )

21/11/2006 - My Newspaper Clipping ( Part One )

20/11/2006 - My Next 5mins of FAME!!!

I was in the local newspaper today ' The Newcastle Herald '.

Open up to the middle and there i am.

Big Bold Writing Titled ' Dive into life of Sparkles '

Yay!!!

17/11/2006 - My Favourite Dive Site ( everchanging Swansea Bridge )

Saturday morning 17th November 2006.

The high tide for today was 1.67 at 7ish.

Met my friends down at the R.S.L side of Swansea Bridge at 9am.

Before gearing up i walked along the edge and checked out the visibility... loooked pretty good. No wind, a very calm day. The current was still ripping through though, so there was a fair bit of time to wait.

Spoke to some other divers who were there, that i hadn't seen in such a long time. Its great to catch up with some true genuine friends.

Geared up with my buddy, and headed to the water.

Hopped in at 9:45am, current had stopped and it was still.

Cold at first, that initial flow of water into my suit definately gave me the chills. But after i was fine.

This was my first dive in swansea since they started there project of 'Protect Channel Bed'.

Protect Channel Bed - from August to November 2006 they are going to be placing rock ballast to protect the seabed against erosion of sand around the bridge piles. It will involve placing rock from a barge next to the bridge around the pylons at the bottom.

There has been alot of talk about this killing alot of fish species and their habitat.

But from what i saw on the dive today, there is a varst variety of fish down there and they don't look disturbed at all. All my favourite fish were still there in their hidie holes and more just doing what they do best.

I think this work will bring a lot more fish into the channel and the lake ' Lake Macquarie '. Yes it may of killed fish and their habitats, but in the long run i can see this being work being beneficial if not to the bridge to the plentiful fish it will bring.

There is already fish making homes out of the rocks, and they have place these crate basket looking things that are just covered in coral and fish life already. ( see my attempt at drawing the baskets below ).

And the Occy we were visited by.

Photo of Octopus taken by David Breneman. 

11/17/2006 - The Topside Benefits of Diving....

11/9/2006 - happy days

Ok, so this is the story, you are doing a wreck course and you get out of the water, it is a calm day... ok? Stay with me... don't close this page, keep reading... so you are happy, the vis wasn't that great, but the sun on top of you is lovely and you can't wait to go back into the boat and talk about the dive... but then...

ooopssss...

a big wave. Not a wave like a Tsunami wave, but big.

Strange...

I mean, it is such a calm day, and the sea is quite flat.

So then after the wave, 40 meters away, you hear this sound...

and it goes like this:

PFUUUUUFFFUFUFUF!!!

and then a lot of water that looks like a garden hose

So you look to your left and you try to understand why the water is going higher or what is that big fish raising up ....

A WHALE!!!!!!

Yes... yes... yes! A WHALE...

So you go and think OMG... OMG ..., OMG.... and then the whale comes again, but then you see the little whale baby with mummy whale... and they are swimming just in front of you and you can only feel like crying or laughing...

Anyway, that was my dive 4 days ago.

Me, and whale family. Quite special. Don't you think?

11/7/2006 - Diving and Spearfishing (well sorta) off of Boynton Beach, FL 11-7-06

Nov. 4, 2006 - The Plaque, Revisited 2 months Later

It's been nearly 2 months since the memorial plaque for Steve Donathon was placed on the Yukon ( http://www.mydivinglife.com/Missy/1948/Wreck+Diving+Weekend.html ) and while I've done dives on the Yukon since then, I haven't been back to the bridge area where the plaque is until this dive. As I descended down the line, I could clearly see the ship when I hit 28 ft- but vertical vis is almost always better than horizontal, so I wasn't expecting 40ft vis down there. When I saw the plaque, I let go of the line and swam over to it~ and suddenly realized that I wasn't alone.. a sleek sea lion buzzed by me..  :)    Vis turned out to be a respectable 30+ft down there, but there was quite a current blowing so I stayed in areas where I was shielded. The first thing I noticed about the plaque was that the lock on the bottom right was rusted out and broken, but it was due to salt water and not being tampered with..

Next, I noticed the chain is rusting.. (notice the little resident on the bottom corner).

Next it was time to poke around a little bit, so I dropped in and checked out the toilet, lol..  Pics are of the toilet and bathroom wall (yeah I know its called a "head").  While I was down there, another seal came out of one of the ship's cutouts- doing some penetration diving in search of lunch I guess..  :o)