HELP OUR PLANET!

Climate change is a serious threat to coral reefs. Please sign this petition from our friends at the Center for Biological Diversity and ask the U.S. Senate to pass a strong climate bill!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/t/5243/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2054

Which sunblock protects my skin - and the sea?

http://www.squidoo.com/sunblockandsea


Which sunblock protects my skin - and the sea? Click on the above link

MASK FOG?

Sick of that mask fogging up? Click on the following link for some great tips.
http://www.squidoo.com/MASKDEFOG

Yellow Submarine in Lake Superior

Tom's notes: I love the hand rail.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/128311/


Published August 21 2009

Duluth man will explore Lake Superior in his yellow submarine

Lifelong tinkerer Dean Ackman and a crew of friends and family slipped a one-man submarine into the Knife River Marina on Thursday for a test drive.

By: Janna Goerdt, Duluth News Tribune

Driver after driver craned their necks for a better look as the sleek steel machine passed by them on Highway 61 through Two Harbors.
Top hatch, rear propeller, bottom ballast tanks, bright daffodil color — could it be? Yep, it was a real-life home-built yellow submarine, on its way Thursday to the Knife River Marina for a test of its lake-worthiness.
Lifelong tinkerer Dean Ackman and a crew of friends and family slipped the submarine into the water and came up with some good news and some bad news. The good: The 6,000-pound submarine was nicely balanced in the water, bobbing steadily up and down and not side to side. The bad news: A new leak had sprung somewhere in one of the main ballast tanks. Oh well, Ackman said. It was no reason to be discouraged.
“If it was easy, everyone would want to do this,” he said as he and the crew secured the submarine on the trailer for the 30-mile trip home.
It’s taken Ackman nearly three years of cutting, rolling and welding sheets of high-density steel in his workshop in Brimson to get this far. Aside from a car headlight, the electronic equipment and some salvaged Trex decking, Ackman has had to hand-craft each part of the two-man sub.
“You have to enjoy doing that,” Ackman said. “There are no submarine stores.”
Ackman said he has long loved exploring beneath the surface of Lake Superior. But scuba diving in the lake’s 39 degree waters is cold and uncomfortable, and divers can spend only a limited time in the depths.
His solution: build a personal submarine. When all the bugs are worked out, Ackman said he will be able to spend up to six hours at a time tooling around the lake. With help and advice from other members of the worldwide Personal Submersibles Organization, he has brought his latest dream almost to the launching point.
Ackman’s son, Adam, said he wasn’t surprised when he learned his dad was building a submarine.
Years ago, “he started with a remote-controlled submarine,” Adam Ackman said. The six-foot-long sub dipped just a few feet below the water, but it worked.
Dean Ackman has piloted just one submarine in his life. Two years ago he took a spin in Lake Michigan in one — also painted yellow, like most personal subs, for high visibility — and he was hooked.
“You’re free and loose,” Ackman said. And safe, he said; personal submarines have multiple safety factors built in. The submarine runs on batteries, but doesn’t depend on the batteries to ascend and descend. And even if every other safety factor fails, a submarine pilot can always slip on a scuba mask and tank, open the hatch and swim for the surface. Once the leaks are all sealed, Ackman will start a series of up-and-down dips, called “tea bag tests,” he said, “until you get comfy.”
He needs to find a horn for the sub to be in full compliance with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource’s watercraft registration guidelines.
Then he will spend the winter smoothing and polishing the yellow steel hull, waiting for spring and dreaming of hour after hour moving free and loose beneath a big, cold, exciting lake.

Untrained Divers, Surface Supplied Air and Lobsters

Tom's note: This article points out the dangers out there 1)diving on scuba OR surface supplied air without proper training. Note the Husband tried to pull her up by the airline that she was using to breath. 2) the danger of the lobster season where many divers with little or no experience loose concentration while looking for lobsters and do not return. Just look at all the deaths that occur during the short lobster season. The same thing can happen if a diver is distracted by other activities such as photography. Dive safe.

Scuba diving or hookah rigs carry equal risks, experts say
By Emily Nipps, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Wednesday, August 12, 2009
________________________________________
As authorities search for the body of a St. Petersburg woman who disappeared while lobster fishing in the Florida Keys, her family is left with many questions.
Before disappearing Saturday while diving near Big Pine Key, Louann Greene, 33, was using a hookah rig, an underwater breathing device that requires no certification and is commonly used by tourists or first-time divers.
"I've lived here for 20 years, and I've never heard of these hookah things," said CeCe Ingle, Greene's sister-in-law. "If people are putting their lives on the line, there need to be some kinds of precautions in place. Who regulates them, if anybody?"
No one regulates hookah rigs, which essentially do the same job as scuba diving tanks. Most diving experts agree that hookahs are no more dangerous than scuba gear, and that there is nothing illegal or wrong about hookah rigs.
Like most open-sea ventures, they say, it boils down to a simple rule: Proceed at your own risk.
"There are no state and federal laws governing diving," said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Gabriella Ferraro. "I mean, you would think it's good common sense that you would need some training before doing something like that."
The commission does enforce some diver safety, such as requiring dive flags to be displayed and policing boater speeds in diving areas. And some self-regulation occurs in the diving world.
Many dive equipment shops, for example, will not fill a scuba tank or rent gear without seeing a diving certification card, obtained from a recognized training organization. For liability reasons, Bill Jackson's, a sporting goods store in Pinellas Park, won't sell its scuba gear or hookah rigs without seeing certification.
Most diving charter boats refuse to take out people who aren't certified, said Capt. Mike Miller, who runs a dive charter boat out of Seminole Marina. Some do crash "resort courses," involving a few hours of classroom and water instruction for noncertified divers.
Lobster season, especially the popular two-day miniseason that takes place a week before regular season, is known for accidents, Miller said.
Five people died in various diving mishaps last year. Four died in 2006. Miller couldn't recall a season in recent years without a death.
But generally, Miller said, "diving is safer than bowling."
"It's safer than tennis and golf," he said. "It's when people go outside the boundaries of training that injuries happen."
The hookah rig, while common for those who skip training, isn't necessarily the enemy, experts say.
Experienced and certified divers sometimes favor the device, which provides compressed air taken from the atmosphere. Advocates find it ideal for depths of 90 feet or less. They say it is less cumbersome to breathe through a tube connected to a compressor than it is to carry a heavy tank on one's back.
Hookahs have been blamed in lobster diving fatalities in the past. Last year, 32-year-old Carlos Urruchaga of Miami died using one during the two-day lobster season, and 66-year-old Joan Radford of Coconut Grove died during the 2006 mini¬season after using the hookah system.
It's still unclear exactly what happened in Greene's case. When her husband tried to pull her in by her air hose, it quickly became clear that it was no longer attached to his wife. The last time her family saw her, she was crying for air, and then she sank.
Times staff writer Jessica Vander Velde contributed to this report. Emily Nipps can be reached at nipps@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8452.