This is pretty cool. Willy over at Divester alerts us to the good news that the folks at Lonely Planet will soon be publishing updated versions to five of the volumes in its Diving & Snorkeling series. This happens in September and will be a welcome enhancement to these guides, some of which have seemed a bit dated.
The new/updated titles are:
You might remember the podcast we did a while back with ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau. Fabien, the grandson of famed explorer and documentary personality Jacques Cousteau, discussed the making of his film The Mind of a Demon, a documentary account of his efforts to better understand the behavior of Great White Sharks through the very novel use of a shark submarine. Cousteau himself rides in the submarine, which has several cameras mounted inside, and he pilots the shark sub among wild Great Whites in Mexico.
Well, this whole story, which features some absolutely amazing footage (yes, I’ve seen it) is showing on CBS on Wednesday, June 28, and I highly recommend you watch it. If you want to whet your whistle, go over to the CBS site here and check out some video clips, photos and a nice write up of Fabien himself.
Put this on your calendar.
One way to beat the heat in Santa Rosa, New Mexico is to take to the waters and explore one of their many natural lakes, but the city’s biggest and most well-known water attraction would have to be the Blue Hole. Having witnessed it myself, I’ll provide you with the non-scuba divers skinny to the Blue Hole. At the time of my arrival they were in the middle of a month-long cleaning project so I didn’t catch anyone splashing in the waters, but I’m told more people flock to the Blue Hole to go beneath than one can imagine. My daring companions who didn’t want to come all the way to the Blue Hole for nothing asked if they could at least dive in once or twice and swim across to get a feel for the Blue Hole’s chilly temperature in the blazing New Mex heat despite the 20 plus people around working hard at finishing their task. At this point I’m waiting to hear a giant booming “NO” from the woman overseeing the cleaning operation, but she tells the boys of our request and surely my pals have their way. The crane operator pulls out the equipment and within a matter of minutes my three amigas are swimming around at the top of the Blue Hole water.
So what really makes the pond worth visiting for real divers? Good question.
For starters the bell-shaped pool is said to be a geological phenomenon. It is 80 feet deep with impressive clarity (visibility 80′ when undisturbed) and a constant water temperature of 64 degrees. Other fast facts for curious divers include; 3,000 galloon flow per minute; water recycles every six hours, 4,600′ above sea level with the bottom equivalent of 100′ of depth in the ocean. There are also two training platforms at 20 and 25 feet. Additional info including directions to the location can be found here.
If you’re anything like myself and completely allergic to scuba equipment and what lies beneath or a family vacationing I suggest sticking to the lake nearby. No clue what the water temperature is, but it’s a whole heck of a lot cooler than standing on the lake shore. I promise – plus there’s a water slide, diving board, and paddle boats.
We celebrated the Bush Administration’s recent effort to make a fine addition to the nation’s national natural heritage. They created the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument...which I’ve since learned is likely to be called something else entirely…and that’s a good thing. But as I mentioned in the piece, one of the things about this new area that seems to escape the notice of those who celebrate the addition is that most of us will never even come close to this place. As this piece makes clear, unlike Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands “will never be a place visitors can see by just packing the kids into the car for a week”. It seems even the Hawaiians themselves are unclear how much access they will have.
The main reason is that the islands are so remote, and spread out…across 1,400 miles of the Pacific to be exact. In fact, there have been no public flights at the region’s sole airport, on Midway Atoll, since 2002. I wonder if that will change. It’s an odd concept, having this place preserved ,which is something everyone can agree on, and yet having it be so unreachable. And on the one hand, it would be great to start up a tourism system to allow people to see it ,but on the other a shame that we would expose a place now celebrated for its natural pristine beauty to the ravages of tourism. What to do?
OK, this is obviously done with computer graphics, but Willy over at Divester posted it and I thought i was both scary and pretty funny. The video shows a fisherman handing out in the Arctic, minding his own biz when WHAM, he’s slammed by an orca. Good job on the CGI side.