Ziray Studio Labs » scuba

Avalon Dive Center – Blacksburg, VA

Mike — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:14:39 +0000

Ever since December of 2010, I’ve been working hard on helping to open a scuba dive shop in Blacksburg. I’ve done my fair share of retail before, but my role has largely been on the technical side.

We’ve realized that the usual way things are done are: scuba instructor opens a shop, creates a website and attempts to make a living doing what they love. The problem is, these people are usually not business people, they’re not designers, they’re not programmers, they’re not using the latest technology. Take business people, programmers, designers, marketers, and influential people who all use technology on a daily basis and have a passion for scuba diving and combine them into one package. That’s what I feel the Avalon Dive Center is. We’re many people with many talents getting together to share our passion with others in the best way we know how.

Avalon Dive Center – Blacksburg, VA is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

What I’ve Been Up To

Mike — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:34:48 +0000

I’ve been crazy busy ever since we returned from Colombia. We fell back into life in the US at full sprint and have only had a few periods since where we could rest. As a result, I don’t think I’ve been clear on what exactly I’ve been up to with my family and friends. So here’s the short version of most of the major things I’ve been up to since getting back:

iPhone Development

We started a company last year to allow independent iPhone app developers to make the transition from “wanna-be” to published developer. The model works similar to a record label, where LTZ provides the leverage, so that developers can concentrate on coding rather than the logistics of getting apps out. We wanted to start small, get a few early successes and then use that momentum to gather a pool of developers. We’re also planning a Code Kitchen, which is a class to teach iPhone and Mac programming to anyone interested for free.

Most of our early time was spent on logistics, even though we had our first app idea right from the start. It was a lot of waiting; we waited for resources (copy, data, images, feedback), we waited for Apple, we waited for the lawyers and we waited for contracts. So in a year’s time, we finally had an application ready to release. But thankfully, most of that work won’t have to be completed again since the contracts, setup and other logistics are taken care of. I’ll post a longer article on the whole process (what it took, what we learned, etc), but as I type this, our app, BarNinja is “In Review,” waiting to go up on the Apple App Store. It still might get rejected (one never knows with these processes), but we’re hopeful that it will appease the Apple review gods. We’re also more hopeful that the app will actually sell well and we can get some money into the business so we can buy “test” devices, like the brand new iPad for all our people.

Scuba Diving in Blacksburg

As many already know, scuba diving is a relatively new thing for me. However, I instantly fell in love with the sport and have tried to progress as quickly as I can. It’s been a lot cheaper than flying.

I got my Open Water (OW) certification in November of ’08 (with dives in Cozumel, Mexico in December), my Advanced Open Water (AOW) in July of ’09 (with dives in the Florida Keys and on the US Coast Guard Cutter my grandfather served on in World War II), my Rescue Diver certification (that required another certification of Emergency First Responder) and now I’m working on my Divemaster certification, which is a professional level diving certification. As you can image, this has been a long journey, with a ton of training, reading, and diving. The diving part was especially difficult due to the location. Blacksburg is not known for it’s amazing scuba diving, but diving in the local river, which has a maximum depth of 41 feet, has made it a bit easier.

We should be able to finish up the divemaster certification in May of this year. That’ll allow me to help teach some classes with Scott, who runs Avalon Adventures here in Blacksburg and the New River Valley (NRV). He’s my current instructor and I’ve helped him out with his website. The plan is to serve Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford, and the surrounding NRV to provide classes, dive trips, dive refreshers and other adventures. Hopefully, we’ll also make some money in the process.

Music

I’ve picked up my guitars again. Sadly, I don’t think I’ve picked them up in at least six months, but I’m at it again. Luckily it only took me a few minutes to remember what those six months made me forget. I am also helping my old Computer Science instructor with his business at Rocket Music. It helps me get back into music, even though its on a strictly computer programming level. Just talking about guitars, buying guitars, customizing guitars and everything guitars reminds me to go pick up one of my guitars and practice, if for only 15 minutes.

Our Foster Dog

Our foster dog Petunia has really adjusted well with us. When we first got her, she had some problems with other dogs, being generally nervous, crying when we left her home alone, etc. We weren’t surprised, since her previous owners abandoned her and she spent a long time in the shelter. Now all she does it try to cuttle up with us and never leaves us, even if that means following us from room to room.

Ana is getting attached to Petunia and I don’t think we’re going to get her adopted. Being a Pitbull mix, people are afraid of her. However, everyone that’s met her has loved her, which is another reason we don’t think we’ll let her be adopted. She never barks, is great with our cat, loves to play, never complains, and is so adorable. She’s gathered such nicknames as Petu, Petufilese and just Perrita. Dogs are a lot of work, but I think in this case, for her, she’s worth it.

Apartment

My girlfriend of about a year, moved in officially a few months ago. She still has her old apartment, but the rent there is taken care of by a sort of sub-lease. Previously, we were always together anyway, cooking food, studying together, grocery shopping together. The only difference was, she wasn’t paying rent or the massive electricity bill we seemed to rack up with her presence. I have an extra bedroom in my condo, which I gave to her for all her stuff. We moved in her tredmill into that room (producing some of the first small scratches in my new hard wood floors), her desk and a bunch of other things so that she has her own space. It’s worked out extremely well and while we’ve had our fights about stupid apartment and living stuff, you don’t truly know a person until you lived with them. That goes for friends and girlfriends.

Spanish

As a result of living with a native Spanish speaker, I’ve picked up a lot. I never learned Spanish. It was always the language of poor people where I lived. Instead I studied German, the language that’s most understood in Europe. While living in Hungary, I learned Hungarian so picking up Spanish was probably the easiest thing for me. With Spanish, for example, just add an ‘O’ or an ‘A’ after any English word of more than 2 syllables and translate word for word and you have a pretty good, understandable sentence.

Before I met Ana (pronounced Ah-na, not Anne-uh by the way), I probably knew less than 20 words, and that’s after having spent two weeks in Mexico scuba diving. Before that, I probably knew around 5. Now I wish I would have learned it sooner, but I’m glad I learned German since Ana and I are planning a trip back to Europe. Ana has never been, so I’ll take us around Hungary, we’ll visit Italy (which is a language both of us have studied, but she understands a lot better) and she can take us around Spain since they almost speak the same language as she does.

We have a savings account set up that we’ve been putting money in since last summer. It’s not a lot, but it’ll at least pay for the plane tickets out there. Then we plan on staying with friends where we can, and since we both have friends all over Europe, it shouldn’t be an issue.

What I’ve Been Up To is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Laberinto Scuba Dive

Mike — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:27:00 +0000

Time in: 14:34
Time out: 15:16

Max depth: 51 feet
Avg. depth: 37 feet

This was the second dive on Bushnell. Our dive boat was so tiny that it only held one tank per diver, so a support boat had to follow us out to Bushnell to exchange tanks so we could do a second dive there. It was 50 minutes away, so there was no way we could have gone back to the resort like with the other dives. We had a 36 minute surface interval, which barely gave us enough time to do a 45 minute no decompression dive. By the time we got into the water however, we had enough time to do a ~50 minute dive to 60 feet, but since we only went to a max of 51 feet, we were well within the limits of no decompression diving.

The Labyrinth was full of canyons in the reef, most of which were big enough for one person to swim through. The reefs were high and filled with some beautiful fish. Three barracudas swam by to check us out.

Bushnell – Laberinto

Ana

Juanca hanging out

Our 3-minute safety stop 15 feet below the surface

Hanging out on the anchor line

Our divemaster taking a nap

The resort as seen from the wate

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Laberinto Scuba Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Scuba Dive

Mike — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:49:50 +0000

Time in: 13:18
Time out: 13:58

Max Depth: 54 feet
Avg Depth: 39 feet

The water temperature was a warm 84 degrees (according to the dive computer) while the air was only around 80. At those temperatures it’s so nice to jump in the water. Even so, Ana gets cold while diving and wore a 3mm wetsuit.

The dive site was a 50 minute boat ride away towards the north west part of the island where the sea floor raised up to a depth of about 60 feet. It’s basically an underwater mountain (see map below) with a gorgeous reef that sits on top of it (see the sketch by our divemaster in the photos below).

The dive yielded gorgeous reef formations with spots of white sandy sea floor. The sandy floor allowed us to set down in a place that wouldn’t harm the reef so we could get better look at some of the sea creatures such as a Caribbean lobster and various plant life.

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell

Barracuda

Lobster

Bushnell off the north west coast of Isla Fuerte. A mountain in the middle of a deeper part of the sea.

During our briefing on the site, our divemaster drew a rough sketch of the reef formation.

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell Scuba Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte – El Planchon

Mike — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:11:02 +0000

Time in: 15:09
Time out: 15:57

Max Depth: 36 feet
Average Depth: 23 feet

We spent the night at Moñitos, on the coast of Colombia, before taking a ferry from Paso Nuevo with Just Elena, Juanca and Ana. The morning water was too choppy for diving so we waited until the afternoon. We made sure everyone was ready and equipment was setup properly since everyone except me hadn’t dived since Florida, which was about 6 months prior.

The dive boat we dived from was small and only held about 10 tanks. We entered the water with mask, snorkel and fins and were handed our scuba tanks. We then descended along the anchor line to the wreck which was a former lumber transport that sank off the coast of Isla Fuerte. It was 150 meters long, 10 meters wide and the deck was 8 meters high.

We saw squirrelfish, French angelfish, rainbow parrotfish, a lionfish and two creole wrasse trying to mate.

Even though I had 9 lbs of weight, I, as well as everyone else, was under weight.

Isla Fuerte Dive One

Ana

First dive we encountered a sunken ship, used to carry cargo.

Juanca and Elena

On top of the cargo ship

Lion fish are relatively new to this area of the Caribbean and started showing up after a hurricane swept through.

The top of the ship has rotted away

A latter to go down into the ship

Squirrel fish swimming on top of some brain coral

Top corner of the ship

Juanca

Isla Fuerte – El Planchon is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Isla Fuerte, Colombia

Mike — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:02:58 +0000

On Christmas day, we woke up early, packed the car and drove 9 hours to the coast of Colombia. Colombia is the only country in South America that has a coast line on both the Pacific ocean and the Caribbean sea. Next time, we’ll try to make it to the Pacific coast for some diving.

When we got there, we had to park our car in a poor little town with muddy dirt roads and garbage all over the place. It wasn’t my car, so I wasn’t worried, but we also parked in a fenced off area where other divers had parked theirs, so we weren’t too worried.

We then took a 30 minute boat ride to get to the island in a tiny little boat that would later become our dive boat. No one spoke English so I pretty much was on my own to figure out what was going on, which is a really good way to learn a language, but not a good way when it comes to important things like how not to die on the ride over.

When we got to the island, our cabin had no hot water and no electricity; the water they did have was undrinkable, but they put a 2 gallon bottle of drinking water in our room. Electricity ran from a generator from 6PM to 6AM so that you could use the lights, charge any devices, but most importantly to have the fans on in the room.

Every meal was something that was locally grown or caught, so we ate a ton of fruit (new fruit I’ve never even seen before but terrifically delicious), fish and vegetables. It was an amazing experience and a real eye opener to how you can have really delicious food, electricity and water and still be sustainable on a tiny island like that.

Luckily for us, it only rained a little bit and was well after our scuba dives. Otherwise the temperature was perfect, as it is year round. Enjoy the photos below!

Isla Fuerte

About 30 minutes outside Medellin

At the SAME exact time, my friend took this picture of my car.

The cabin we stayed at on the mainland.

We stayed in a cabin on the coast of Colombia before heading to the island.

View from our cabin

The cabin where we stayed; complete with hammocks.

We took a walking tour of the island and saw this massive tree, estimated to be over 500 years old.

Some houses on the island

Isla Fuerte is 11 miles off the coast of Colombia, but there are sloths on this island.

More sloths.

Yet another sloth.

He noticed us and started to climb a bit higher

A little gift from our tour guide/divemaster

Water was very limited. This is how it was gathered.

The bathroom was awesome.

When it rained, the rain water drained into the shower.

These guys were all over the place eating the sugar and any crumbs we left.

Juanca and Elena

On our way back to the States, we flew over Isla Fuerte

Colombian coast next to Isla Fuerte

Isla Fuerte was 11 miles from the mainland

Isla Fuerte, Colombia is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Florida Scuba: Captain Tom’s Ledge (06/28/09)

Mike — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:40:12 +0000

In the afternoon, we did our third dive of the day on a place called Captain Tom’s Ledge. This was a bit of a deeper dive at 59 feet max, so the top of the surface was a beautiful 86 degrees, while the bottom was a relatively frigid 70 degrees. There is actually a layer of water that you pass through where you can immediately feel the difference in temperature. This is called a thermocline. After coming up from below the thermocline, the water feels like hot tub water. It’s really refreshing since you can start to get chilled wearing such thin layers. The total bottom time was 52 minutes.

Scott worked to get Juanca finished up on his scuba certification while Ana, Laszlo and I explored the ledge. The reef stands along a ledge that drops of to several hundred feet into the abyss. On the other side is a flat sandy surface nearly devoid of life. We stopped to get a photo shoot of ourselves as you can see from the photos below.

Laszlo had to surface due to constant condensation in his mask. But when we got back down, we were treated to a lot of Caribean lobster, moray eels and fish all over the place. We didn’t quite make it to the ledge because the reef was so wide. No bother though, not much to see but black ocean below you.

Captain Tom’s Ledge

Ana and me in front of the reef near the sandy bottom of the ocean.

Ana sees something interesting

Maybe it was this Caribbean lobster

An eel poking his head out to see what was going on

Lobsters were everywhere on this reef. Wish they were in season!

Looks like this was taken in a fish tank.

Can you see it?

Florida Scuba: Captain Tom’s Ledge (06/28/09) is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Florida Scuba: Pleasure Reef (06/28/09)

Mike — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:15:40 +0000

On our fourth dive of the day, Laszlo and I performed our underwater navigation tests for our Advanced Open Water Certification (AOW). This was Juanca’s first dive as a certified diver, so he, Elena and Ana went off with my camera and took some pictures of themselves. We met back up after the test so some of the latter photos are mine as well.

If you are curious, it takes me 18 kick cycles to travel 50 feet underwater. We stayed under water for 45 minutes and even though we were only 24 feet deep at the max, we used a lot of our air performing the AOW tests, down from 3000 PSI to 850 PSI in the end.

Check out the photos below:

Pleasure Reef

Elena and Juanca

Elena

Juanca's first dive as a certified scuba diver

Juanca

Ana and Elena

Some kind of small ray

Florida Scuba: Pleasure Reef (06/28/09) is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Florida Scuba: Molasses Reef (06/28/09)

Mike — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:04:34 +0000

After our deep dive on the USCGC Bibb, we used our second tank of nitrox (31% oxygen) for this very shallow dive to a max depth of 34 feet on Molasses Reef. The nitrox helped with fatigue and with a strong current. The current during our stay, we were told, was very unusual for Florida. Even so, it was a beautiful dive amongst beautiful animals and other ocean life.

Even though this was a pleasure dive, Laszlo and I practiced kick cycles and compass navigation in anticipation of our navigation dive for our Advanced Open Water certification.

Total bottom time was 52 minutes and I went from 3400 PSI in my tank to only 1800 PSI. Breathing nitrox definitely helped us consume less air, though the shallow depth also helps.

Molasses Reef

The sea floor is full of plant life

The dive boat from below

Laszlo slowly swimming over the reef

Pretty flat, but beautiful

Pretty typical view of hundreds of fish swimming overhead.

Something geary and big.

I love these guys. Can you see him?

Florida Scuba: Molasses Reef (06/28/09) is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Life Goal Complete – US Coast Guard Bibb: Wreck Dive

Mike — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:24:31 +0000

After learning to scuba dive, I put diving the Bibb on my list of things to do in my life. The U.S.C.G.C. Bibb was the ship my grandfather served on in the Pacific theater during World War 2. I was very young when I learned that the Bibb was sunk off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef. It never occurred to me that I would ever get to see it in person. I had heard a number of stories about the Bibb and was told that during its service in WWII, it was the ship that carried the Admiral of the fleet since the Bibb, being a Coast Guard ship, was one of the smallest of the U.S. Navy fleet.

I brought one of my camera so I got some photos and video of the experience.

A Little Visual History

The United States Coast Guard has a page on the history of the Bibb with a bunch of photos of its early history, so be sure to check that out. Below are some photos my aunt sent me.

The picture above actually has my grandfather in it. He’s standing on the deck of the ship looking at the camera, to the left of another sailor in white, just to the left of the deck gun that’s in the center of the photograph. It’s hard to see in the photo of this size, but it’s him.

Artificial Reef

The Bibb was sunk in November 1987 off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. The sinking did not go exactly as planned and the Bibb now lays on her side at 130 ft. Unlike her sister ship, the USCGC Duane was sunk properly and rests upright less than half a mile from the Bibb. As a result, the Duane is a more popular dive since it is upright and its depths can be reached more easily by less skilled divers.

The Bibb was refitted several times throughout her service in the Korean and Vietnam wars and in later peacetime operations. Here’s a photo of the Bibb prior to her sinking. There’s a rear crow’s nest that was installed after World War 2 that we witnessed on our dive as we approached the boat from the stern or back of the boat. If you’re interested in reading more about the history of the Bibb, you can head over to the U.S. Navy’s military history website for more info.

The ship is a popular dive site in the Florida Keys and is easily accessed from dive shops in and around Key Largo. The one we dove with was the Florida Keys Dive Center, which I highly recommend for any dives on the Bibb, Duane or any of the sites in that area. If you’re a GPS nut like me, you might like the GeoHack Bibb location, which has the location in every format, from downloadable GPS coordinates to online maps like Google Maps.

The Dive

After our dive on Davis Ledge (Dive Spots link) and Pleasure Reef on the first day, the next day we headed out in the early morning to dive the Bibb. We hit the water at 9:17 AM. My tank had about 2900 PSI of enriched air nitrox 31 (31% oxygen, as opposed to the normal 21%). The water was a beautifully warm 84 degrees fahrenheit. After entering the water we had to swim on the tag line, which ran from the current line (runs off the back of the boat so divers don’t drift and can stay close to the boat until the rest of the group is in the water) to the front of the boat. The current was so strong that there was no way to stay in position without the tag line. If you turned your head perpendicular to the current, your mask would be pulled off your face if it wasn’t tight enough.

We descended on the trip line, which runs from the surface to the back of the Bibb. We looked like flags on a flag pole as the current pushed us in a horizontal position. The bubbles from the divers already on the wreck looked like a school of jelly fish and the normal sized bubbles grew to about four times their size as the pressure decreased on their way to the surface.

Down on the actual wreck, we only made it to about the middle of the ship before we had to turn back. At that depth, you consume about four times the amount of air that you normally consume near the surface. With nitrox and the increased air content, it allowed us to breath less heavily and increased our bottom time (enriched air nitrox also increases no decompression time limit for nitrogen off gassing in the system). That’s the beauty of nitrox and it’s a great certification to get if you’re interested in longer bottom times while scuba diving.

USCGC Bibb

The Bibb lies on her right side.

One of the buoy lines, with a fishing line caught on it. While descending, you have to watch out for hooks in the line. But with all the fish on the artificial reef, you can't blame them for wanting to fish there.

One of the hatches near the middle of the ship

Another hatch nearer to the rear of the ship, on the second level

The look out, which is on the back of the ship

Deck below the look out tower.

Ladder up to the second level, near the middle of the ship

The main propeller

Taken from the back of the ship, looking forward. Two divers return from their dive just as we get down to do our own diving. They were part of the same dive boat.

Laszlo hanging onto the line as we make our slow ascent to the surface.

A long, boring, but necessary safety stop, 15 feet below the surface.

Notice how Laszlo's bubbles travel, not up, but almost parallel to the surface. That's how swift the current was.

Ana hanging on in the swift current

The Video

The 7 Sisters

The Bibb had 6 other sister ships that were part of the Treasury Class Cutters (or sometimes Secretary Class) during that time. They were named after Secretaries of the Treasury. The USCGC Ingham, is on display at Patriots Pointe Maritime Museum in South Carolina, and the USCGC Taney, on display in the Baltimore, Maryland Maritime Museum, are the only ships still afloat. We visited the Taney once in 2001 for my grandfather’s 80th birthday and again in 2006 with a friend. Seeing the Bibb at the bottom of the ocean, I instantly recognized each part of the structure and it was an incredible experience to know that my grandfather had spent much of his youth on board, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with Kamikazes and Japanese submarines.

Me, my grandfather and my father aboard the Taney

Radio Room on the USCGC Taney

The Next Life Goal

Following the completion of this goal, I have come up with two more to add to the list (it wouldn’t be a real to-do list if it didn’t get bigger as I went!!):

Penetrate and explore the inside the USCGC Bibb – This one will take a lot of additional dive training and experience as wreck penetration dives are similar to cave diving and is one of the most dangerous forms of diving. To penetrate a wreck this deep, several tanks will be needed and additional technical dive training will need to be made since staying down that deep and that long requires decompression intervals, which can not be performed with a regular recreational certification.

Scuba dive in the Pacific Ocean – This one will be much easier to accomplish but still something I want to make sure I do. I have plenty of opportunity to dive out in California, but I think I’m going to shoot for a place that’s a little more exotic to me and dive with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, and whale sharks in the Pacific side of Colombia. Ana and I already have a trip planned in December when we go to Colombia for Christmas, so this will be a quickly met goal.

Life Goal Complete – US Coast Guard Bibb: Wreck Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

Pleasure Reef, Key Largo Florida

Mike — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:54:58 +0000

This was our second dive of the day and was on a reef called Pleasure Reef. It was a shallow dive to abou 26 feet and as a result we stayed down for 41 minutes. I messed around with my new DiveRite compass from K2Scuba. The only complaint I had about the compass was that the wrist strap was way too large. Next time I’ll swap it out for the bungees that it also came with. Towards the end of the dive we started to hear a roaring sound and looked up to see it raining. It only rained for about 5 minutes and stopped. I never even saw a dark cloud the whole day.

Second Dive

Scott, Juanca and Elena

Laszlo, Scott and Juanca

Can you find the fish?

Can you find him now?

There he is!

Ana and Elena

One of my favorite fish: French Angel Fish

Ever see it rain under water?

Pleasure Reef, Key Largo Florida is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

First Dive in Key Largo, Florida

Mike — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:32:29 +0000

Ana, her sister Elena, Laszlo and I took a long weekend and went down to Florida to visit my friend Scott and do some scuba diving in the Keys. Below are the photos from our first dive.

Diving in Key Largo, Florida, Day 1

Elena and Juanca

Laszlo

A sea slug

Elena and Ana

Ana blowing me bubbles

Scuba diver walking on the bottom of the sea floor, back up regulator hanging down and tank not secured.

Juanca, Elena and Ana

This was Juanca's first Open Water scuba dive

Lots of scuba divers on this trip. It was a Saturday after all.

Eel!

Ana doing her thing.

First Dive in Key Largo, Florida is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

What’s Wrong with this Scuba Diver?

Mike — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:06:11 +0000

The diver in the photo below just cracked me up when I saw him. At first I only noticed his backup regulator hanging down and for the fact that he was almost literally walking on the sea floor. So, I took this snap shot and only later noticed that his tank strap is not secured either.

The first thing you will notice about really bad scuba divers is loose gear flopping about. Not only does it look ridiculous, it’s also dangerous when they need to reach for their backup regulator and realize it’s floating behind them somewhere. Also, the back up regulator is suppose to be attached somewhere on the divers chest, so that if the dive buddy requires help, they can find and grab the other diver’s backup, unless of course it’s floating behind your dive buddy somewhere. In other words, don’t be this guy’s dive buddy.

Finally, don’t walk on the ocean floor. Not only is it bad style, it’s destructive and just plain stupid.

What’s Wrong with this Scuba Diver? is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

River Clean Up and the Roanoke Times

Mike — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:00:21 +0000

On Virginia Tech’s Reading Day (the day between classes and the beginning of finals), the Scuba Club at Virginia Tech (SCVT) performed a clean up on the New River near Radford, VA. We picked up several trash bags of garbage, mostly that were left behind from the fishermen that frequent there. There were plenty of fishing line, beer cans and other trash to keep us busy for a few hours and we do this every year.

As it had been raining for the past several days prior, the river level was two feet higher than normal, and big trees were being swept down river. The visibility was non-existent and we didn’t want to get caught or crushed by the trees coming down, so we didn’t get to go diving. However, there is still a ton more beer cans and other trash left by the fishermen at the bottom of the river that we have yet to get to.

While we were there, a photographer from the Roanoke Times took several photos of us as we worked. I had passed up picking up some trash that was in the water because I was wearing shoes but since I had all my scuba equipment with me, I put on my diving boots and jumped into the water to pick up the pieces I had missed.

The photographer caught me just as I was walking out of the river and they put me as their main image. Pretty cool. Check out the image below and download the PDF for the full size.

SCVT May 7, 2009 River Cleanup

River Clean Up and the Roanoke Times is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs

New River Dive

Mike — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:35:57 +0000

We went diving in the early morning in the New River. It was early, it was dark under the water, the water was cold, but we had a lot of fun.

Scott, Kevin and I diving in the New River

New River Dive is a post from: Ziray Studio Labs