We have been fortunate to get a dive report of a very first dive experience of a father and son. As said it was their first dive ever and it was done on our very first installation of the new electrical Variable Speed into a small boat – a tender actually. The dive tender itself was built by Nautica and made for the private yach M/Y Simaron.
Here is the report:
We all love to snorkel on the reefs around the carribean and especially the Exumas. The family is always on the search for a nice reef to look at and snorkeling is a quick and easy way to hit lots of spots without planning.
But joining the creatures at 20 feet for an hour takes the fun up another level. The Hookah rig gets the kids down there fast and safe with a few basic instructions and a little local knowledge a small bag of gear and your right there with all the grouper, nurse shark, barracuda, and reef fish without the hassle of tanks. It’s a nice way to free dive with air.
I should get the kids to clean under the boat because they want to stay down there anyway.
Dave Smithers
We are also fortunate to have a video from the dive, filmed by Robert who was there to help set up the divers. We are pleased to bring you the video here:
The devastating oil spill in the Gulf is likely to affect us all and will certainly have long lasting effects on our entire eco-system, perhaps more far reaching that we can imagine.
Recently we came across a couple of articles on the internet that we would like to draw your attention to.
The first article is from the PBS NEWSHOUR website and is an article by Lea Winerman on the fact that most of the oil in fact may have stayed below the surface of the Gulf rather than floating to the top, which one would normally expect seeing that oil is lighter than water. Several factors, including the fact that the oil spill took place so far below the surface and the fact that BP sprayed 1,8 million gallon of dispersants at its source, have meant that some microscopic oil droplets remained suspended in the water instead. Visit the link and read on.
The other article is from the NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL and it cleverly depicts a visual image by Jason Bishop of what is taking place and visualizes some of the creatures will be directly effected.
Unfortunately the effects are likely to last years and years and could potentially have greater repercussions than any of us would wish to even contemplate.
We all have huge vested interest in what will happen to the ocean as a result of the oil spill and the dispersants used as well as a result from all other effects caused by man. At Brownie’s Marine Group we are continuously monitoring the ocean, not least under the surface, especially right outside our back yard off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, but are also working with among others a group that are monitoring the areas up by the Florida Panhandle as well as down by the Keys. Soon we will be launching a site that will ask everybody to participate in monitoring our ocean – stay tuned for more on this to come.
Due to the special expertise Brownie’s Marine Group has, we are often asked to assist in many varied tasks. Recently one such task was to assist in a photo and video shoot. The photographer was none other than world renowned George Kamper and the theme of the shoot was a Halloween event surrounding the famous Queen Mary cruise liner.
Here is a little teaser from behind the scenes of the photo shoot. For best effect, be sure to turn up the volume on your loudspeakers and if possible view the video on full screen.
The dive spot we found on the last trip to the Bimini waters was really beautiful, with coral growth and beautiful fish of all kinds. It was also a great spot to play with the Brownie’s Third Lung and the Halcyon scooters.
We also had world renowned photographer George Kamper with us on this trip and he had the opportunity once more to try the products and enjoy some great diving.
It was August 6th 2010 when we took the Brownie’s VS 335 Third Lung out to Dania Beach to dive the Eurojacks reef. This Third Lung unit is a surface supplied air dive system and also what is often termed a hookah dive system or sometimes a powersnorkel.
The visibility in water was not too great, but we still saw loads of fish and a single nurse shark.
At the same time it was a great opportunity to test out our own new brand of Masks, Fins and Snorkels. Yep, that’s right, we now have got our very own Brownie’s Marine Group Mask, Fins and Snorkels – you should check it out. We will soon post product pictures of these on our website too. Meanwhile catch a glimpse of them in this video as a sneak preview.
On a beautiful Saturday (day before yesterday), in the waters near Bimini, we carried out further test dives of our products and video shoots of the products in action.
We found one beautiful spot in particular to dive and enjoyed there an abundance of sea life with loads of fish of all sorts and colors as well as several nurse sharks.
Here is the first video edit from this day trip. We hope you will enjoy it and share it with your friends utilizing the newly added share button at the bottom of this post.
We are hopeful that you will share our fun and stories with all your friends and invite them to participate in our growth, development and new adventures, so we have made it easy by now adding a share this button at the bottom of each post. We would love to grow our network and hope that you will help us in this endeavor.
So please make amble use of our Share / Save button or invite by posting to emails and/or the various bookmarking sites. We appreciate all your help.
August 12th 2010, The Brownie’s Marine Group dive team was headed out to sea to test yet one more of the new electrical Brownie’s Third Lung unit, when all of a sudden one of the team members spotted something floating on the surface which turned out to be an Atlantic Goliath Grouper.
The large grouper was floating up side down on the surface with its belly being completely inflated. We believe the grouper most likely was caught by a sport fisherman and then yanked from the depths to the surface rather rapidly, causing the air in its swim bladder to expand with the decreasing ambient pressure not allowing the grouper time to release the air.
The grouper uses the swim bladder to adjust for it buoyancy holding just the right amount of air needed for whatever depth it is at. However, if you pull the fish too quickly from its given depth the fish is allowed time to release the air and with lower ambient pressure further up in the water column the bladder expands with the drop in pressure.
Anatomy of a generalized fish
To illustrate the point, imagine an air filled balloon that you push down under the water surface. As you pull it under the surface the pressure of the water and ambient pressure will increase and make the balloon shrink. If the ballon held for instance a gallon of air above water, it would still be holding a gallon of air under water, but now the increased ambient pressure would have compressed it making the ballon shrink in physical size. As soon as you pull up and out of the water the balloon, the ballon will expand again back to the size it had before you dipped it under the surface as the air expands again back to the one atmosphere pressure we have on the surface. By same token, the air inside the fish’s swim bladder would expand when being pulled up too quickly. Had it been pulled up slowly, the grouper would have compensated by releasing some of the now excess air.
Since the Atlantic Goliath Grouper is on the critically endangered list and therefore illegal to fish, the grouper was probably released again, but now it would be too late for the grouper as it did not seem able to release the air from the swim bladder.
It was obvious that the grouper was about to die and that it would require help in order to survive. After a quick call to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), confirming what needed to be done. A couple of team members jumped in the water to make a puncture into its swim bladder to release some of the excess air.
Initially as the grouper was approached by the boat it would whack its tail and try to swim to the bottom, but would momentarily be popped back up to the surface by the air trapped inside its swim bladder. It seemed clear that the grouper had tried this for some time before we arrived and that it was now extremely exhausted.
It proved very difficult to penetrate the outer exterior of the grouper, but finally we succeeded and a huge amount of air could be released. It almost felt like the grouper knew we were trying to help it as it seemed to calm down completely for us to carry out the procedure.
Once the majority of air was released the grouper swam to the bottom where it rested for about half a minute before heading off to deeper waters. We are positive the grouper is now fine and will recuperate well from its endeavor.
