Coral Reef Travel is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting coral reef ecosystems through education and action. Also providing diving related information.
// June 21st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // USA Dive Guide
Not since last century’s slaughter of whales has an animal been so doggedly hunted. And talk about bad press: The fearsome, loathsome shark has long since replaced Moby Dick as the symbol of all that we puny humans fear about the sea. No wonder we kill them by the millions, for their fins, for their cartilage, for the sheer hell of it.
// June 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // USA Dive Guide
We giant stride into the 72-degree waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a balmy spring afternoon. A swirling cloud of baitfish has already claimed the anchor line, and we follow it down as if into the eye of a silvery tornado. At 45 feet, we encounter the upper reaches of the “wreck,” the iron superstructure of a 185-foot section of the old Hathaway Bridge, which linked Panama City and its beaches across St. Andrews Bay before it was carved up in 1987 and barged out to sea to become part of Panama City’s ever-growing artificial reef system.
// June 21st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // USA Dive Guide
With more than 8,600 linear feet – that’s 1.6 miles – of sunken ships and barges, Dade County has one of the largest artificial reef programs in the United States. No wonder local tourism promoters have dubbed greater Miami “The ‘Wreckreation’ Capital of the Americas.”
// June 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // USA Dive Guide
The pulsating bolts of light twirled through the darkness, pivoting to the beat of the music. Another night of abandon in the Florida Keys was off to a rollicking start when one light beam locked in on an embarrassed couple shimmying across the rippled sand dance floor.
// June 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // USA Dive Guide
Guide to Lobster Season
The wait at the boat ramp is longer than a line at Disney. Jet skis and go-fast boats race to see who can cut closest to dive flags. Boat hooks and gaffs are raised in anger, and the occasional gunshot carries through the humid air. There are thieves, smugglers, undercover cops, handcuffs … Just another day in South Florida? Well, yes, but it’s even worse because it’s the first day of lobster season.
// June 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // USA Dive Guide
Eat, sleep, dive. What could be better than the routine of live-aboard diving? Maximum bottom time, minimum travel time. All the comforts of home, on the reef.
// June 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // USA Dive Guide
In the midday summer sun, the cramped interior of the one-man submersible Sea Urchin feels steamier than a Norwegian sauna. Listening for the steady whir of the CO2 scrubber unit, I scan the gauges – cabin pressure, check; O2 level, in range. I flash an OK signal to my instructor who is swimming outside on scuba and watching my every move like a driver’s license examiner.
// June 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // USA Dive Guide
Carrabelle, Fla., and the waters around Dog Island offer divers a taste of Florida the way it used to be: No crowds, great shallow spearfishing with plenty of bottom time, and sugar-white beaches rather than wall-to-wall condos.
// June 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // USA Dive Guide
In the hour-and-a-half ride to the Bay Ronto off Venice, Fla., I kept working speculative math problems, trying to calculate the inflation factor of all the stories I’d heard about this 400-foot steamship. For years I’d listened skeptically to tales of face-to-face encounters with 300-pound jewfish and schools of six-foot barracuda. It was time for me to take personal measure of this west Florida wreck diver’s legend.
