Black water: Firefighters' dives often dangerous

Israel Infante begged emergency responders to allow a friend to dive into the murky, muddy water to search for his son’s body.

“I just want to find him,” the man said last week as he watched crews with the Mission and Alton fire departments floating on a small red boat nearby.

The 16-year-old had drowned in a retention pond near McCook, and the hours slowly dragged on as the Mission Fire Department dive team dredged the pond’s bottom in search for the lifeless teenager.

“People can get impatient,” said Capt. Joel Dominguez, a member of the 12-man team. “But it’s not as simple as holding your breath.”...[Link]

‘Diver Ed’ and ‘Captain Evil’ show visitors new worlds underwater

Carving a wake in the early morning calm of Frenchman's Bay, the Starfish Enterprise steams out of Bar Harbor on its maiden voyage.

Onboard, 11 passengers-parents and kids, all sporting duct-tape name tags-are sitting on long yellow benches.

Ed Monet, 43, known to his passengers as Diver Ed, stands by the cabin. A few kids begin to laugh as Monet, bulging his eyes, squeezes into his one-piece dry suit. The heavy neoprene stretches tightly against his thick chest and legs. His long tangled hair and most of his face are covered in a hood made of the same elastic material.

Speaking in a loud, brassy voice, he explains his gear as he prepares to dive "These air tanks hold pressurized air like your car tires-air that I breathe. But instead of 32 psi [pounds per square inch] it has 3,200. This could blow through a 12-story concrete building."

Hoisting the large silver canisters, he grins. "Now I'm going to strap it to my back."...[Link]

"It's a good gig,'' he said, "except for the gators.''

The next time you hit a golf ball into a water hazard, consider it a donation to Jeff Wiemert and people like him.

A commercial diver from Stuart, Fla. Wiemert scoured the beds of Coastal Pines Golf Club's lakes and ponds Monday for wayward golf balls.

Wiemert works for TGSI, a golf equipment company in Texas, that cleans up and resells lost balls. And some are very low mileage.

Wiemert figures if he works every day, he would collect 300,000 to 400,000 balls a year. He ships them to TGSI in bags of 600 each. He shipped 30,000 balls Sunday...[Link]

Walton deputies get first-ever dive team

Some Walton County deputies will have wetsuits hanging next to their uniforms after the Sheriff's Office receives a federal grant to establish a scuba diving team.

The Sheriff's Office recently learned it will receive a $212,000 grant from the Department of Justice, which will be used in part to form the county's first-ever dive team, according to a news release from the Sheriff's office. The remaining funds will be used to buy new equipment for a larger SWAT team and 160 rifles for patrol deputies.

"We're just basically waiting for the money to set up the assessment for testing for the selection process" for the dive team members, said Lt. Mike Howell, the Sheriff's Office's special operations commander.

The Sheriff's Office will get the money after the 2009-10 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, said Mike Gurspan, the Sheriff's Office public information officer.

Walton County never has had a stand-alone dive team. Instead, it has worked with the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office when underwater search-and-rescue or evidence-recovery operations are needed...[Link]

DOT inspects bridges

The Broad Avenue bridge did not sustain additional damage during springtime flooding earlier this year, Georgia Department of Transportation divers said Monday.

Following up on a February inspection that eventually led GDOT officials to close the bridge, a dive team re-examined the structure's footings Monday afternoon, checking to see if April's flooding caused additional damage to the bridge.

"Preliminarily, they've said that there doesn't appear to be any additional scouring done by that flood," City Engineer Bruce Maples said. "They said it looked like nothing much had changed with it."

The bridge was closed to all vehicle and foot traffic in February after GDOT divers said they found significant structural wear on the footings of the bridge...[Link]

Bayou-bred diver works under the sea

Grand Caillou native David Francis served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years, 20 of those as a diver.

But he said he has loved the water all of his life.

He was a fan of the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French ecologist, explorer and filmmaker. His uncles were shrimpers, and his father an offshore tugboat captain.

“I grew up playing in the water. The Navy decided to pay me to do it,” Francis said. “I couldn’t ask for a better career.”

The 43-year-old retired in May. His retirement ceremony is set for Friday in Pensacola, Fla. His career spanned more than two decades and earned him a Navy Commendation Medal, awarded for his service in Guam where he supervised 100 people and 20 deployment missions. He was stationed there from 2006 to February of this year.

But don’t look for Francis to seek out a front-porch rocking chair just yet. He plans to become a water-survival instructor for the Navy...[]

'Best job in the world': profile of Briton Ben Southall

Mr Southall, an adventurer from Petersfield, Hants, has already travelled the world on fundraising expeditions.

He worked as a tour guide in Africa after graduating from university with a science degree and then came back to the UK where he has spent the past few years working as a charity events manager and fundraiser.

The 34 year old introduced himself, in his one-minute video pitch for the Queensland job, by saying: “Hi, I’m Ben, otherwise known as the adventurous, crazy, energetic one.”

Mr Southall describes himself as a dynamic, gregarious and hardworking go-getter.

“The most important thing to me in life is to have an exciting job that makes me happy, puts smiles on peoples’ faces and achieves challenging goals,” he said in his application.

He has ridden an ostrich and his interests include scuba diving, bungee jumping, mountain biking and photography.

In his spare time, he also manages a music festival and keeps fit running marathons and climbing...[Telegraph]

Beneath the Big Blue

What would induce a man to leave his home in Canada to move to a country that is hot all year around?

For Dr. Brian Chapell, now acting president of the University of the Cayman Islands one inducement was scuba diving.

Dr. Chapell was recently in Bermuda to speak at a public forum at the Bermuda College. He has lived in the Cayman Islands since 2003.

The Royal Gazette took the opportunity to ask the avid scuba diver for some advice about scuba diving in the Cayman Islands.

Q: When did you start scuba diving and where?

A: I learned to dive in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada) and got certified in Tobermory, Ontario. Tobermory is a very popular dive destination in the Great Lakes due to the large number of shipwrecks...[TheRoyalGazette]

Miller dives into career

In many of today’s professions, the phrase “swimming with the sharks” is often used to describe stressful situations. For “Twink” Miller, the phrase can take on a more literal translation, depending on where her profession takes her.

Along with her husband, Art, Miller owns Long Lake Scuba in Lima. In addition to being a scuba instructor, she has a love for underwater photography.

“I started taking scuba-diving classes over 30 years ago back in 1978,” Miller said. “In about 1981, when my husband was laid off from Ford Motor Company, we bought the shop at Long Lake. We give lessons and we also sell all of the equipment you’d need to go diving. We fit every piece of equipment to the person because otherwise it won’t work. If your mask doesn’t fit right, water will leak in and there’s no point in Scuba diving if you can’t see. If you wear glasses, we can also arrange for prescription lenses in a mask.”

Even though they call Long Lake home, Twink and the other instructors teach scuba diving in other parts of the area as well...[DelphosHerald]

Calif. diving program helps anchor ex-inmates

Kenyatta Kalisana completed his training here this month, departing with a choice of three jobs and a possible six-figure annual salary.

Kalisana's career options would be impressive simply because of the troubled national and California economies. More extraordinary is that the 40-year-old Los Angeles man, a twice-convicted drug dealer, left the California Institution for Men after three years with an international certification as a deep-sea diver, underwater welder and heavy construction rigger...[USAToday]

Oceaneering Divers Hone Welding Skills

A state-of-the-art facility for wet and dry habitat welding training has been installed at the Oceaneering International, Inc. Siracusa Road location in Morgan City, Louisiana. Diver/welders using the site can be qualified at 40-foot water depths. The tank allows up to 4 divers to simulate underwater conditions for performing welding procedures used offshore during platform or ship repair operations to produce quality welds.

Design limitations, strengths and weaknesses, metallurgy and mechanical properties are all considerations that contribute to choosing the most appropriate method for a successful subsea repair. Properly engineered, wet welding can be a cost-effective option for selected high quality underwater repairs...[SubSeaNews]

Ice-Diving Certifications Noted

Three divers from the Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue team completed their ice-diving certifications during February, which means they have learned the logistics and techniques particular to scuba diving in extremely cold water and an environment in which a diver can only surface through a small hole in the ice.

Receiving their ice-diving certifications were NUSAR Assistant Chief Paula Wickman and probationary members Brian Solt and Paul Nonnenmacher. NUSAR volunteers complete a training period of up to one year before becoming full members.

The skills acquired by these divers will be important if NUSAR is called on to rescue someone who falls through ice...[VoicesNews.com]

Hazardous Duty #2: The Houston County Rescue Team

The team was formed after a tornado tore through the town of Webb in 1963.Decades later, brave men and women are still carrying out the team's original mission.

"It doesn't take a lot of skill to want to help someone" says Chief Paul Grimes of the Houston County Rescue.

Those words come from a man who has been part of the Houston County rescue team for 4 years now.

Chief Paul grimes has a passion to help those that are in distress.

"When you get called upon, a switch turns on. You've got a duty to perform" says Chief Grimes.

Those duties include air, land, and water searches when someone is reported missing or in danger...[WTVY.com]

Videographer specializes in high-definition underwater photography

David McGuire, 49, of San Rafael is a writer, explorer, ocean videographer, field associate of the California Academy of Sciences and founder of Sea Stewards. Sea Stewards - Seastewards.org - specializes in high-definition underwater photography and expedition films. The organization's mission: "Celebrate the ocean and ocean life, and educate and motivate for ocean awareness and protection."

Q: How did you get into filmmaking?

A: I've been a still photographer for a long time, and occasionally helped friends with films. I became a full-time filmmaker when I quit my job at Berkeley to skipper a boat and help make an film on sharks in the South Pacific about five years ago. Since then I've devoted myself to expedition/nature conservation filmmaking.

Q: What do you love about it?

A: I love the adventure and the thought that my work is devoted to raising awareness around issues facing the oceans and ocean life.

Q: What's the worst thing that ever happened to you on the job?

A: The worst was flooding a camera while filming sharks in a remote atoll in the Tuamotus. The best part is you have to be resourceful and being a McGiver in the field.

Q: What has it taught you about yourself?

A: Filming wild animals underwater gives a new perspective. I look at the whole system as well as the individual including the small details. Its a great metaphor for life and ocean conservation...[MarinIJ.com]

The Challenge of Air-Sea Rescue

When Captain Chesley Sullenberger and the entire US Air flight 1549 crew heroically guided their Airbus A320 to safe and successful water ditching on the Hudson River, they justly received accolades and praise for their calm demeanor and superb flying. In fact, the entire rescue was validation of all the training and practice that the entire NY/NJ emergency response community has done since the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. Somewhat lost in all the media coverage was the skillful flying of the NYPD Air Sea Rescue aircraft that were responsible for saving two passengers that had fallen or jumped off the airplanes wings into the river. The rescue was an incredible example of skill, training and teamwork.

The Air-Sea Rescue Team

The NYPD provides 24 hour a day, 7 day a week air-sea rescue coverage with a crew of two pilots, a rescue crew chief and two SCUBA divers. In all of the assignments performed by the NYPD, the air-sea rescue is one of the most demanding, requiring incredible teamwork and crew resource management sills and abilities.

When the call is received and the air-sea rescue tones sound, the five person crew responds to the aircraft and performs a quick, yet practiced and methodical start of the aircraft. Once airborne, the crew receives additional updates and/or information while enroute to the scene. Often the initial calls can be confusing and ambiguous. In fact, the very first 911 calls for US Air 1549 were received from callers in the Bronx. The callers indicated that a commercial airliner was in trouble and was crashing. Naturally, the Air-Sea rescue aircraft was directed to respond to the Bronx...[Officer.com]

The Underwater Archaeologist

Naval history buffs would find much to interest them in Guam, but unless they are divers, they rarely make the trip. Getting there requires a 6,000-mile flight from San Francisco, and most of the attractions are resting on the bottom of Apra Harbor.

But if, like Wayne Abrahamson, you once served on a Navy supply ship berthed at Apra, then you too might have had an underwater epiphany like the one he had there in the early 1980s, when he entered the harbor a mere diver and emerged a future maritime archeologist.

Abrahamson grew up in tiny Elroy, Wis., which is about as far from the ocean as an American can get. "I joined the Navy straight out of high school in 1978, pretty much to get out of Wisconsin and see the world," he says.

That included the parts of the world that are underwater. While serving in the Pacific, Abrahamson qualified as master diver and visited many wreck sites. But it was in Apra Harbor that he came across the wreck that really fired his imagination. Actually it was two wrecks, the Cormoran II and the Tokai Maru, which share the same watery grave...[Forbes.com]

Water work

People might say that Ryan Bell picked a really strange time to take a dip in the Des Moines River.

With mounds of snow lining the riverbanks and the water temperature right at the freezing mark, Thursday seemed like a bad day to go swimming. The cold, clear water was perfect, however, for getting a look at what's below the surface.

So Bell, a licensed structural engineer and commercial diver, donned about 100 pounds of gear and dropped into the ice-clogged river to check out the Fort Dodge Hydroelectric Dam.

He spent several hours Wednesday and Thursday underwater near the dam. On Thursday morning, he slid down the dam's spillway in a rope harness to reach part of the structure's downstream side.

Bell's job was to collect information on the condition of the dam that city officials will use when they eventually decide what to do with it. About two hours worth of video was recorded with a camera mounted on his diving helmet. He also took some photos with an underwater camera...[TheMessenger]

Motz earns Bath firefighter honor

Lifetime Bath resident Bob Motz has been a member of the Bath Fire Department almost all his adult life.

“He’s been a dedicated member of the fire department for 38 years,” said Bath Fire Chief James Paulett. “Despite his busy schedule, he always has time for the fire department. It’s one of the priorities in his life.”

Now Motz has been honored as Bath’s Firefighter of the Year for 2008. He was chosen by a vote of his peers.

“It’s very nice,” said a humble Motz, who has worked as a part-time firefighter and emergency medical technician since 1971.

Motz said he responded to more than 400 calls last year with the department. As a part-time member of the force, he is called when needed and also fills in for shifts for full-time staff.

Motz said his interest in firefighting began in high school. As a student at Revere High School in the 1960s, Motz knew former fire chief Larry Hershey.

“I was at their house all the time when I was in high school,” said Motz, who was friends with Hershey’s children.

When the fire department started up a scuba diving team in 1968, Motz was interested. He took a course with the team and became certified. Today, he still is part of the department’s team that is trained to enter water for searches and rescues...[Akron.com]

Tales from the tank

Jill Reeves and Skylar Whitney knew that when they applied to work at the Albuquerque Aquarium, they would swim alongside 17 sharks, along with various fish, turtles and stingrays, every day.

An Albuquerque native, Whitney said he never pictured himself swimming in a display tank to feed and clean the animals.

"They were looking for help and needed an aquariamist position filled, and they were having a hard time finding someone," Whitney said. "I never thought I would be working with sharks. It's completely different than what I thought it would be, but I love it."

Whitney said that when he gets into the tank, he feeds the animals and cleans the exhibit.

"We don't touch them, not unless they're getting a little too close for comfort, and then we'll just shove a food bucket at them and get them away," Whitney said.

The largest shark in the tank is almost seven feet long, Whitney said.

Reeves said she has been diving since 2005 and has explored the waters while studying abroad.

"Part of my study abroad took place just north of Boston, and then three months were in Tahiti, and then three months were in California," Reeves said. "I was doing a lot of research when I was abroad, because we were studying the three ecosystems."

Reeves said she has swum with sharks but that they have all been ocean dives...[DailyLobo]

Dive industry honours two

Two well known Caymanian dive pioneers – Stuart Freeman, owner of Eden Rock, and Ollen Miller, owner of Sundivers, will be honoured for their achievements and outstanding contributions to the sport of scuba diving this tonight at Pedro St. James.

This is when the industry gathers together for the annual International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony.

A press release noted that every year, in addition to the international inductees, the Ministry of Tourism honours Caymanians and pays tribute to the invaluable role they have played in the process which has transformed Cayman into the premier dive destination that it is today. All awards will be presented by the Minister of Tourism, Charles.

“Both individuals have been trailblazers in Cayman’s dive industry,” said the Minister. “I congratulate them for having passion and foresight and for dedicating their lives to the sport of scuba diving.”

Stuart Freeman has dedicated 40 years to the sea and to the watersports industry. From the onset of his adulthood through to the present day, Mr. Freeman has stayed true to his calling and continuously helps to protect and develop Cayman’s diving industry...[CayCompass.com]

The life of an underwater photographer

Steve Jones, 37, is an underwater photographer and photo-journalist from Aberdare. For the last 12 years he’s travelled the world taking photographs for leading diving magazines

How did you get involved in underwater photography?

I started taking photographs when I was eight-years-old, and then when I was 14 I started diving with the Cynon Valley sub aqua club.

After university I went to work as a dive instructor in Egypt. I moved around a lot, going from there to Malta, the Caribbean, anywhere I could get work, even Britain.

But while I was working in the Maldives I started combining my two interests.

I had been working as a guide for a number of journalists and photographers who came out to the island to report on the diving and I started taking photographs on my own.

Then a journalist from a big German dive magazine, Unterwasser came out without a photographer and I got to do the job. That was my first big commission.

What sort of qualifications do you need?Well I’m a fully qualified instructor with more than 3,000 dives under my belt, so I’d say the most important thing is to be a good diver.

Unless you’re totally comfortable underwater then I wouldn’t even think about taking a camera down.

My university degree is in computer science which doesn’t immediately sound that useful, but I do my work with digital cameras so you do need a lot of technical know how...[WalesOnline]

Conservation officers conduct ice dive training

After reaching the bottom, about 10 feet down, Indiana Conservation Officer Matt Landis began making sweeps in a circle search pattern as part of his training for his first ice dive Thursday in Fowler Park in southern Vigo County.

The water temperature was 39 degrees, according to a small monitor attached to his special orange-colored dry suit, designed to keep cold water from touching his body.

After about 10 minutes, his training dive was over, but he still faced a unique challenge from the depths — finding a hole cut out of the 41⁄2-inch-thick ice above him.

“You could actually see a couple of feet, which makes it a little easier to orientate yourself once you get down to the bottom. Coming up, you can see the sunlight and it just looks like a roof of glass,” Landis said of the frozen lake above him.

“You think you are coming up in the hole, but once you start coming up, you bump against the ice and you know you are still under,” he said.

That’s where the safety line comes in, which directs the diver back to the opening in the ice. Such conditions require the use of a harness on each diver, said Conservation Officer Max Winchell, a dive master, who said the training helps officers experience the cold and learn to take extra precautions with equipment...[TribStar.com]

MI6 caught up with underwater engineer Jordan Klein to talk about his early career and his first brush with James Bond on "Thunderball"...

How long ago did you learn to dive and how did you become interested in subsurface activities?
I was in the Navy during World War II, I went to diving school. It was hard-hat diving at the time, and I learned one thing about it, I didn't want to be a hard hat diver. After the war, the Aqualung was getting popular in Florida. I opened a dive shop on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, "Underwater Sports", and sold Aqualungs and other SCUBA gear. I also had a dive boat - I think it was probably one of the first, if not the first, dive boat on the east coast of the United States. At any rate, that's how it all started.

How did you get involved in filmmaking and was diving a natural segue to this or vice-versa?
Even when I was a teenager before the war, we built our own breathing equipment. We used five gallon steel milk cans for our diving helmet, soldering on a port, made fins out of tennis shoes and cut out pieces of tire and riveted it onto the bottom of the shoes; cut a donut out of an inner-tube and made a little copper ring that would hold a piece of glass in the front and put that on for a face-mask.

After the war I brought a boat from the University of Miami Marine Laboratory and called it "Arbalete", and used it for taking diving trips off the Florida coast as well as through the Bahamas. The dive trips were very lucrative, so I brought an 80 foot PT boat surplus for $25,000. I had a lot of well-known people like Cary Grant, William Randolph Hearst Jr, and Errol Flynn on the boat. I realised that it would be tough to earn any serious money running a dive boat for the rest of my life.

I started manufacturing underwater photographic equipment and built MAKO housings for many still cameras and Bolex 16mm cameras. I patented a camera called the MAKO SHARK and sold it for $19.95. Rexall Drug Stores sold about 55,000 of them. That's what got me going financially so I could start designing and manufacturing the housings for theatrical application, mainly for Arri 35mm motion picture production cameras.

Ivan Tors was in Miami at the time, having built a studio there. He offered me the opportunity to shoot the "Flipper" TV series - and that was the beginning for me. I ended up in the IA and started filming because there wasn't anyone else, only me and a great cameraman named Lamar Boren, who was the underwater DP on "Thunderball" and Ricou Browning was the underwater director on "Flipper" and "Thunderball"...[MI6]