In this installment of Wet Notes I talk a little bit about the new Stuart Cove location in Nassau, DAN tags, the spread of Stony Coral Tissue Disease (SCTD) on Grand Cayman, a new five-part series podcast from Hakai Magazine: The Sound Aquatic - The Ocean and the Anthropause and more. What is the Jet-O-Sen? This is a vintage piece of scuba equipment developed by Jim Sawtelle in the early 1950s. The Jet-O-Sen was a quick release device for a scuba tank from the harness. Until the Jet-O-Sen, scuba tanks were bolted to the harness and difficult to release for transport or filling. Jim constructed the device our of aluminum bar stock and coated it with plastisol. There is a great article in the first quarter 2021 Journal of Diving History written by Jon Council.

This time on Wet Notes I talk about an interesting new exhibit at The History of Diving Museum in Islamorado, a t-shirt design contest from Ikelite, an important scuba tank safety note from PSI-PCI, diving with a purpose on Lake Tahoe and more. On this installment of Sea Hunt - It's Still Alive I review The Invader. This episode is from season 3 and premiered July 30, 1960. In this episode Mike Nelson is in a small unnamed Latin American country where he is assigned to create an underwater demolition team. While he is completing his assignment, a revolution takes place, the President is abducted and Mike with his team (that includes a traitor) develop the plan to rescue El Presidente. Mike and Indio capture the traitor on their team and then attack the island where Mike armed with a small revolver captures the revolutionary leader and rescues the President. Mike gets his first medal from a foreign government.

On this installment of Wet Notes I provide some interesting information on some WW II bombs found off of Lanai, some plastic eating mushrooms, a proposal in Florida to open up a harvest of Goliath Grouper, an update on traveling to the Bahamas, and more. This latest edition of Your Next Dive takes us to Curacao one of the ABC islands. If you visit Curacao you can opt to stay either on the west side of the island or closer to the city of Willemstad. If you stay closer to the city you have a couple of options - either Sunscape Resort or Lions Dive Beach Resort. Both have onsite dive operators - Ocean Encounters. An option for the west side is All West Apartments and dive with Go West Diving (formerly Ocean Encounters West). There is a signature wreck - the MV Superior Producer just outside of Willemstad. On the west side be sure to dive Mushroom Forest. If you go in October you can expect bottom temperatures around 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Curacao is open to US visitors with certain testing requirements.

In this installment of Wet Notes I cover the record proposed NOAA budget in 2022, a message in the bottle found in Grand Cayman, some news from Shearwater and more. Poseidon is a company founded by Ingvar Elfstrom in 1958. The company is based in Sweden. Poseidon was an early innovator of regulators with their Poseidon Senior (double hose) and Cyklon Junior (single hose). The company also innovated both wetsuit and drysuits. Additionally, they developed the SEVEN+ rebreather - dubbed the world's first recreational rebreather. Poseidon is still going strong with their regulators, rebreathers, BCDs and computers.

On this episode of Wet Notes I give you an update on Seaspiracy, how scientists are using fin whale songs to map the ocean, the sale of the Luxfer US plant to Metal Impact, a potential new artificial reef in Florida and more. On this edition of Sea Hunt It's Still Alive we review The Alcatraz Story. This episode premiered on January 4, 1959. This time Mike is in San Francisco. He is hired to teach two brothers how to scuba dive. They claim to be abalone fishermen but there is more to that story. They are trying to spring their brother from Alcatraz by using scuba gear. Mike finds them out, hitches an underwater ride on their boat and has two underwater fights with the brothers. Some great underwater action.

On this edition of Wet Note, I talk about REEF Survey Trips in 2022, saving a whale on Maui, new Aqualung branding, a DEMA 2021 update and more. In Part 2 of the Project Sealab 1 Summary report I will cover the mission, the findings, conclusions and recommendations coming from the report that was developed by the Office of Naval Research in 1965. While we were at the height of the space race, the USA was also exploring inner space.

On this edition of Wet Notes we give an update on Dive Training Magazine, when will the Caymans open, the fight against plastic pollution and a new Netflix documentary - Seasipiracy and more. Part one of the Project Sealab 1 Summary Report will take you through the build up to the deployment of the Sealab habitat. The report was developed by the Office of Naval Research and published on June 14, 1965. The report is numbered ONR Report ACR-108. This 62 page report is filled with many of the details in getting the project up and running through the mission. Part one will take you up until the time that the aquanauts entered the habitat to start their 11-day mission. Part two will then take us through the mission, the findings and conclusions.

In this premier segment of Wet Notes - Scuba Shack Radio's bi-weekly news segment we talk about using corn starch to dust your dry suit seals, resorts offering Covid testing, big news in the scuba tank business and more. For Your Next Dive we are going to tell you what it is like to go on the Scuba Shack dive trip to the Bahamas where we stay at Orange Hill Beach Resort, dive with Stuart Cove and experience some fantastic dinners. Let's go diving.

We all use our GPS devices to help us navigate. Great if we are driving our car or looking for a specific location, but right now using GPS to navigate underwater is a bit of a challenge. While there are technologies on the horizon that use GPS for underwater navigation, they are not yet practical. That is where you will need to depend on tried and true underwater navigation techniques. The compass is the primary tool for knowing where you are going and how to get back. We learn basic compass use in our first open water class and then get more in-depth training during advanced open water. If you are serious about becoming proficient in this capability, you can take an underwater navigation specialty course. Being able to navigate underwater gives you confidence and competence that makes your diving less stressful and more fun. Turtles Fly Too is a 501(c)(3) organization that has a mission to coordinate and facilitate the use of general aviation to transport endangered species, critical response teams, and to educate the community on conservation of marine life. It started in 2014 in response to an unusual start of the cold stun season in the Northeast. That is when water temperature drops and turtles body temperatures fall below acceptable limits. With no capacity in the Northeast to care for them, Kate Sampson of NOAA turned to Leslie Weinstein who owned an aviation company and was also on the University of Florida Sea Turtle Research Development board. Leslie organized flights and it continued from there. Last year, they flew 536 cold-stunned sea turtle and other marine mammals. Turtles Fly Too is based out of Boise, ID and also has an office in Miami, FL. Sea Hunt - It's Still Alive takes you to season one, episode two titled Flooded Mine. This episode premiered on January 11, 1958. Mike is called to a mine where there has been an explosion that killed 20 men. Mike must find out the extent of the flooding. During this exploration, Mike finds two trapped miners in an air pocket and the air is running out. Mike can only bring one miner out. As they are buddy breathing, the miner panics and fights with Mike. Back to the air pocket, Mike decides to take the other miner out. This goes okay but Mike wants to go back for the other miner. Problem is that he doesn't have any gas left. So Mike finds an oxygen tank from a welding torch. He uses the oxygen tank to go back and rescues the second minor. Only Mike Nelson can buddy breath, no mask swim through a flooded tunnel while carrying an oxygen tank.

A PADI Pro Night is a time to get together with a PADI dive shop to learn more about what it takes to become a leader in the scuba diving community as a PADI Professional. It doesn't matter if you are a seasoned diver or just starting out. A PADI Pro Night will give you the information you will need to make this journey. You will hear from dive professionals and get to ask questions about you can expect by embarking on this rewarding career. The Grouper Moon Project is the most advanced tropical fisheries research program in the world. The project is a joint program run by Reef Environmental Educational Foundation (REEF), the Cayman Island Department of Environment, Scripts Institute of Oceanography and Oregon State University. The study is conducted off Little Cayman during the winter aggregations of Nassau grouper for spawning. The project incorporates research, monitoring and outreach. It has been instrumental in progressive rising policies in the Caymans. It is working. The Little Cayman aggregation grew from 1200 fish in 2009 to over 7000 by 2018. Check out more at the REEF website. U.S. Divers was another one of the five original scuba equipment manufacturers in the United States. It started out as Rene Sports in Los Angeles that was owned by Rene Bussoz. Rene was born in Paris in 1906 and emigrated to the US in 1939 after visiting with his father who was an inventor delivering slot machines to Las Vegas. Rene was introduced to Cousteau's aqua-lung and wanted to become the West Coast distributor for their units. Along the way, Rene got the license agreement to make the aqua-lungs in the US. He formed U.S. Divers out of Rene Sports in 1952 and registered the name Aqualung. By 1956, it looked like he would lose his licensing agreement and after tense negotiation he sold U.S. Divers to L'Air Liquid with Jacque Cousteau becoming the chairman of the board of directors. In 2003, U.S. Divers was renamed Aqualung America. Rene moved back to France after selling the company and passed away in 1989.