Sunday, September 10, 2023
Temperature: 98
Humidity: 75%
Precipitation: In your dreams
Category Archives: Caribbean
See-Buoy Float Will Allow Lost Divers To Find Boats
Lost and disoriented scuba divers on Blacktip Island will soon be able to find their dive boat without surfacing—and suffering the ensuing embarrassment—with the introduction of a local entrepreneur’s See-Buoy float camera. (photo courtesy of Dorothy)
Scuba divers lost on Blacktip Island’s reefs will soon be able to relocate their boat without surfacing by using a local inventor’s lift-bag inspired mini-camera float.
“Divers get lost all the time, and there’s a huge stigma about surfacing to get your bearings,” Rusty Bollard said. “Anybody on the boat sees you, ‘specially dive staff, you’ll get ribbed like hell the rest of the week. That’s where the See-Buoy comes in.
“You get lost, just clip your reel line to it, give it a puff of air and shoot it to the surface,” Bollard said. “It’ll do a 360 scan to find the boat, give you the direction on a wrist unit, then you pull it back down like nothing happened. Inflated, it’s about the size of your fist, so no one’ll notice.”
Product testers raved about the device.
“Some of us are just navigationally challenged,” Rosie Blenny said. “The See-Buoy works perfectly to find the boat, or the shore, without any embarrassment. I used to use a little PVC periscope, or my buddy, but this works way better.
“The cool thing is it comes with multiple covers to match whatever water you’re in,” Blenny said. “Whether it’s bright turquoise for over the sand, darker blue for over coral, or green for bad visibility, you’re set. They even have a brown cover for lake and quarry divers.”
Island dive staff embraced the idea.
“Divers get lost all the time, and that sends our pulse and blood pressure soaring,” Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Marina DeLow said. “If this gizmo’ll help lost guests find their way back, there’s nothing but upside to it. It makes my job a hundred times easier. Also, if they deploy the buoy, and leave it deployed, it makes it way easier to keep track of them.”
Others opposed the idea.
“If our divers get too self-reliant, that erodes my job security,” Eagle Ray Divers’ Lee Helm said. “If I’m not out doing searches and making rescues, that takes money from my pocket. Dive ops’ll start hiring fewer divemasters, and that affects all of us.
“It also means guests’re taking fewer navigation courses, and that takes money away, as well,” Helm said. “This is just a way for Rusty to make money off confused divers, at our expense. If people really get that disoriented underwater, they should just stick close to a dive guide. Or take up golf.”
Bollard said See-Buoy is currently in the prototype stage, and expects working models to be available for sale by the busy holiday season this December.
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, September 3, 2023
Temperature: 97
Humidity: 76%
Precipitation: On its way
Filed under best scuba diving novels, Caribbean, Scuba Diving
Blacktip Island Pilot Launches Plane-Less Flying Club
An illustration of a man wearing a pair of Blacktip Island pilot Reg Gurnard’s Kevlar wings, which he will use to teach local residents to fly. (illustration courtesy of Reg Gurnard)
A Blacktip Island-based commercial pilot this week announced his plans to teach would-be flyers how to fly using only their arms and legs, in an effort to realize one of mankind’s oldest dreams.
“Since Ancient Greece, people have longed to simply flap their arms and fly, like in the Icarus story,” Tiperon Airways pilot Reg Gurnard said. “Now, with modern technology, we’ll be teaching students to do precisely that, but without the messy, melty beeswax. I’m calling it the Gurnard Flying Club.
“We’ll start them with ground school—a rigorous physical training regimen to strengthen their arm muscles,” Gurnard said. “Then we’ll kit them out with high-tech Kevlar strap-on wings and leggings. From there, they’ll start with gliding, then advance to flapping-and-flying.”
Several island residents have already joined the club.
“I’ve literally dreamed of doing something like this, so you bet I’m jumping at the chance,” Lee Helm said. “Plus, by signing up early, Reg gave me an early-enrollment discount. I’m already doing push-ups and curls to pump up my arms.
“This will be flying at its purest,” Helm said. “This isn’t like those silly wing suits people use to glide down mountainsides. This will be actual flying, with take offs and landings and flapping. People and birds both evolved from dinosaurs, so this is really a natural extension of that.”
Some locals opposed the idea.
“If someone actually tries to fly with Reg’s wings, say, off the bluff, they’ll be hurt. Badly,” island clinic nurse Marissa Graysby said. “And there’s just me to patch them up. Or what’s left of them. If Reg is determined to do this, I really wish he’d do it somewhere else. Like the other side of the world.”
Others discredited the notion on principle.
“There’s no type of artificial wings that would allow a human to simply flap their arms and fly,” Tiperon University-Blacktip chancellor Donna Requin said. “The laws of physics and physiology won’t allow it. Never have and never will. This is just Reg’s way to get attention. And grift money from gullible dreamers.
“That being said, I’ll make sure I have a front-row seat to all the training sessions,” Requin said. “I’ll bring drinks and popcorn and a folding chair so I can watch the idiots run around flapping their arms and tripping over the kites strapped to their legs.”
Gurnard noted the training sessions will take place each morning at the small Caribbean island’s airstrip. Students are encouraged to wear lightweight clothing and sunscreen. All participants will also be cautioned not to fly overly close to the sun.
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Happy Dolphins and Dinoflagellates Day to all who observe
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Temperature: 96
Humidity: 73%
Precipitation: Not happenin’
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Blacktip Island To Host Dump-Sourced Underwater Lightsaber Festival
Would-be Jedis of all ages are encouraged to participate in this weekend’s Underwater Lightsaber Festival and competition, sponsored by Blacktip Island’s Society for Creative Futurism. (photo courtesy of matnkic)
Blacktip Island’s Society for Creative Futurism will sponsor its inaugural Underwater Lightsaber Festival this weekend to draw attention to the small Caribbean island’s need to reuse and recycle household goods instead of sending them to the island’s overfull dump.
“Some of us have been making lightsabers for a while,” SCF president Catalina Luxfer said. “Building the hilt and focusing the plasma blade is pretty straightforward. The challenge is to create the saber solely with items found in the island’s dump. It’s our way of graphically demonstrating just how much reusable debris is simply tossed aside.
“On a small island like this, with limited landfill space, we can’t afford not to reuse, repurpose and recycle,” Luxfer said. “We added the requirement for the swords to function underwater to draw even more attention to the problem. Physics-wise, it’s not much of a jump, but it’s damned impressive. And the fish seem to love it, especially the hamlets.”
Other SCF members noted the festival’s strict format.
“Participants will have all day Friday to gather parts at the landfill,” Payne Hanover said. “Then they’ll have all day Saturday to construct their weapons at the Heritage House, where spectators and judges can watch the assembly. On Sunday we’ll all deploy to the sand flats off Didley’s Landing for the combat demonstrations.
“We’re stressing safety at every step of the process,” Hanover said. “It’s easy to get cut up digging through the dump, and during the assembly process we’ll require builders to always point the plasma-blade generator in a safe direction. A couple of weeks ago Booger Bottoms put an eye out when he first powered up his blade.”
Organizers said sabers will be judged on ingenuity, originality and effectiveness.
“It’s more of a celebration than a contest, a symposium, if you will, on this technology,”
Val Schrader said. “But we’re all fairly competitive, so there have to be prizes of some sort. Single- and multi-blade swords will be allowed. The most interesting part, I think, will be seeing the variety of lightsabers produced by essentially like-minded people.
“The sabers will be judged by local Jedi,” Schrader said. “Well, members of the island’s Jedi Church, anyway. But it’s pretty much the same thing.”
To encourage attendance, all phases of the event will be free and open to the public.
“We want as many people as possible involved with recycling and conservation, but we’re also looking for new SCF members of all ages,” Luxfer said. “We’re especially hopeful we’ll attract some younger would-be Jedi and Sith padawans so we can pass this knowledge on to future generations.”
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The Blacktip Times 