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August 2005
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Scuba Plates Close to a Reality by Chip Earle
Why a license plates? Well it is a great way to honor our sport and the avocation that for many of us is a lifetime passion. We all know the many benefits of diving and that diving is a cooperative and sharing sport. It's adventurous, exciting, educational and a socially wonderful way to spend time with friends. What better way to make that statement to all your neighbors than to display a scuba license plate and welcome them to come join our band. I am always amazed after being a diver since 1987 and a dive professional since 1995 when I hear people say, "SCUBA Diving? You dive in Virginia!?" or "A SCUBA shop? Wow! How long have you been here?" . People just don't seem to get the message that there is a very active diving community here in Virginia or that no matter what their particular interest is in diving there are a lot of other people who share that interest. Diving is basically invisible within the community. It doesn't happen on the street corner or at the mall. Diving generally involves travel if only a few miles out to some quarry, river or lake. Try as we might, our diving community is small and the community as a whole doesn't see diving going on and thinks therefore that diving doesn't exist here. What is worse is that young people who have an interest in the ocean, don't realize that there is the capacity right in our community to help them develop their interest and even career paths in aquatic conservation, marine biology and ocean sciences, not to mention archeology and art, photography and a host of other interests. Scuba plates can help us provide day-to-day visibility for diving and help keep in front of the community the opportunities that they have to play, work, learn about and conserve a most valuable global resource. So, we need your help. Join with us to promote a love of the aquatic realm, the many things you can learn and do there as a scuba diver. Help us raise the visibility of our sport and our passion. Please download an application, complete it and send it in with your check so that this opportunity will become a reality. Download Application and Instructions ...And give one to a friend, too. If we work together, we can get the plates issued and help raise the visibility of diving in the Commonwealth of Virginia. If I can help you in any way, please contact me.
Note: All proceeds raised by these plates stay with the Virginia Department of Transportation and no money is paid to any other party.
DIVE INSURANCE – IS IT
WORTH IT? Scott decided to take his family away for a week. He was a certified diver who only used to dive once a year on vacation. He chose Grand Bahama for our beautiful location, great diving for him and plenty to keep his wife and young family occupied while he was enjoying his passion for diving. It was a beautiful morning. He kissed his wife, Melinda, and children, Freddie and Ellie, goodbye while they were still sleeping and headed out on his dive. The ocean was calm, visibility was good and he was ready to dive! His first dive was to a fabulous wreck called Theo’s. It‘s a 230ft-cement carrier that was deliberately sunk as a dive site. It lays on its side in 100ft. After a 20-minute dive, Scott surfaced, had a 40-minute surface interval and then prepared for his second dive. This was on the medium reef. An abundance of scattered coral heads and sea life awaited him at 45ft. Scott headed in, waited for the rest of the divers at the surface and then they all began their dive. Back at the hotel, Melinda and the children were awake. Ellie, a true daddy’s girl was asking for him already. She always had a cuddle from him first thing in the morning! Freddie, already into his Game Boy was more interested in breakfast. After breakfast, Melinda took the children shopping into the local town. What happened next was tragic but simple. Scott ran out of air. He attempted to surface but blacked out at about 15ft and sank back toward the ocean bed! Two divers close by saw his body sinking and rushed to him. Luckily one of them was had trained for such an emergency. Scott was brought to the surface. He wasn’t breathing. Once on the boat he was resuscitated and put on oxygen. He kept fading in and out of consciousness. The boat headed back to shore where EMS waited to take him to the hospital. The dive shop tried frantically to find Melinda and the kids. They needed to get to the hospital –quickly. The dive shop manager drove into the town and found them – he took them immediately to the hospital. Scott had salt water in his lungs. His lungs were drained and he was on a respirator. Ellie was crying for her daddy and Freddie, no longer interested in his Game Boy, wanted to know when they were all going back home. Melinda had to be strong for them, but it broke her into a million pieces to see her husband “just lying there”. The dive shop manager knew Scott needed to be air evacuated to a recompression chamber as soon as possible, but Scott didn’t have dive insurance. His personal medical insurance wasn’t dive specific and he was not in the US! Melinda tried to contact the insurance company but it was a Saturday – they were closed! The dive shop manager called a good friend and fellow instructor who got on the phone to the US. After four hours of intensive telephone conversations and the full cooperation of DAN, TravelAssist, and Scott’s insurance company, it was approved to air evacuate him out to the recompression chamber at Mercy hospital in Miami. Scott arrived at Mercy hospital at 11pm that night. He was paralyzed. He was put in the chamber for 6 hours. He had an air embolism in his brain! Melinda in the meantime headed back to the hotel with her two distraught children. Ellie, at three, was a little too young to understand but Freddie at nine, knew- he had to be the man of the house now. He had to look after his mum and sister. The three of them flew home the next morning. Six days later Melinda took Scott home. It was a miracle! After four chamber treatments he was given the all clear! The total evacuation and medical cost of Scott’s dive accident exceeds $30,000. He was so lucky that the insurance company agreed to effect the evacuation. The outcome could have otherwise, been so very different. In the event of any dive accident, getting the victim quickly to proper, experienced medical care IS A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH! Although this story is a testimony to the concern and cooperation of everyone in the dive community, Scott could have been in Miami hours earlier if he had only had dive insurance. A simple phone call and the evacuation would have been arranged immediately. DAN and PADI and others offer excellent diver insurance and for less than $100 year we can assure ourselves of the best possible care if ever we need it! So, if you don’t have dive insurance, instead of asking yourself “is it worth it?” – maybe you should ask Scott or perhaps Melinda, Freddie and Ellie!
Cavern Diving on Grand Bahamas Island As Susan Finlen told you in her story about our cavern diving class, we had quite an adventure. Our instructor, Christina Zenato with UNEXSO, was a real stickler for details. Susan and I completely changed our gear layouts on our BC’s in order to streamline ourselves and avoid taking items into the caverns that we did not need. We also were trying to avoid having “danglies” that would snag the safety lines we would use to find our way in and out of the cavern. Cavern diving is the first step towards cave diving and is done in underwater caverns within site of daylight as seen in the example photo below.
We had practiced running a line with our reels on land, but we were both klutzes in the water when we started. Susan was right when she said that Christina shook her head when we said that we had spent time at the bar the night before instead of practicing in the parking lot!! We finally got the hang of it and practiced other things such as following the safety lines throughout the cavern with our lights on, lights off and without our masks. We practiced “out of air” drills, lights out drills, and lost buddy drills. We also practiced communicating with our lights and “touch contact” when the lights were out. Learning to swim using various kicks while holding a light and reel in one hand and concentrating on all the tasks Christina threw our way was challenging to say the least!
Our second dive site was called Mermaid’s Lair and I have to say even I was skeptical when I saw the entrance. Christina led Susan and me through the brush and trees until we came to a “ditch”. Christina said “we’re here” and Susan and I looked at each other and thought “you’ve got to be kidding”. I am not kidding when I called it a ditch. We had to back down the rocks holding a rope until we could squat in the water. Under a rock overhang was the entrance through which we proceeded following Christina. I feel Mermaid’s Lair is even more breathtaking than Ben’s Cavern and the view was incredible!! As we swam down an incline, we entered a large room with all sorts of rock outcroppings and more stalagmites and stalactites.
Susan and I both gained knowledge that will stay with us forever and I know that my ability to handle tough situations improved far beyond what it was. The skills that Susan and I learned are applicable to all aspects of diving and the hours of reading and classroom study were worth every minute. The Cavern Diving Course is part of The National Speleological Society – Cave Diving Section and there are only a few certified instructors in the world. I know that we were with a great instructor and I cannot wait to take the next course, Intro to Cave Diving. I still get excited and almost hyperventilate when people ask me about cavern diving as I go off on long descriptions about how “cool” it was and the things that we saw. It’s gotten so bad that my wife has started rolling her eyes and saying “Oh good Lord, here we go again” as I launch into my stories about Ben’s Cavern and Mermaid’s Lair. I can’t help but want to share what I saw with everyone and I hope that more people will at least take a tour of a cavern with an instructor to experience the feelings that I have gained through this course. Discover the excitement. Dive. Dive. Dive!!!
We'd love to talk with your teacher about coming to visit your class to talk about the ocean and the creatures in it. We'll bring scuba equipment and would like you to help us show it to your classmates. We'll talk about the animals in the ocean, the things that are happening to the ocean to hurt the fish and the things that you and your classmates can do to help protect the ocean.
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Some years ago, Ann McGrath embarked on a project to benefit all divers and all
the diving businesses in the Commonwealth by working to petition for a special
license plate declaring the interest that we have in scuba diving. Today
we are very close to the finish line, but we need your help.
