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Welcome to Scuba shack Radio season 6 episode

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141 recorded Monday, 07/01/2024.

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Scuba shack radio is a bi weekly podcast

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in support of our mission to empower individuals

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with knowledge ability and experience to venture underwater

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in pursuit of their aspirations and to advocate

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for ocean health and sustainability. Hello again, everyone. And as always, thank you

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for tuning in to this latest episode of Scoop shack radio. I'm your host, Jeff.

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Welcome also to July and the second half

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of 2024. Wow, that first half of the year went

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by really quick. And 1 thing for sure, we've had some

1:07

very hot weather up here, and I know

1:09

much of a country has as well. Now, do you miss those cold winter days

1:14

yet? Not me, but still 98 to a hundred

1:17

degrees in New England is not what I'm looking for either.

1:21

We are also getting ready for the fourth of July holiday.

1:24

With it coming on a Thursday this year, I'm sure there a lot of people are

1:28

going to be taking a nice long 4 day break as they head out to visit

1:32

friends and family. They say it's going to be a really

1:35

busy travel time this year. We're just going to stay put here in

1:39

Connecticut and just take the the 1 day

1:42

off and they get back to the shop for the weekend.

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Although, we're expecting it'll be very quiet.

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Now on today's show, I wanna talk about

1:51

my thoughts on complacency in Scuba diving.

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But first, let's do some shop updates followed

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by wet notes, news and information.

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Well June was certainly an incredibly busy month

2:13

at Scuba Shack. First off, we crossed a very important milestone

2:18

here at the shop. We have surpassed 11000

2:22

patty certifications. Now earlier this year, I was talking to

2:26

Josh Cohen, 1 of our patty and he let me know that we were closing in

2:29

on in this mark. I guess I was a little surprised that this was coming up.

2:35

Looking at our numbers, Of that 11000,

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there were 6258

2:41

open water divers. We are very fortunate to have a group

2:45

of instructors who are passionate about diving and

2:48

opening up the underwater world to so many

2:50

people. 11000 is certainly a nice achievement.

2:56

Now, as I said, June was a very busy month. It's K Shack. There were 5

3:00

weekends in the month, which is unusual. So

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after not having any classes the first weekend,

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we proceeded to pack in a combination of

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confined water and open water certification weekends.

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As we have started to do over the last few years, we alternate between the classroom

3:17

pool and then the open water dives.

3:20

Fortunately, this year, the weather seems to be cooperating

3:23

a little more for our open water dives. Last year it must rained every time we

3:28

headed it out for those open water lives. Also, it seems that everyone has tanks that

3:35

need to be serviced. Just when we think we're caught up another crop of tank shows

3:39

up for us to either do their visual

3:41

at... Or annual visual inspection or that 5

3:44

year hydro static test. Ned has certainly stayed busy at the tang

3:49

station. And now, it's time to start the second

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half of 20 24. This is Wet notes here on Scuba shack

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radio from Monday, 07/01/2024.

4:10

First off, let's start with some very good

4:13

news. I received an announcement from Dana Miller, senior

4:17

director strategic initiatives at Ocean.

4:19

And the email outlined an announcement that Amazon

4:23

will be replacing 95

4:25

percent of the plastic pillows

4:28

from their North American deliveries. The plan is to replace the pillows with

4:33

100 percent recycled paper. Now if this happens,

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Amazon will avoid about 15000000000

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plastic pillows per year. Wow. These pillows are made up from, plastic film,

4:48

and that is the most common form of

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plastic pollution in near shore at areas.

4:53

It's also the deadliest pollution to large marine

4:56

mammals. I for 1 won't miss this stuff. I

4:59

find it hard to dispose of when trying

5:01

to get all the air out of the bubbles. This does beg the question of how much

5:06

of this stuff is already in the pipeline with the manufacturers of the product.

5:11

I'm sure once Amazon pulls the plug. There'll

5:13

be a lot of other places that will try to sell plastic pillows to companies that

5:17

do a lot of shipping. I wonder if there can be some sort

5:21

of initiative to stop using the stuff. In any case, we need to build on

5:26

the momentum from Amazon and maybe we can even get Walmart to

5:31

do the same thing. And while that last update was some good

5:36

news, Here is the flip side with some

5:39

bad news about Whale hunting. You see, there was a story recently in

5:43

the online Scuba diver magazine news section with

5:46

the headline, thin whale protection hopes dashed iceland.

5:51

I'm pretty sure I reported on this 1 before.

5:54

And recently, Iceland just granted the only remaining

5:57

whale w company,

6:01

Valor a permit to harpoon up to 128

6:05

citations this year. The thin whale is the second largest whale

6:09

next to the blue whale in size. The thin whale is also on the I

6:15

sees red as vulnerable to extinction.

6:19

Last year, there were 24 fin whales taken.

6:23

On a somewhat bit of good news though, Valor

6:27

has indicated that they will not be able

6:29

to go after the whales this year because

6:31

of a late decision. Their boat won't be

6:34

ready to go out during the mid June to September season.

6:39

But this still leaves both Japan and New

6:41

our way out there, hunting whales this year.

6:46

That leads me to wonder just when all

6:48

w will be stopped. Last week, I attended a special webinar that

6:55

deemed a sponsor to discuss the lobbying efforts

6:57

supporting Scuba diving. The presentation was done by Emily Coy, who

7:01

is deemed as federal lobbyists. The webinar title was how politics shapes to

7:07

dive industry. Bet a lot of you like me never

7:11

realized that there are a lot of things that go on in Washington

7:14

that impact the diving industry. Either positively or

7:18

negatively. Laws that sometimes look good on paper failed

7:22

to recognize the serious impacts on another area.

7:25

The small passenger vessel liability Act is 1

7:28

of those laws. And through our lobbying efforts, hopefully, that will

7:33

be rectified with the dive bo act. Emily took us through a lot of details

7:38

about how congress is shaping up and how

7:41

the changes impact the efforts that are going

7:43

on. I learned something interesting about something called the

7:47

4 corners. That is where the committee chairs and ranking

7:51

members must all agree to something thus allowing

7:54

various legislation to move forward. Now I'm pretty sure back when they set

7:58

up our constitution, the founding fathers didn't contemplate

8:02

4 corners. But this is where we are today, and

8:06

we are certainly fortunate to have emily lobbying

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for the dive. Community. Now here are a couple of stories about

8:15

underwater discoveries, and they are very, very different

8:19

First, there was a news article that I

8:21

saw on Fox News 35 out of Florida

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by brief. The headline is,

8:28

Florida treasure hunters amazed by discovery in 300

8:32

year old ship wreck. You don't expect that.

8:35

So there is this group of treasure hunters

8:38

who have been working with Sal Ga

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who runs the 17 15,

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fleet Queen's Jewels Llc.

8:47

Now, his company is the Us district courts

8:50

custodian as the exclusive sal,

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for the Spanish ships that sank during the

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hurricane, in July 17 15.

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According to the article, this group was out

9:03

treasure hunting off of Indian River County. That's

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near Vera Beach. They've been doing this for several years from

9:09

a boat named Lily May. Well, they were in luck 1 day and

9:14

discovered 214 coins and other artifacts from wrecked ships.

9:20

After all this time, this is amazing

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this is an amazing find Now, what is it that Mel fisher said?

9:28

Today is the day. Now, in the other story about an underwater

9:33

discovery? I don't think these divers we're expecting

9:35

to find this. This story was reported on W v and

9:39

Tv out of Miami. Now, a group of divers were down in

9:43

Key la, and going out on a reef

9:45

to do some cleanup with rainbow reef. They said that the reef was in at

9:49

about a hundred feet, and that is where they discovered 25

9:54

individually wrapped kilos of cocaine.

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The coke was wrapped in plastic display in plastic, displaying the Nike

10:03

logo. All the kilos were salvage and turned over

10:06

to the authorities. Somehow, I don't think Nike would appreciate having

10:11

their logo on the kilos of cocaine.

10:17

In key la this October is now open

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for registration, Every year I talk about this, and it

10:23

seems every year it falls during our October

10:26

dive trip. This year is no exception.

10:30

Well, Fast runs October seventeenth, that's Thursday through

10:34

Sunday, October twentieth. Activities include Scuba diving, snorkeling, kayak,

10:40

Ocean seminar, socials in nature tour.

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If you wanna learn more and take a look at the detailed schedule, go to WWW

10:48

dot reef dot org slash

10:51

fest. Fast is 1 word, REFEST.

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I'll bet it's going to be a great time. And finally, I wanted to let you know

11:02

about a new 3 part series coming out

11:04

soon from Brian Scary. The series has titled sea changed, the gulf

11:08

of Maine. Now, Brian gave us a little sneak peek

11:12

at of this at the last month... Last

11:14

March at the Boston Sea Rover show, and

11:17

it should be really interesting. This series is part of a project by

11:21

a scary to document how warming waters are

11:24

affecting the golf. It also,

11:27

a cover story for the June edition of

11:29

National Geographic magazine, beck Looks like this is going to be a

11:34

Nova series on Pbs starting July 20 fourth,

11:37

and some schedules that I saw have it

11:40

running over a 3 week period. The 3 episodes are titled bounty,

11:45

peril, and survival. I'll definitely be making some time to watch

11:50

all 3. Set your Dvr now and catch sea change

11:54

the golf of Maine with Brian Scary.

11:58

Well, that's it for this installment of wet notes here on Scuba shack radio.

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In the most recent addition of alert diver

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magazine from Dan, there is an article title don't let complacency

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kill you. Well that got me thinking a bit, and

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it seems that the more I read through the various scuba of publications, It appears that

12:27

this concept of complacency jumps out.

12:31

In another article in that same addition, Francois

12:34

Berman and Mark G warned us do not be complacent. Our scuba gear is

12:38

life support equipment that we fully depend on

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when underwater. And then in the May addition of Scuba

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diving magazine, Art Douglas lessons for life article is titled

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left behind. For 1 unfortunate diver,

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familiarity leads to complacency. Okay. So the term complacency is being thrown

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around a lot. But is it really complacency

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or is it something else? Let me start by defining complacency?

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We might have an idea of what the concept means. But if we look at the

13:12

definition, it literally means a feeling of quiet

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pleasure or security often while unaware of some potential danger,

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defect or the like. It can also be defined as a feeling

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of calm satisfaction with your own ability

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or a situation that prevents you from trying

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harder? Now, are we using the term complacency to

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soften what we might really mean in some

13:36

circumstances? Is this really careless?

13:40

Is it really irr responsibility or is it reckless?

13:44

Or is it all above? Careless is the failure to give sufficient attention

13:49

to avoid harm or errors. Irr responsibility is having no sense of responsibility,

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while reckless is when you act without thinking

13:57

or caring about the consequences of an action.

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Let's go back to the story by Eric Douglas. The story is about a woman who

14:05

is a regular diver on a boat. She's

14:07

also out to hunt Lobster. It seems the conditions were okay. And as

14:12

the lobster hunters descended it, they all went their separate ways.

14:17

Her tells us that the last time the woman's buddy saw her was at 15 feet

14:20

as they descended. As the divers returned it a boat, it

14:24

seems there was some confusion with the roll

14:26

call given the mix of photographers and lobster

14:29

hunters. Seems they finished the roll call, pulled up

14:32

anchor and headed to another dive site. The woman was not on board and never

14:36

seen again. Since the woman was a regular on the

14:39

boat, the crew did not put her name on the list,

14:42

We don't know if the woman ever surfaced

14:44

or and was lost at sea or if

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she carried an Smb or another signaling device.

14:50

How many things have gone wrong here? Now

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is this complacency or careless

14:55

or maybe even negligence by the boat crew?

14:58

The other thing that I know is that I always stay with my buddy.

15:01

It's not die... It's is not diving with

15:03

your buddy complacent or reckless. Maybe we think by using the term complacency,

15:09

there is a lessen of responsibility.

15:13

And here's another article for Eric Douglas. His

15:15

lessons for life common column is really something that all divers should

15:20

read because you never think you are being complacent

15:23

reckless or irresponsible. So stories from the March

15:26

20 24 Scuba diving magazine

15:29

about questionable fitness. This is a story about a student diver

15:33

who's trying to overcome their fear of the

15:35

ocean. Not only that, they are overweight with

15:38

high blood pressure. Student didn't disclose any of their, of this

15:42

on their medical form. After doing 2 certification dives in a lake,

15:47

they had it 5 miles offshore, and there

15:50

were 4 foot c's. The student did the

15:52

giants stride and immediately had an issue. Couldn't

15:55

climb the ladder. With the helping instructor, they

15:58

made it back on board where they lost consciousness and died.

16:02

I don't think the student diver here was

16:04

complacent. Maybe the instructor was because he had

16:06

done this so many times before and felt

16:09

that they could overcome any anxiety or fear

16:12

from the student? You be to judge.

16:16

So how do we avoid this trap of becoming complacent or careless with our diet? Thing.

16:21

It should be easy. Right? We might well know that our equipment needs

16:25

to be serviced because it's either it's time

16:27

or we had an issue with our last dive thing In our desire to get new

16:31

water, we might not do our function check. We're we might ignore some other small problem

16:35

with the equipment. Sometimes, we might take on a dive that's

16:39

beyond our training or capability, and we leave it in the hands of

16:43

the dive master to take care of us. There are just too many easy ways for

16:48

us to become lazy or quote unquote,

16:52

complacent. As a small local dive shop, we cannot

16:56

not afford to be complacent careless or responsible

16:59

or reckless. It is making sure that when a custom

17:02

comes in to get their tank filled. We

17:04

verified that they are a certified diver, make

17:07

sure the hydro static test is in in

17:09

and visual inspection are up to date. It's

17:12

ensuring that equipment is serviced in accordance with

17:15

the up to date manufacturers

17:19

specifications. A stress up to date because they

17:21

do change and we cannot afford to be

17:23

complacent in the service. Sometimes,

17:26

it is hard to deliver the message to a customer that their tank is no longer

17:30

serviceable or that there are expensive fixes needed to

17:34

their regulator. It is being diligent

17:37

and not complacent. Look, we love scuba diving. We do something

17:43

that most people don't do. We experience a whole new world every time

17:47

we go diving. We also know that there are inherent risks

17:51

in diving. We are some place where we naturally are

17:55

not supposed to be. We are able to do this primarily

17:59

because of the equipment we have coupled with

18:02

the training and experience we have gained.

18:06

To minimize the risks, we have to be

18:08

prepared and diligent every time we go diving.

18:12

Even the so called easy dives cannot be

18:15

taken for granted. I guess I really don't like using the

18:19

term complacent when it comes to diving

18:22

because we know better. We are aware of the risks associated with

18:26

faulty equipment are diving beyond our capabilities.

18:31

It's not being... Is is not being prepared

18:34

complacent or is it something else?

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What do you think? Whatever you call it, complacency,

18:53

careless, irr responsibility or reckless.

18:57

I think we all agree that they have

19:00

no place in diving. Well, that wraps up this latest episode of

19:05

Scuba shack radio. Thanks again for listening, and have a happy

19:09

fourth of July. I'll talk to you again

19:11

in a couple of weeks Until then,

19:14

take care everyone. Scuba shack radio is a bi weekly podcast

19:30

supporting our mission to empower our individuals with

19:33

knowledge ability and experience to venture underwater in

19:36

pursuit of their aspirations and to advocate for

19:39

ocean health and sustainability,