Legendary Scuba Diver has a whale of a tale to tell January 30, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : general , add a commentRay McAllister is an 82 year old retired oceanography professor at Florida Atlantic university. He recently recounted a few of his underwater escapades at a Deerfield Beach dinner honoring him and several other South Florida diving luminaries.
After showing him how to use a tank and regulator, McAllister’s colleagues told him, “‘Don’t hold your breath because it will kill you,’” he recalled with a laugh. “I made it to 90 feet and I was hooked for life.”
The next day he ran out of air 160 feet deep and had to make a free ascent, exhaling the entire way. Undiscouraged, he continued diving and is believed to be the first U.S. civilian dive instructor.
Ray’s most excellent story though, and why I chose to recount his story, is his encounter with a Humback Whale around 1960.
Aboard the Sir Horace Lamb, he saw a humpback whale laying tight against the ship, apparently rubbing her skin. For some reason, he got the idea to jump on the whale’s back and try to ride it standing up alongside the boat.
“I decided to do a ‘look ma — no hands’ on her back,” McAllister wrote in his as-yet unpublished memoirs.
“I leaped onto her back and went down through a fetid, fishy spout as she blew. My left foot went into her left blowhole (there were two set side-by-side in a ‘V’) about six inches beyond the ankle joint. She did what any intelligent beast would do if someone stuck a foot in her nostril: she started to roll away from Sir Horace and dive.”
McAllister barely had enough time to push with his right foot and yank his left foot out of the blowhole, leaving his open-top Air Force boot in her nostril.
After the adrenaline wore off, McAllister realized his left ankle was badly sprained and asked someone to take him to a nearby Air Force hospital. But before he could go, he had to fill out a workman’s compensation form.
“Where it asked how the accident happened, I wrote ‘I jumped on the back of a humpback whale and got my foot caught in her blowhole,’” McAllister recalled. ‘Where it asked what steps were being taken to prevent a recurrence of the accident, I wrote, ‘I won’t jump on any more whales!’”
After one of the base commanders read the form and got through laughing, he made McAllister change it to say that he had jumped onto a dock and next time would use a gangplank. Then McAllister was taken to the hospital.
But the whale tale had an epilogue: a couple of months later, McAllister was perusing a publication called The Norwegian Whaling Gazette when he read about a 35-foot female humpback whale that had been taken off Bermuda with a shoe in her left blowhole.
He ran around the base, showing his colleagues the news item and later was invited to recount the tale at the Kindley Air Force Base Fishing Club. McAllister’s was voted best in a contest of fishing stories, and he was supposed to win a Boston Whaler and fishing tackle. But the commanding officer, who was president of the club, disqualified his entry because “I was not a member of the club and it was a mammal story — not a fish story.”
Denney Diving Launches New Website January 27, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : News , add a commentDenney Diving, located in Redcar, UK, has recently launched a new website on which they hope to provide an easier and more-efficient shopping experience.
From their press release;
The site itself is fully secure from the minute you enter ‘on-line shopping’, and not just a secure checkout, which provides more security by securing both the login and the shopping cart/checkout.
New features in the site include customer accounts, order history, voucher system for special offers, affiliate scheme, search by manufacturer and type, product review system and more. Established in 1954, Denney Diving was one of the first UK shops to offer on-line shopping, and continues to offer a quick and efficient delivery service throughout the UK and Ireland.
The new-look site can be viewed at: www.divingdirect.co.uk.
As a special offer for Sport Diver readers, you can enter voucher number ‘sd06’ to receive a ten per cent discount on products featured (valid until 31 March 2006).
FRENCH POLYNESIA: Country Wins 5 Scuba Diving Readers’ Choice Awards January 27, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Travel , add a commentI’ve written about scuba diving options in Palau before and the amazing diving available there and it seems that many other scuba divers agree. Readers of Scuba Diving magazine ranked Indonesia, Palau, Micronesia and Yap, Micronesia in a three-way tie for the N° 1 Dive Destination in the Pacific and Indian Ocean region. Truk, Micronesia, was ranked N° 4. For the second straight year, French Polynesia was ranked N° 5.
The magazine also ranked French Polynesia N° 3 in the Best Advanced Dive Destinations category in the same region behind N° 1 Truk and N° 2 Palau. Indonesia was N° 4, followed by the Galapagos Islands. Scuba Diving magazine readers ranked French Polynesia N° 4 in the Top Visibility category for the same region. Oahu, Hawaii, was N° 1, followed by Hawaii’s Big Island and Maui. Palau was N° 5 followed by Indonesia.
Overall, Scuba Diving readers are asked to rank destinations based on their experiences in 12 different categories in three different regions of the world—Caribbean/Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean and North America. Other categories include top wall diving, top five destinations to take the kids, top wreck diving, top shore diving, top five after-dive bars, top small animals, top five dive destination restaurants, top healthiest marine environment and top value.
Olympus Evolt E-330 Digital SLR Underwater Housing available Spring 2006 January 27, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Photography , add a comment
Olympus are making big noises about their new digital SLR, the Evolt E-330, which comes complete with a 2.5″ LCD ‘Live View’ screen. Basically the camera has an LCD screen which can flip out underneath and away from the camera so pictures can be taken easier when holding the camera at different angles, such as holding the camera above your head to take a picture over a crowd of people. So what does this mean for underwater photographers? The LCD screen is described as being larger and brighter than most other Digital SLR’s in its class, and an underwater housing will soon be available from Olympus.
An underwater housing for the EVOLT E-330 that will enable users to enjoy underwater SLR shooting is planned for release in the spring of 2006. Easy to set up, it offers waterproof protection up to a depth of over 196 feet (60 meters). The Live View LCD is ideal for underwater photography because it’s much easier to compose on the EVOLT E-330’s large, bright LCD when under water rather than using the optical viewfinder. And, with three scene select modes for underwater wide, underwater macro and underwater wide-angle auto exposures, the E-330 is designed to perform optimally in the deep.
Scuba Diving the caves of the Lot, France January 26, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Uncategorized , 5commentsHoward Stern and Sirius expose more people to diving through ScubaRadio! January 26, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : News , add a commentThe self proclaimed King of all Media, Howard Stern, has made his move to Sirius Satellite Radio and his audience appears to be following. Last year at this time, the subscriber base for Sirius Satellite Radio was a little over 600,000. However, over 3.4 million are now subscribers and this number is expected to grow dramatically over the coming months. As the Sirius subscriber number continues to rise, so does the number of listeners exposed to ScubaRadio and their message to go/try diving. ScubaRadio airs up to 3 times a week on Sirius sports channel #125.
“We went live from the New York National Boat show for our first broadcast of 2006 and stopped by the Sirius studios for some production meetings while in town. It was very cool to see Howard Stern walk by while we made a guest appearance on Jimmy Buffetts’ Radio Margarita channel. However, the reaction we received from listeners during our ScubaRadio broadcast was even more impressive. If this is any indication, Sirius is indeed the future of radio and ScubaRadio is positioned extremely well to benefit from its growth. The more people we reach, the more people we can turn on to diving!” Greg Holt-Host/Producer of ScubaRadio.
The Sirius signal covers the entire US and extends over most of Caribbean and Pacific making it an ideal entertainment option for liveaboard dive boats. Sirius offers 65 channels of 100% commercial-free music, and features over 55 channels of sports, news, talk, entertainment, traffic and weather for a monthly subscription fee of only $12.95.
