Flotsam & Jetsam

Two Recalls. SeaCure is having a sizing problem with some of its SeaCure Sport custom mouthpieces. It may stretch too much, causing the yellow insert to dislodge and enter the regulator, leading to breathing problems. If you have a SeaCure Sport mouthpiece on an Atomic regulator manufactured in 2005 and later, a Cressi Sub Ellipse regulator or a Zeagle regulator, call 800-428-9494 or e-mail recall@seacure1.com for a free replacement Hi-Flow custom mouthpiece. Aqualung is recalling nearly 2,000 Apeks WTX power inflators in the U.S. and Canada because the oral inflate button isn’t properly bonded and that can cause leaking in the hose and mouthpiece. AquaLung received a report of a diver’s oral inflate button falling off while he was diving but luckily he wasn’t injured. The recall involves all models of the Apeks WTX power inflators sold between November 2006 and March 2010. Bring it to an Apeks dealer for a free fix, or call AquaLung at 877-253-3483.

New Line of Work for Divers? In a tough economy, divers can make a little extra money by finding valuable objects that accidentally went overboard. This apparently happens a lot with engagement rings. When Danny Geffre, a treasure-hunting diver from Long Lake, MN, heard about a woman who lost her $7,000 Tiffany’s engagement ring while boating on Lake Minnetonka, he donned his dive gear and spent three days searching the lake with a metal detector. Geffre found the ring buried in three inches of sand and was given a $750 reward for his efforts.

BelizeTour Proposal Irks Locals. Mexico Rocks, a dive site six miles north of San Pedro Town on Belize’s Ambergris Caye, is the site of a tourism project that has residents and environmentalists up in arms. Developer David Gegg wants to create the Sea Trek underwater tour, which would allow anyone to walk on a rope-railed seafloor path near the barrier reef while wearing an underwater helmet and attached by a rope to a barge above. Marine biologist Ken Mattes told a Belize TV station that people constantly walking on the bottom will stir up sediment, causing it to rise up into the water colum and drop back down on the coral. The Department of the Environment has already given Sea Trek the go-ahead, but it still needs approval from other government agencies.

Get a Better View Underwater. Subscriber Mel McCombie (New Haven, CT) has this tip for mature divers with eyesight issues: “Take one SeaVision Gauge Reader mask and swap out one lens with either a SeaVision flat glass mask or one of the many brands of the same size (TUSA Liberator, Blue Reef, etc.) The result is one eye is able to see close up but with a much wider overall view because both lenses are not taken up by the reading lens in each corner. It’s especially good for those with small faces since the Gauge Readers take up a lot of the field of view. There are other companies making masks with magnifier lenses, but I have compared and found the SeaVision optics to be the smoothest, with no horizontal line.”

Photographer Dies During Florida Dive. Wes Skiles, a renowned freelance photographer for National Geographic, died July 21 while filming underwater off of Boynton Beach. Skiles, known for his photos and videos of underwater caves and the deep ocean, was filming researchers working on a reef near Boynton Beach Inlet when he signaled to colleagues that he was going to the surface. A few minutes later, they also headed to the surface but found Skiles, 53, unconscious on the ocean floor. They tried to revive him on the boat but he was pronounced dead at a West Palm Beach hospital; cause of death is unknown. Skiles was on a National Geographic assignment about the behavior of high-speed fish off the Florida coast. His work, including a cover shot of Bahamas caves, appears in the August issue of the magazine.