A short piece aired near the top of 11pm news Sunday night on Channel 8 here in San Diego, ca I have not been involved in discovering or researching this, I involved in the video shot.

The wreck is the Cape Charles (previously referred to as the “workboat” by some). It was discovered in January 2007 by Ray Arntz and Gary Fabian while they were searching for the nearby TBM Avenger (http://ub88.org/avenger.html). Tyler Stalter and other divers found the wreck shortly afterwards and have done several dives on the wreck to establish its identity.

Tyler Stalter says:

“After many dives the SDTechDiving.com team has finally identified a 110’ long, steel hulled vessel off Point Loma. This vessel is sitting upright and intact on the bottom in 165’ of water. After hours of bottom time we were finally able to gather valuable evidence to use to identify the unkown wreck. Al Bruton was able to provide some valuable insight into how the vessel wound up off Point Loma. The vessel in question, “Cape Charles” sunk in San Diego bay. It was slated to be re-floated and towed to wreck alley for disposal in the late 80s. En route to wreck alley the vessel capsized and sank in 165’. Her tumble is evident in the debris strewn around the wreck and the gash in the bow from the towline. Another link is the abundance of large inflatable “lift bags” to float the wreck in the bay for towing which are all over the exterior and even the interior of the wreck as well. After reviewing all of these clues it is our opinion that the wreck we have been diving is in fact a 110’ ft hulled vessel known as the Cape Charles. This is the perfect wreck for any technical training in the San Diego area. Several decks to penetrate and some very cool features such as the large intact crane on the aft deck, debris field and its unique placement just off the tip of Point Loma will make this a very popular wreck for technical divers.”

Dive Report:
We dove it Saturday morning at slack tide. Vis on the wreck was about 15′. Temp was 50F. We dove trimix due to the depth. 25min bottom time, 70min total runtime with deco. Some people dove rebreathers, some dove open circuit doubles plus deco gas.

VIDEO:
KFMB doesn’t have the broadcast video on their website, but here is the raw video (not including Tyler’s studio interview):
http://rogerbly.s3.amazonaws.com/video/cape-charles_iphone.mp4

(NOTE: this video is 100MB, 10min. Can be viewed in Quicktime, VLC, Totem, or any mpeg-4/AVC/H.264 player. In Quicktime, best to use File->Open URL… with the above URL. That way you can watch while it downloads.)

This is awful but I hope people don’t go shark crazy again.

A Coast Guard helicopter is being sent to assist Solana Beach officials after a fatal shark attack was reported there this morning. A man was killed in the apparent attack, officials said.

The HH-60 helicopter crew has been dispatched and is going up in support of lifeguards and other emergency crews.

“It is not an active search-and-rescue,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Clinton Dotson. “We will help clear the area … and see if we can spot the culprit.”

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/breaking/2008/04/coast_guard_to_assist.html

This was shot by my dive buddy John Walker in May 07. The location is just outside of Akumal on the Yucatan peninsula. 

Tush Kupaxa is an awesome cave. Located on Mexico’s Yucatan Penninsula along the Maya Rivera. Way off the beaten path, this cave hosts an enormous about of prehistoric remnants, including BONES.

This wreck/artificial reef was used as a missile tower test platform for submarine based warfare. They would load a missle into it, sink it underwater and launch the missile. Of course, when the Navy was finished with it, the ceremoniously dumped it into the ocean as an artificial reef, very close to the Mexican Border.

This website/blog is written by and for woman scuba divers. It features trip reports, photos, tips and gear reviews that focus on women who scuba dive.

Pretty cool idea as most of the dive industry is male-focused.

http://www.miss-scuba.com/

This is from a couple of years ago and the video quality isn’t great but it gives a quick introduction to the KISS rebreather.

The KISS rebreathers are like the rEvo in many regards some highlights:

• Easier to travel with
• include an integrated bailout value (BOV)
• have 3-independent oxygen displays
• non-integrated harness and wing
• easy to repair as most of the parts are off-the-shelf from places like REI/HomeDepot

It lacks:

• the modular scrubber
• integrated HUD
• tool-less maintenance chassis, the KISS needs tools

These units are about the same in cost but know that both of these units are sold in units other than the USD so the price for these units fluctuates as the United States Peso Dollar moves.

I was poking around the interweb and I stumbled upon this SCUBA regulator mouth-piece: The Manta-Bite. Apparently, it’s designed to be placed in your mouth and then the “manta wings” create a water barrier.

This would allow you to relax your bite on the mouth piece and in theory make it more like breathing with your mouth slightly open.

The picture to the right shows how you pinch the mouth piece before you shove it in your mouth. I’ve read of people using these to protect their airway should they passout underwater. The thought is that with this type of mouth piece you wouldn’t lose the regulator as your jaw relaxed.

Maybe it’s comfortable but to me, it looks like it might rub my gums raw, I’d need one to review.

$39.99, available in Clear, Green and Black

Link: http://www.manta-bite.com

To divers, traveling on airlines with tons of scuba gear is almost always a pain. Add a rebreather and it can get even more complicated. You have weight issues, extra baggage fees and the fear that something will get broken, stolen or confiscate.

I saw this on San Diego Tech Diving and Rebreather World and it’s an excellent run-down of all the issues.

I work for the airlines in the US, so I will try and throw in my 2 cents.

- TANKS. you can travel with tanks (ill advised) as they can be siezed by TSA without warning and you will not get them back. They must be checked, valves removed, with absolutely nothing blocking the tank opening. They can be asses even about clear packing tape over the opening, or they can be cool. It is anyones guess. Pre-ship or make arrangement at your destination for tanks.

- SORB. Easier to pre-ship. There has been discussion on another forum about putting all of you sorb in a Kitty Litter tub and checking it in as baggage. Probably illegal but who knows. There are MSDS sheets you can print out and attach to your sorb tub. BUT while passengers have followed all of the rules on taking sorb on the plane the TSA has still chosen to confiscate it. You have no recourse for the confiscation, it is gone. Make back-up arrangements at your dive destination for SORB purchase.

- Rebreather. Carry on what you can, the delicate parts, the computers whatever you don’t want the baggage handlers or TSA rooting through (without your presence), possibly stealing or confiscating. Double check the allowed carry-on weight allowance.

- Check you airline website for weight restrictions for both carry on and cheaked baggage. All airlines are different and they change all of the time. Weigh you bags at home and work out the weight distribution before you get to the airport.

- I took my KISS CLASSIC as carry on baggage the last time I travelled, with my computer, DSV, put other parts in my scrubber. Just be prepared to take it all out and show them EVERYTHING.

Sometimes it is just easier to ship everything, with insurance.

Link to article

Salvo Diving Equipment (Salvo) has come out with a new line of LED-based diving lights. LED lights sip power and are incredibly durable. but that usually came at the cost of being difficult to focus. Salvo has sourced a LED-emitter that they feel have fixed this limitation.

This line of LED-based lights have a 6 degree focused beam which is rated @ 50,000 hours. The light also has 5 output levels the diver can choose from, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. These means that battery bur- time can range from 4 to 20 hours depending on output setting.

They were so impressed with these LED emitters that that discontinued all of there 10 watt HID lights! They are also working on some various for video lights but as of now, if you want bright video lighting, you are better off sticking with HID or HMI as LEDs haven’t developed into this space yet.

You can check out there lines of LED-based lights here:

http://www.salvodiving.com/rebel_led_lights