I am the Head Diver for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Dive Unit, south of San Francisco. We are losing folks; they are aging out and retiring. We are not tough guys, but many recreational divers don’t want to do this type of dirty water diving. We need volunteers and a few paid divers. … Read more
A funny thing happened on the way to Tubbataha. On May 6, I landed in Manila, Philippines, to join a dozen diving friends for five days of land-based diving at Crystal Blue dive resort; then we were to move on to Puerto Princessa to spend a week on the liveaboard Solitude One, diving one of … Read more
We live in a consumer society, yet sometimes we forget that we are consumers. Often, we buy things that we think we are investing in. We expect them to be worth what we paid for them. Alas, this is far from the truth. When we buy an item from a retail store, part of the … Read more
Signing up for another professionally led photographic trip was not without hesitation. Some years previously, I had succumbed to the enticement of an Ocean Geographic trip to French Polynesia, which promised tutoring and mentorship in my growing interest in underwater photography. The entire idea smacked of an exotic photographic adventure that would liberate me from … Read more
In our January issue of Undercurrent, we describe the difficulty of getting emergency medical care in Fiji. Here’s a story by one of our writers 36 years ago. Not much has changed, he says. Taveuni, New Year’s Day 1988, 6 AM, I woke up with acute appendicitis. The manager got me a “cab,” and we … Read more
