Dive Reports

JesusDivers, c/o Steve Beamer 815 Route 54, Williamstown, NJ 08094
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(NOT) Dive Report #6. Sri Lanka, May 2003
This was to be first a missions trip with us assissting Pradeep at his crusade in Negombo and second a vacation of sightseeing and maybe some diving in Pradeep's home country of Sri Lanka. Go to the Island Info page to read about the rest of our trip there. Before we left I prayed and asked if it would be okay for me to take our dive gear with us. God said yes. What I should have asked was, if we took the gear would we be able to use it. The answer to that question was no. The South and Eastern sides of the contry where we were was in the midst of their monsoon season. The waves were high, it was raining almost every day, and the water was all stired up. This is a resort area and no one goes there to dive when the waves go up and the visability goes down. Ah well, maybe next time.

Dive Report #5. December 27, 2002, Corson's Inlet, NJ

Water temp about 40 degrees, vis about 16" (yes that's inches), bottom time 4 minutes. It's been so long since I dove with a full wet suit (7mm) and in salt water that I forgot how much weight I needed. As a result I was about four pounds short and I got my gear on just as the tide was turning. I had a hard time staying down and keeping up with the current. With the current getting stronger by the minute I decided it wasn't worth trying to put more weight on. It was very refreshing though.

Dive Report #4. December, 2002

Grand Cayman, 12/3-12/02 The diving in Grand Cayman is incredible. Fish were everywhere in greater numbers and larger than anyplace else we've been. For details about what else we did, the island, things to do, and places to see, go to the new Island Info Page. At first we stayed at Treasure Island Hotel which is conected with Bob Soto's Reef Divers. When we checked into it Joan only had to do one hour in the pool and two more check out dives to complete her PADI Open Water 1 (she received her PADI Scuba Diver Cert. at Divers Outpost in Fla. with William Anzueto). So she decided to do it. She passed with flying colors. It helped getting about 15 other dives under her belt since her Scuba Diver Cert.. While Joan did her dives I went snorkling off the beach at Treasure island. They have a nice 20' - 10' deep reef about 100 yards out. After looking and asking around we decided to do some shore dives at Turtle Reef with Dive Tech (next to the Turtle Farm and under The Cracked Conch restaurant, look for a coupon in Cayman Activity Guide for DiveTech dive, lunch and a beer for $25 ). The have a shallow wall 20' - 70' about 50 yards off their ladder. If you go out on that shelf about another 50 yards or so you reach the deep wall. It starts at about 70' and goes down thousands. Joan and I did two dives there. On the first we went out to the left and went to the base of the shallow wall to come back to the right. They have a cavern there filled with tarpon. I swam into the cavern and the tarpon swam up to me. I asked later if they feed them and was told they discourage feeding. You couldn't tell by those tarpon. On the second dive we headed to the right on the shallow (18' - 70') reef. There were lots of fish. What a reef. I'll try to post some of the pictures. One thing that I noticed about these dives, I didn't get nauseous. I usually get that way as I start to ascend. One of the Dive Tech instructors (Mike) suggested an inner ear reverse block. I often have problems with congestion but I'm on new medication that must really be working. We went snorkling at three different locations. I don't know the name of the tour company but they had 3" by 8" pink cards all over the hotels for CI$ 15 OFF (CI$ is Cayman Island $, worth $1.25 US by decree of the Cayman Islands government). That made it 15$CI for each of us which was about half off. The captain and the mate were great local guys. They showed us a large green moray and a medium nurse shark at the one location. Then we went to Stingray City (no fins, or shoes, just stand there in three or four feet of water and walk around). There were hundreds of stingrays. They were all over us looking for food (no they don't sting you unless you jam your hand or something onto the spine on the tail). That was a fantastic experience. If you get to Grand Cayman you have to do this (look for the pink cards).
We tried to do a shore dive at Dive Tech's other location at the Cobalt Coast Resort. At that location you can do a shore dive on the North Wall. Joan was having problems with a sinus squeeze and couldn't get down. I ended up diving in the shallows by myself for a few minutes. Then we went back to Turtle Reef (about ten minutes away). Mike (Dive Tech dive instructor) had a group cancel on him so I got a guided dive on the deeper wall using scooters (Joan sat out). Joan said "I thought you said scooters were for wimps" (I had, a day or two earlier). I told her I was being facetious. It was a great dive. We went down to 125' and headed north along the wall gradually comming up to about 100' for the next 30 minutes. We saw turtles, barracuda, and almost everything else (no sharks though). With the scooter it was like flying. Mike suggested I bring my Dive Rite Wings next time and well use doubles and do some longer, deeper diving.

Dive Report #3. August, 2002

Nassau, San Juan, and St. Thomas, USVI (trip #2). Fifteen people from our church went on a cruise in August. We went on the Carnaval Paradise (a NON-SMOKING ship) out of Miami. We stopped at Nassau, Bahamas the first day, then "a fun day at sea" then San Juan, PR for a day, then St. Thomas for a day. After that we had two more "fun days at sea" and we were back in Miami.
Nassau was okay. Joan, my wife, and I spent a lot of time the whole cruise with a great Christian couple from our church, Rick and Molly. We all got a taxi ride over to Paradise Island and did some sunbathing, swimming and snorkling for the day. While snorkling I found a dive mask and a Carnaval beach towel (the ship wants $22 to take one home with you) on the bottom. Apparently the wind blows toward the water because there were about a dozen towels on the bottom (if you go there make sure your towel is secure). The water was about 18' deep by the ropes where most of the stuff was (if you go beyond the ropes you are apparently free game for the jet skis and parasailing boats). There were a few other snorklers there but I guess not many people know how to free dive that deep (or maybe all the things we say on the bottom were lost on that day). It was a good day of snorkling and walking on the beach and spending time with my wife (Rick and Molly took a long walk as well). We then took a taxi back to town and did a little shopping before retiring to the ship.
San Juan was okay. Joan and I had been to San Juan twice before. The four of us (including Rick and Molly) rented a car and drove east about 30 miles ending up at the Westin Del Mar Hotel. Where I went snorkling. The snorkling wasn't too good because we were on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island and there were waves.
In St. Thomas Joan and I went diving. It was a great dive with the only exception being an unexpected current toward the right of the beach. I was easy going out but took us a while to get back. No problem but it was a good work out. We needed one after the eating we were doing on the cruise.

#2. 5//02

St. Thomas, USVI. We flew down on Delta from Philly to Atlanta then to St. Thomas. Delta had the most reasonable flight ($399 each). We stayed at The Green Iguana. The managers, Mike and Linda Ratcliff, are Christians. They are a real blessing. We got to go to church with them Sunday night at the St. Thomas Assembly of God. Great fellowship. We arrived on Thursday evening. We rented a car through Budget. I didn't have any problem driving on the left side of the road but it did bother me to see other cars coming over a hill toward me driving on the wrong (left) side of the road. It took me a few days to get over that. We went to The Coki Beach Dive Club on Friday morning but they were closed (they're only open on days that the cruise ships are in). So we went to the Chris Sawyer Diving Center. at the Renaissance Grand Beach Resort down the road a little further to rent tanks for Coki Beach. They were all out of tanks so they sent us over to their shop in Red Hook to pick them up. We were able to return them to the Shop near Coki. Red Hook is a nice place to stop. The Marina Market there advertises itself as the store that has everything, they do. The first day we dove at Coki we were just trying to get comfortable in the water. Joan had some problems with her tank and BC and wasn't real comfortable. The fish were incredible. They were everywhere. The tank rental was for 24 hours so we got them filled the next morning and did another dive at Coki. We had tightened up Joan's BC the night before and she was much more comfortable. We got down to about 55 feet. We saw a ray and a lot of fish. Great dive. Sunday morning we went on a day sail on The Nightwind. They served us a continental breakfast and a great luch. We sailed over to St. John and went snorkling in two different places. We saw turtles and reef and fish. I recovered a snorkle and a gear bag at the second site (20'-30'). We then had a leisurely sail back to St. Thomas. We had dinner in town (The Green Iguana is only a five minute walk from downtown) and went to church that night. Monday we went out on a boat dive with Chris Sawyer. I don't remember the name of the first place we dove. Our guide had me get away from Joan so she could get more comfortable on her own. Joan did fine. She was ready for the second dive. It was at Grassy Cay. The reef has a lot of large coral sticking up providing a great place for fish. It was a very good dive. The wind was blowing a bit (the boat wasn't anchored as we had done drift dives) which made it a little more difficult to get back on the boat. It was a good day. Tuesday afternoon we were flying out so we took a little tour of the island in the morning and went shopping in the afternoon. There are a couple places I would recomend. First go see the Gemstone House on Storetvaer Gade (Gade means Street) . They are very good if you're looking for deals on jewelry and loose gemstones. They have great prices and they try harder. Second Go to Carnival 21 at 21 Main Street (ask for Persha). They have clothes and things at decent prices. We shopped in town (Charlotte Amalie) and at Havensight Mall (near the cruise ship pier). We prefered in town. I thought the prices were a little better. By the way, St. Thomas has two Kmarts. There you can buy almost anything you can get on the mainland at about the same prices. So if you're on a cruise and need something you can stop in one of the Kmarts. I think one is close to the cruise ship pier. All in all we had a great trip with some great diving and met some great people. We would highly recomend St. Thomas, just don't go out walking around by yourself in some parts of town in the middle of the night. We had no problems.

Crystal River, Fla. - We went to Crystal River. Port Hotel, Dive Shop, and Marina in the beginning of December. They are under NEW OWNERSHIP. Big changes in the last couple years. The New folks are putting more money into the place and they have a great atitude. They couldn't do enough for us. The diving was good. We rented a boat from the marina and dove Kings Spring and the Three Sisters Spring. We even got to swim with THE Manatee. You have to go early in the day (before 9) to see the Manatees. The dive shop is managed by experienced people. They were very helpful. If you want to call and make reservations the number is (352) 795-3111. We were met at Crystal River by Reggie Byrum and Jim from the Christian Divers Dive Club (CDDC). We went up to dive Devils Den with them and some other members of the CDDC on Sunday and had Bible Study right there on the picnic benches next to the pond. Great time of fellowship. Jesus was there, even in the Devil's Den.

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Last updated on 1/17/09

Since 7/4/2002