Fire coral

Lee Bell wrote:

> Breathing patterns are fine for gradual changes in depth, but not real good
> for quick ones, particularly when you're on the wrong part of the cycle when
> you need to move.

While moving away fromthe reef after getting close to take a picture I find that
breathing is the best way to increase my distance if I can do so by moving up or
down. The timing of exhaling or inhaling deeply is the main reason I was hoovering my
air so much on the last trip.


> For fine tuning the position of the front half of my
> body, hands are better and more precise than the fins attached to the other
> end, so I use them.

Which is pretty much what I meant when I mentioned sculling. Often the direction you
need to move after getting close to something is directly backwards. Finning may work
in theory, but sculling back a foot or two works perfectly well, even if you're in a
narrow spot. As a bonus I can always see exactly where my hands are if I'm sculling.
With fins, my legs are about 6 feet long which offers an excellent chance to hit
things if I'm not very careful. Believing in function over form, I've got no problems
with sculling while better divers laugh at me.


--
Steve

The above can be construed as personal opinion in the absence of a reasonable
belief that it was intended as a statement of fact.

If you want a reply to reach me, remove the SPAMTRAP from the address.

"Steve" <SPAMTRAPglawackus@hvc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:fp4Ud.18141$rB3.2934351@twister.nyc.rr.com...
>
>
> Bradburn Fentress wrote:
>
>
>> Lee said all photographers deserve this reputation
>
> My perception is that he made a broad generalization that's not
> inaccurate.

As a generalization it is inherently inaccurate, but within that context you
may find more truth to it than less depending on where you diving interests
have led you.

> Ironically enough, on my last trip I heard that at least one diver
> deliberately broke some coral to relocate a seahorse for a picture,

Of course I would have no patience or agreement with that behavior. I've
been around long enough to see a once pristine and spectacular G Cayman
ravaged and an astoundingly beautiful Egyptian Red Sea all but relegated to
spot diving. But having been around long enough to see that, I have also
witnessed what slice of the diving public is really harmful to the
environment. I don't see that it is either photogs, hunters are sightseers,
but rather newly minted divers or divers practicing a new (to them) activity
underwater. But given that there are seriously more new divers than there
are new photographers at any given time, it isn't difficult to see that the
blame is spread over both groups, rather than just one carve-out.

In some ways I think that where we dive has a lot to do with who we see
doing what things. It obviously isn't without exception, but by and large
you will see better divers across the board in the remote locales than you
will in the Caribbean and Florida, so our own personal sampling will be
tainted by that. There is little doubt in my mind that if your experience
are more limited to Florida and Caribbean, it is likely your view will be
that the photographers you see aren't up to snuff. But as people, divers and
photographers become more experienced and more willing to spend money of
better photo ops they tend to travel past Florida and Caribbean to more
interesting, at least to them, destinations. Hence, far away there is
*often* a higher percentage of experienced divers, than you find close to
home.....in our case, the USA.

Diving Red Sea isn't unlike diving the Caribbean in that sense, because it
is an easy trip for most Europeans and they tend to dump a lot of
bad/part-time/newbie Euro divers into the Red Sea (much the same way we do
in Florida and the Caribbean).

> Careful, you're basically agreeing with Lee,

Nah, he said they deserve the reputation of being bad for the environment.
I'm saying that many photographers are, shall we say, impressed with
themselves (which in my view is what some sightseeing divers are guilty of
when making broad statements about photographers). Nonetheless, what he said
and what I said are quite dissimilar.

I'm replying to you much later than the others... but for what it's
worth... <grin> I'm an RN and when you said it was itching you, I
immediately knew that it was healing. That's the body's way... send
more white cells with histamine to the site. The site gets red... due
to this increased 'blood activity" and the itching is the histamine
response. If you said it pained you or that you had a purulent
discharge, than it could be infected, but that was not the case. I was
stung severely on my back by fire coral that was living on a mast of a
shipwreck. The mast extended above water and I had finished the dive
but was wearing only a tee-shirt, not a skin or wetsuit.. and I drifted
on the surface into the mast. This was in Aruba. The pain was intense
and had me in tears by the time I was able to get back to the boat. The
reddened areas on my back lasted for a long while so I know what you
went through. When we got back, the divemaster had me 'soak' in the
hotel pool for a bit because the chlorine helped... and then he picked
an aloe plant leaf from the hotel landscape and broke it open, applied
the juice to my back and that helped. I'm glad to hear that you're
doing well. :)

Ohh... I forgot to say... No, it will not be a permanent scar. It
will completely disappear if you stop scratching it and let it heal. :)

Thus spake "Salty" <babette7401@hotmail.com> :

>Ohh... I forgot to say... No, it will not be a permanent scar. It
>will completely disappear if you stop scratching it and let it heal. :)

But it feels SOOOOO good.

--
dillon

"When the French are against it, you know we can't
be far wrong." - Adm. Bobbie Ray Inman