Sometimes, when there is some extra time in the shop and the guys aren’t loading the boat or helping customers, they like to stand over me at the computer and offer “guidance” “advice” and generally bug me while I am actually trying to do some WORK!

So, I thought I would share this photo, as sometimes, this is what it’s like for me.

We are so lucky here that we get so many repeat divers. Of course, we are happy because it means that we are doing something right, but also because we develop relationships with people (especially if they are diving with us all week) and then they leave. Which is kind of sad, but then they come back… which is really great! For example, right now Dennis from NY is diving with us. He also came diving with us last year and he and his wife, Lynne, are just so lovely. Lynne doesn’t dive, but she lends us Dennis about 4 times a week so that we can meander our way through the dive sites together while he is taking photos.

I often get emails from people saying “Do you remember us?” Now, sometimes it is difficult with just a name (unless it is an unusual name) but with a photo, or a little bit more information, it always comes back. This was true with the Bolts, who came diving with us last week. Skylar, Chad, Steve and Marcia were diving with us in July 2008, only a month after Chris and I had bought Octopus Diving. So, really, they were some of our first customers. It was a totally memorable week as Chad and Skylar improved on their diving so much. The diving was great, they always brought a big bag of goldfish on the boat, and we had loads of fun. I was excited when Marcia emailed me last month to say that they were coming back. They are a really fun family, and once you meet them, you can’t forget them.

Chad is a little chatter box. He is 14 now and is not shy about asking us, or the other divers on the boat, any kind of question that he can think of. Skylar is 20, studying computer science. Her diving has improved heaps and bounds from that first dive that we did together two years ago. Steve and Marcia had a bit of a shock for me when they arrived this year, as they have lost over 175 lbs combined. That’s like losing a whole adult male! They both dropped BCD sizes and need less weight to dive! It is an amazing accomplishment for both of them, and they just keep going…. I am very proud. Most noticeably, though, is that you tell that the Bolts all really care about each other, and just enjoy being a family and diving together.

Here is a photo of the Bolts two years ago.


And again on this trip in 2010.


The family hadn’t been diving for two years, as Steve had knee issues so last year they had to postpone their dive trip, so it took a couple of dives for the kids to get back into it. I took my camera out on their last day and here are some of my favorite photos. There is Skylar on her safety stop with her hair displaying a life of it’s own….


Then there are Steve and Marcia, Marcia with particularly skinny legs….

I also love this photo, taken in 2008 of Skylar and her dad. Her hair is still up in the air, but much shorter.

Finally there is Chad, who seems to continually take the same pose underwater, like a vertical frog…


Well, we hope to see the Bolt’s again next July, as it was great fun diving with them this past week! As Skylar will attest, I especially liked the GoldFish!!!
(Sally wrote this blog )

Get a beat going… imagine little Kevin starting to swing back and forth and eventually start shaking his butt back and forth (quite wildly I might add), and then we break out in song::

“My name is Luty,

I shake my booty.

The girls go wild,

They want my child.

But my wife, I love so much.

So you can look, but please don’t touch!”

This is our way of introducing you to Chris Luty, who is here for a short spell working as a diving instructor.  For some reason, we made up a song about him, and little Kevin especially loves it. Every time we sing that little jingle, he giggles like crazy.  It doesn’t really reflect so much on Luty’s character, as he isn’t really shaking his butt that much, but as the creator of the jingle, I think it is really funny.



Luty is originally from New Jersey. He and his lovely wife, Theresa, are currently in the process of emigrating to the Turks and Caicos. We call him “Luty” as his first name, obviously, is the same as my husband, Chris.  So, it can be confusing if I shout out from inside the shop for Chris’ attention “Chris,” I shout.  Now, one of two things can happen, I can either get both of their attention, or none.  You see, they can both just conveniently decide that I am calling for the attention of the other Chris.  So we have been calling Chris, Luty.

Enough about that. Luty has been diving since he was 12 off the coast of Jersey.  He then ended up working as a diving instructor in Turks and Caicos and has a very simple, streamlined approach to diving. Less is more. He has no hair (intentionally) and for some reason, it seems that I am surrounded by Stu, Chris and Luty, all with shaved heads. Must be an Octopus thing. Luckily Theresa makes up for Luty’s looks as she is much more pleasant to look at.

Luty has a great sense of humor, sometimes I think that he should have been a comedian, but he can also be really serious at times as well (normally any time that food is involved).  Safety is really important to him, as it is to us, so he is a good match at Octopus Diving.  We’re not sure how long he is going to stay with us, but for us, the longer the better.

Theresa is doing her Dive Master internship while she is here and also helping out in the shop.  She is originally from Canada, but after becoming a Luty she went through the process of getting her US citizenship and every now and then her Canadian accent comes through. Everyone seems to love her, including us, and she has been taking reservations, answering questions and just generally being really helpful in the shop.  So, if you ring and a woman answers, it will either be Theresa or me.



Those photos weren’t actually that easy to get! Luty, apparently, does not like having his photo taken.  So, Luty, if you are reading this, you don’t need to check the staff webpage, as I didn’t put up any photos of you that were not pre-approved by you first.  :)

Hope everyone is well.
(Sally wrote this blog )

Well, Chris wrote a blog about the closed circuit rebreather course and I asked if I could add to it. He said “you can write your own blog about it, if you want to.” So, I decided to take him up on it. Normally I do write the blogs, but as Chris is the one that was actually taking the course, he decided to write one himself. I may not have taken the course, but I was here, (both before and after the course) and as you all may have noticed, I seem to have a lot to say.

First of all, Rich Stevenson came down to do the training for us. This is significant for a few reasons… First of all, Richie is one of the best at what he does. If you are lucky enough to sit around and hear him tell stories of some of the things that he has done, it is unbelievable. He is very modest about his accomplishments, (although he does refer to himself as “we” sometimes… ) so I will say it for him, he is a the forefront of rebreather diving, cave diving, and exploration diving. This is the first significant reason.
The second significant reason is that Rich Stevenson is the reason that Chris and I are together and that Octopus Diving even exists in the first place.

That is a pretty strong statement, but it is true! Rich was the guy that sent Chris to the Red Sea on that fated diving trip where we met. You see, originally Samantha was going to be the Dive leader on the trip, but she (unfortunately for her, but great for us) was hit by a car on her motorcycle just days before the trip, so she couldn’t go! Don’t worry, she only broke a leg or something, it wasn’t that bad… So, Chris went instead. He had only been working there for about 3 days, and already was getting a free trip to the Red Sea.

So, really, if Rich didn’t have that diving center, if he didn’t send Chris to the Red Sea, then who knows what would we would be doing today. So, thanks Richie! From all of our divers, Chris and me! (Please take note, dad, of my proper grammar in the previous sentence ).

It was kind of a full circle really… having the owner the of the diving center that Chris first worked, where I did my open water course, coming to Saint Martin where we now have our very own diving center. Well, it kind of made us feel a little proud, actually. “Awww”, I can hear you say.

NOW, back to the important stuff, the Rebreather Course! There is a lot of preparation that goes into these courses, that Chris won’t tell you how hard he worked to put it all together. There is lots of special equipment that needs to be gathered, and that special equipment also needs to be put together, adjusted, fixed in place etc. All of this also needs to be ordered and done in advance, here in Saint Martin you can’t just drive down to Home Depot for that specific fitting that will allow us to pump air into the special Poseidon tanks… Chris worked really hard in making sure that everything went super smooth while Richie was here, great job Chris!

I was surface support on the boat most of the days that the guys went out training, there was one day when I actually got to dive with them. I have to say, it is a weird moment when your divers descend and there are just no bubbles. Where are they? Where did they go? Normally, when we are surface support, we watch the bubbles for a bit to make sure they are all going in the same direction and that no one pops to the surface with a problem, but with no bubbles, there is nothing to watch. Strange feeling.

Rich stayed with us for the week and we had a really great time getting to know him. It is a different relationship when Rich was the boss! He is a very genuine guy, honest, and funny. He also has a way with animals and our little Roger quickly fell in love. He drinks far too much tea (but luckily with no sugar) and has this strange habit of referring to things he’s done in the past using the pronoun “we.” (I think I mentioned this earlier).

“So, Richie, how did you end up in Plymouth?” I would ask.
“Well, we bought a boat, the Loyal Watcher, and we needed to find somewhere that we could keep it. So, we brought it to Plymouth.” He replied.
“Oh, great. Who is the ‘we’?” I inquired.
“Well, err, actually it was just me. I do that sometimes.”

This, of course, was a great opportunity for me to ridicule Richie over the next couple of days asking things like “Would you and your entourage like a cup of tea?” ha ha ha Good times!
Richie is also one of the whitest British people that you could meet. It was 12 years since he last dived in a wetsuit, normally donning a dry suit. 12 YEARS, can you imagine! He was very kind though, and made sure that all the people on the boat were wearing their sunglasses when he took off his shirt and put on his 7 mm Fourth Element wetsuit on. (Personally, I dive in shorts and a rash guard, but not everyone can be as hard core as me!). We appreciated that, as otherwise we may have briefly lost our senses.

In all seriousness, it was a fantastic week, Chris is so pleased, and so am I. Chris, of course, did fantastic on the course and passed with flying colors. I am just worrying that he will soon be wanting to be doing some of the 18 hour dives (with 9 hours of decompression) that Richie does. We hope to get Richie out again soon, for the Instructor Development Course in November, Chris just has to get his hours in on the unit before then. Rich and his entourage really are gems from the UK.

Please enjoy some of the photos from the course, both topside and underwater. My favorite is the one of Rich and his entourage with sunglasses on underwater!

Sally wrote this blog.

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Hey readers thanks for reading another blog from Octopus Diving.

As some of you know, Octopus Diving is always trying to find new ways to provide great service and offer our customers new and exciting activities. So, we will soon be teaching Closed Circuit Rebreather (CCR) Diving in St.Martin. If you just want to try diving with a Rebreather, there will be no need to take a full course, we will also be offering Discover Rebreather diving.

On Friday 2nd July Octopus Diving flew Richard Stevenson here to teach the Poseidon MK6 Discovery Closed Circuit diving course.

Richard Stevenson is the owner of Deep Blue Diving and Marine Services in my home town of Plymouth, in Devon, England.
http://www.deepbluediving.co.uk/

When I first started working as a Divemaster I worked for Rich and his team at Deep Blue. There was an extremely steep learning curve teaching and diving in the rough, dark, cold waters of England. I loved it!

Rich is a world renowned CCR Instructor, Cave diver and most of all exploration diver and has dived the Carpathia and Brittanic on many expeditions.
Due to his track record, high standards and realistic training there was no other choice for an Instructor.

For those of you who don’t know what a Closed Circuit Rebreather is, let me explain:
The CCR recycles your exhaled air by removing Carbon Dioxide, adding Oxygen and air to provide the safest breathing gas possible at a given depth. All this is electronically controlled by 4 Micro processors.

The course started by assembly of the Poseidon MK6, once this was completed they were attached to our Dive Rite harnesses and back plates. The start up procedure is easy and makes the unit extremely safe. If the Oxygen or Air (Diluent) isn’t switched on the unit won’t start up and will automatically shut down.
It even completes a Positive pressure check on the counter lung which is where the recycled breath is stored, both inhale and exhaled breath.

Once we had checked our units, we headed out for our first training dive on Turtle Reef.
The feeling of no bubbles and no control of buoyancy using our lungs was strange at first but it gets easier.
Also with no bubbles the fish are extremely inquisitive and very close encounters with Turtles, Barracuda and reef fish are common.
The course isn’t just about diving and buoyancy control, it’s about staying safe, understanding the information on the Poseidon Computer and most of all analyzing and making the correct, safe decision in an alarm status.

The skills range from Open Circuit bail out ascents, SMB deployment neutrally buoyant to clearing a flooded system whilst still breathing from it.

Whilst the system is extremely safe in competent hands we always carry a bail out (an extra tank) which is an Open Circuit 80CU foot tank with a long hose and SPG attached to it. This is also filled with a Nitrox mix that is calculated using our known depth and our maximum PO2 at 1.4ata.

For the more experienced divers the No Decompression time on a wreck at 110 feet is approximately 30 minutes using a rebreather with just 3 stops (30 feet, 20 feet, and 10 feet) and a total stop time of 9 minutes. On air, you can only stay for about 10 minutes without clocking up any decompression time. So, this increases your bottom time by three times.

The Poseidon unit is aimed at the recreational diving market with a maximum depth of 40metres or 131.2 feet.
Our aim is for me (Chris) to teach the Poseidon MK6 with units available for our customers to use as soon as I become an IANTD (International Association Nitrox and Trimix Divers) CCR Instructor.
The Rebreather is also ideally suited to Underwater Photography as the lack of bubbles means that you can get super close to the wildlife. So Sally can teach professional underwater photography after the CCR course, this will be a package available soon.

We already have all the equipment required to boost Oxygen and are now the only “Rebreather Friendly” dive shop on St. Martin / St. Maarten. We have the Din M26x2 adapters for European tanks, 797 Sofnolime and Oxygen cells in stock and the knowledge and expertise on both the Poseidon and Inspiration Closed Circuit Rebreathers.

If anyone has any questions regarding the Poseidon Mk6 Discovery or would like to enroll on the next course in late November 2010, please don’t hesitate to email chris@octopusdiving for more information. We currently have 2 spaces available and have already taken one booking in the past week.

Enjoy the photo’s and look out for the video’s coming soon on You Tube.

Thanks for reading the blog.

Chris
(Chris wrote this blog).

I can’t believe how fast time is going… last night I had a dream that it was New Year’s Day 2011, already.  I dreamed to myself, “what happened to summer and autumn, and wasn’t I getting a vacation in October?” So, the passage of time must be on my mind at the moment.

Anyway, it is that time of year again that the Ocean Magazine has come round and asked me for some more underwater photographs of Saint Martin for their next edition of the magazine.  Some of you may remember that this past year I had a 10 page spread in Ocean Magazine.  It has a distribution of 200,000, mostly in Saint Martin, so it was great advertising for us.  I even signed a few copies!!!

So, I sent over a CD of my  best pics from the last year.  I never know what type of photos they will actually pick.  When I asked if they prefer photos of people, wrecks, wildlife, the editor replied “We want the reader to be able to connect to the photograph.”  You have to imagine that that was said in a French accent. I’m not sure that his reply really answered my question, but from the photos they chose last year, some had people, some didn’t.  So, please look through the selection of photographs that I sent to them below, and you may even see yourself in one of those photos.  I am hoping to make Peter, Greg and Stuart famous… so I will post again once I know the photos that they actually picked.

I think that my favorites are of the red and white banded shrimp cleaning the moray, and also shark swimming out of the wreck at The Bridge.

Tell me what your favorites are, I love feedback.

In other news, just quickly… Alex (the 15 year old who you may remember did quite a few internships here) has gone to Guadeloupe.  We were hoping to turn him into a diving instructor, but instead he has decided to take courses in Guadeloupe in rearing large farm animals.  It is a good move for him, and although we will miss him, we are happy that he is investing in his future. Also, Kevin, is super excited that his Air Jordan sneakers arrived.  I ordered them a while ago, but they took a long time to get to the island.

Oh, one last thing, Mark DeBarr left his dive skin here.  He lives in the states and it is difficult and expensive for me to send the dive skin to him.  If you are reading this, and are soon diving with us, please let me know if you would be willing to take the dive skin home to the states and send it to him.  We both thank you in advance.

Alright, that is all for now. Diving this afternoon with Sherry and Alexis, my students from almost 2 years ago are back… I’m excited to see them.

(Sally wrote this blog )

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I just wanted to quickly post about some of the awesome night dives that we have been doing lately.  I love night dives, there is just something about them that it really great!  Maybe it is the excitement just before, or all of the different creatures that we see, or maybe the fact that a night dive is a really solitary thing to do, and that can be really nice.  Diving itself is a totally social sport, you meet so many people, there are always tons of things to talk about, but there is also something very solitary about diving.

First of all, when you are diving, (even though we always with a buddy), you can’t speak to your buddy or fellow divers.  It is an hour, (more or less) that you are left to your own train of thoughts inside your own head.  We can gesticulate like crazy with other divers, communicating with our hands and our eyes, but I find that ultimately it is a singular and individual experience underwater.  This is magnified, for me, on a night dive, as I can’t see the other divers, only their lights in the darkness.  It sounds scary, but it isn’t. Somehow the darkness is like a blanket, and you can forget that you are underwater as it is impossible to tell depth without looking at your gauge or your computer.  People’s breathing slows down just as time seems to slow down.  We can easily do a 60 minute night dive and my divers that normally go through their tanks really quickly, come up with 500 more psi.  Maybe it is because we are moving so slowly, really taking the time to look in every crevice and under every rock.  Maybe it is because we get so lost in thought that we forget to worry about our air consumption and just stare in wonder at the creatures that come out at night.

So, there is that special solitary feeling that I love about night dives, but I also love the little creatures that come out at night, I love the unusual colors that we see, and I also love the bio luminescence in the water.  Look at some of the photos below, and you will see a decorator crab that Mark pointed out to me.  These are tiny crabs that wear sponges like hats to disguise themselves.  In the day they are really hard to see, but at night, when they are walking around, they are easily identifiable. Or the squid, which we see in the day, but not with the same colors that we can see at night. At night you can see them dancing, fighting, making love, whatever it is they are doing, and all in real color, because we have our torches.

You see, in the day, we are looking with our eyes and the light source that we normally have is coming from the sun.  As depth increases the light changes and we lose a lot of the rich reds and especially at great depth, everything can look a little brown and mono color.  At night, we are using torches, which brings out the true color in the flora and fauna that we are looking at.  So those rich reds are visible to us.

On this particular night dive I took my camera out for the first time. Normally I don’t take my camera as wide angle photographs at night don’t work.  However, thanks to Chris and the Octopus Team that bought me a macro lens and a macro port for my underwater housing, I can now take macro photos, which are great at night.  So, below are some of my photos from that first night dive.  Enjoy. I didn’t get as many good one’s as I would have liked, but I learned a whole lot and am looking forward to the next opportunity.

If you would like to do a night dive with us, then just ask.  We do need to get four people together for us to go out on a night dive, so the sooner I know you are interested, the easier it is to get a group together.

(Sally wrote this blog. )

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