Used Equipment Sale

Join us on February 25th for our annual Used Equipment Sale. It's a good time to unload any of that old equipment that's lying around or better yet pick up something gently used and what you've always wanted!!

North Carolina Shipwrecks and Sharks

Join us for plenty of SHARKS and SHIPWRECKS! Check out the video above and then join us for great times in the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" Trip runs June 10, 11, and 12.

Feel free to add your own shark or shipwreck photos.

You know you're a diver when...

~You correct non-divers for saying when scuba divers breathe oxygen instead of air.

~You pay your neighbors in abalone for dogsitting.

~Your cubicle looks like an aquarium.

~More than half of your conversations begin with "How's the vis?"

~You stagger into work an hour late on Monday morning, no one things you were out drinking, but instead asks if you have any dive pictures.

~You're determining whether you can afford to go with the Ikelite DS-125 strobe if you apply to a couple fewer medical schools.

~You had gear insurance before you had health insurance.

~You refer to your time at work as "offgassing" between dives.

~The dive shop owners, motel workers, and waitresses in a city three and a half hours away know you better than your boss does.

~You're nicer to people who cut you off in traffic because they have a dive flag sticker.

~You get into more arguments about the genus of a mystery nudibranch than you do about politics.

~You constantly dream of moving to the tropics.

~You are introduced to new people as, "This is _____. He's a scuba diver."

~You have more C-cards than credit cards.

~Someone says, "Want to see some Nudi pictures?" and you expect them to be brightly colored sea slugs of various genus.

~One of the primary considerations of which new car to buy is how much dive gear it will hold.

~You compare everything to the price of dive gear to determine if it's expensive.

~You have at least one dive flag sticker on your car.


Feel free to add your own!

Just A Little Rant!

Why is it the mainstream media always misrepresents the facts when an accident occurs diving? Too many times I've heard "That man died of a diving accident!" When in fact it was cardiac related. When someone dies on a basketball court nobody says "Oh Basketball killed that man!"


What should be asked is "should the gentlemen who is rounder than he is tall be diving in water that cold?" Or "is that ow diver qualified to dive on that 100 foot wreck?"

When you look at the anatomy of a "dive accident" the cause is all too often a lack of experience or physical fitness and not that our beloved sport is dangerous!

New Method for Monitoring Coral Health

With the world’s coral reefs threatened by coastal development, pollution, rising sea temperatures and other factors, scientists have developed a new method to monitor the health of these underwater ecosystems.
Chris Langdon, associate professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, and colleagues, tested two new methods to monitor biological productivity at Cayo Enrique Reef in Puerto Rico.
They compared a technique that measures changes in dissolved oxygen within a chamber that encloses an area of water above the reef with one that measures the flux of dissolved oxygen across the turbulent boundary layer above an unconfined portion of the seafloor.
They found that both these methods worked well. The boundary layer technique can be used to monitor metabolic activity of reefs in remote locations, at any depth over long time periods. The enclosure method can be used for in-situ disturbed environment experiments.
By measuring dissolved oxygen production and consumption rates, the researchers were able to monitor the balance between the production of new organic matter by the reef’s coral and algae, and the consumption of that organic matter by animals of the reef. This is essential to assessing the health of coral reef ecosystems. A combination of these methods is a valuable tool for assessing and studying the effects of climate change on coral reef health, according to the authors.
Measurements of biological productivity have typically been made by tracing changes in dissolved oxygen in seawater as it passes over a reef. However, this is a labor-intensive and difficult method, requiring repeated measurements. The new method opens up the possibility of making long-term, unattended, time-stamped measurements of photosynthesis and respiration of coral reefs and any other benthic ecosystems.
According to a recent analysis by the World Resources Institute, nearly 75 percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by human activities and ecological disturbances, such as rising ocean temperatures, increased pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification

Govt works with China to curb illegal fishing

Indonesia and China will collaborate to prevent illegal fishing by Chinese fishers in Indonesian waters by coordinating their patrols in the South China Sea.
The two countries would at first organise a joint committee to function as a legal platform for various joint defense measures, including coordinated patrols under direct “navy-to-navy talk” to cover a litany of issues even on fishing vessels, expressed Purnomo Yusgiantoro, Indonesian defense minister.
“[Chinese] fishermen often encroach into Indonesian waters, but that’s because they don’t have GPS [global positioning system] devices so they are unclear as to where the boundaries are,” Purnomo said. “Under a coordinated patrol, if those fishing vessels accidentally cross the border, we will inform them to leave.”
He clarified that Indonesia does not have bilateral problems with China, The Jakarta Post reports.
Last week, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guang Lie held a meeting with Purnomo and an informal one with other defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the sidelines of the Association’s Defense Ministers’ Meeting.
Purnomo has asked Deputy Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin to draft an agreement with Chinese Ambassador Zhang Qiyue so the countries can establish the joint committee.
Indonesia had already set up similar committees with the US and Malaysia, and the country is conducting coordinated patrols with Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, India and Australia.
Moreover, as part of joint anti-piracy efforts, China offered to run coordinated patrols with ASEAN member states to accompany merchant vessels from the region through the Gulf of Aden. Purnomo did not say whether Indonesia would accept the offer.
It is believed that 21,000 vessels cross the Gulf of Aden waterway to reach the Suez Canal shipping route.
In a recently released report, Malaysia-based NGO International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre said there were 173 attacks of piracy and 23 hijackings worldwide so far in 2011, involving 26 vessels and 518 hostages held by pirates from Somalia.

Discovery never ends with the new Suunto D-Series

What’s new in Suunto D-Series
Suunto strives to make dive computers that give you the information you need to make your dive experience as enjoyable as possible. We also want to ensure that as many people as possible have access to this enjoyment. We do that by making advanced features that are easy to use and available throughout our range.

Trimix:
A trimix-compatible dive computer opens up the increasingly popular world of technical diving – including deep and cave diving – by allowing you to explore the depths for longer.

• Support for multiple gases (incl. helium and oxygen)
• Three dive modes and gas-switching up to eight gases
• Continuous decompression with the Suunto Technical RGBM algorithm – previously only available in the awardwinning Suunto HelO₂

Electronic 3D compass :Suunto’s innovative tilt-compensated electronic 3D compass redefines underwater navigation. Regardless of the angle of your wrist, you’ll have full confidence in the accuracy of your bearings.

Wireless air integration:With wireless air integration you can monitor your tank pressure and air consumption directly from your wristop.
Requires optional Suunto Wireless tank pressure transmitter