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Everything you ever wanted to know about scuba in one place, at one time! The SCUBA Show 2006 will be held on June 24-25 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, CA.... the Diving Event of the Year. The show offers 57,000 sq. ft. of diving related exhibits with new gear introduced at every show!
The underwater film festival is continuous with incredible underwater footage from around the world that includes sharks, sperm whales, giant mantas, turtles, and more! Some of the films are exciting adventure, others informative, but all are entertaining...
Over a dozen short films are included with many premiered at this film festival. Titles include: Adventure Komodo by Adventure H2O and Bill Macdonald; Diving Saint Croix by Cane Bay Dive Shop; Caribbean Explorer I by Explorer Ventures; A Fiji Fantasy by Roger Roth; Giant Black Sea Bass by Bill Macdonald; Sea of Cortez: Wide and Macro by Walter Marti; Be Prepared for Anything by Yap Divers and Bill Macdonald and more!
Special displays include: Nick Icorn's Museum of Diving History; Wreck artifacts from the CA Wreck Divers; Photos from the U/W Photographic Society
In addition, experts will offer seminars about various aspects of diving and dive travel. Thousands of dollars in prizes and silent auction items are to be offered by dozens of sponsors. Proceeds benefit non-profit Catalina Conservancy Divers—volunteer divers working to protect and restore Catalina Island's marine ecosystem.
4:21 PM - 6/1/2006
KNOX COUNTY (WATE) -- There's new help for area water searches that drag on for weeks or even months, leaving families frustrated as a loved one remains missing. It's a robotic scuba diver.
Currently, when divers with the Knox County Water Rescue Team take the plunge, they can communicate with crews on the ground by voice. But now, they'll also be able to see them very clearly, thanks to the robotic scuba diver.
Divers are counting on the robot to keep a close eye when they're underwater on dangerous missions.
"It's got a lot of mobility. There are a lot of high risk things for our divers to go down and look at," says Capt. David Henderson.
Authorities say human dives are one of the most risky operations they perform. The submarine camera will help make the job a lot less risky. They can use it to help find objects underwater, such as a knife or a gun or even a car.
"We've had calls to bring cars up that have gone under the water. Divers are down there attaching lift bags. We could have someone on surface watching divers to know how they're doing, is everybody okay," Henderson says.
The camera has been donated to Knox County after a successful exchange program with Wildland Fire and Rescue, out of Sweden.
"We saw they had a need for this kind of equipment so we said go ahead, give a donation of this machine this year and see what's coming next year," says Fire and Rescue's Mats Andersson.
The starting price for a device like the robot is over $7,000. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now uses the robots to perform all their routine underwater inspections.
Authorities say Knox County is the only one in the area that has this technology.
Ten people died in boating accidents in Tennessee in 2005. Half of them fell overboard.
By SONU WASU
6 News Reporter
5:19 PM - 5/9/2006
“It’s just a beautiful miracle,” Kathy Kingen said.
Kingen, and her husband Gerry, were part of that miracle on April 23 at Salty’s on Redondo when a group of strangers saved a woman’s life.
The Kingens are the owners of the Puget Sound waterfront restaurant and its two sister eateries, and they were at the brunch on that Sunday with a friend and business partner. While a sunny day, it was also windy, and Kathy Kingen remembers the choppy waves.
While eating, Gerry Kingen started watching two scuba divers. The area is popular for divers. Kathy Kingen believes it’s because the cove near the restaurant protects divers and marine life from the main tidal currents.
Gerry Kingen told his wife he thought the divers were struggling. Both Kingens are experienced scuba divers, and she agreed with his assessment. They went to the restaurant’s deck and called out to the divers, who were about 30 yards out, asking if they needed help. The divers, who later identified themselves as a husband and wife, were also experienced divers, and one gave a signal they were fine.
“’I don’t believe them,’” Kathy said she told her husband.
Sometimes when divers are in a situation like that, they don’t realize they need extra help to get it under control, she said Monday in an interview. While scuba diving looks peaceful, she said, it’s really a lot of work. Divers go into the water with at least 50 pounds of gear –– the tank, counterweights, suit and breathing apparatus.
The Kingens went to the beach to meet the couple when they came in. When the divers, who are in their 50s, were 30 feet from shore, the situation got scary.
“Somebody help me, she’s unconscious,” the man called from the water.
The Kingens and Shay Boden, Salty’s banquet manager, ran into the water to help the man bring his wife to shore.
As they unbuckled her buoyancy compensator vest and get her tank off, the woman was still unconscious.
“He was distraught,” Kathy Kingen said of the husband.
Then scary went to dangerous when the woman turned blue. She had stopped breathing.
The Kingens and Boden began CPR on her. Meanwhile, restaurant patrons, including a doctor and a CPR instructor, saw what was happening and came to help. While Kathy Kingen cleared the woman’s airway, the doctor started chest compressions. Another person held the victim’s head.
After a couple of rounds of breathing and compressing her chest, the woman was revived and was taken by paramedics to St. Francis Hospital, where she apparently fully recovered.
“She got really great assistance really quickly,” Kathy said.
Boden, after helping revive the woman, went back to work. Several people commented on her efforts.
“’Anybody would have done it,’” Boden said she told guests.
For Boden, this was the second time she aided in a water rescue.
Terry Merritt of Auburn drowned May 11, 2005 on the other side of Salty’s. He was with his wife when he signaled he needed to surface. According to fire and rescue officials, Merritt wasn’t there when she surfaced. She found him underwater and brought him to shore. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.
After the woman went to the hospital in the April 23 rescue, Kingen went home and pulled out all of her scuba books and read about accident situations to try to determine what happened. As near as she can tell, the woman panicked and then hyperventilated. It’s a situation any diver can get themselves into, Kingen said.
Kingen said the woman’s husband called a few days later to say his wife was doing well and to thank Kingen and the others.
“He was very grateful for all the help,” Kingen said.
And the miracle.
2:35 PM - 5/7/2006
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Blaine's latest stunt in New York will leave him very soggy.
The magician is spending a week underwater in a human aquarium in front of Lincoln Center. At the end of the stunt, he plans to set a record of holding his breath for nine minutes.
Blaine says he'll have a breathing tube and no food through the week.
He trained with Navy SEALs.
The finale of the stunt airs in a two-hour ABC special next Monday night.
7:17 PM - 5/1/2006
29apr06
A SCUBA diver is expected to make a full recovery after he resurfaced unconscious in waters off Brisbane and was winched aboard a rescue helicopter.
A Counter Disaster and Rescue Service (CDRS) spokeswoman said the man, aged in his mid-50s, came to the surface unconscious after diving at Flinders Reef at Moreton Island about 8am (AEST) today.
The spokeswoman said the man came to after he was administered CPR on a dive boat.
He was then winched aboard the helicopter from the dive boat and airlifted to the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
The man was transferred to Brisbane's Wesley Hospital for treatment at its hyperbaric unit.
A Wesley Hospital spokeswoman said the diver was expected to make a "complete recovery".
"It's early days but his doctor expects him to make a complete recovery," she said.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said he was suffering the bends, also known as decompression sickness.
It was not known whether the diver was a tourist.
7:09 PM - 5/1/2006
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