Category Archives: Scuba Diving

February 26, 2016 · 7:06 am

Blacktip Island Divemasters Develop Hoseless Regulator

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The prototype of the “L’Air de la Mer” hoseless regulator, showing its patented triple bamboo oxygen separator units. (photo courtesy Marina DeLow)

 

In what is believed to be a scuba industry first, three Blacktip Island divemasters announced Thursday they have developed a working prototype of a hoseless regulator.

The device works by separating seawater’s oxygen atoms from the larger hydrogen atoms and salt molecules to create a constant supply of breathable air, the regulator’s creators said, and allowing its users to dive without the need of a scuba cylinder.

“A hoseless reg’s been an ongoing joke for years,” said divemaster Marina DeLow, one of the creators. “Then one night after the Ballyhoo closed, the physics of how to make it work just popped.

“We spent the next couple weeks working out the mechanics and building a working model,” DeLow said. “We used old second-stage regs, bamboo tubing and refrigerator water filters, mostly. It’s pretty technical.”

The team has tentatively dubbed the device the “L’Air de la Mer.”

“The Cousteau suits are all up in our business over the name,” co-creator Finn Kiick said. “But that’ll sort itself out. If not, well, you can’t buy advertising like that.”

Though the current prototype is limited in scope, its designers say they plan to produce freshwater versions, Nitrox versions, and a version suitable for technical diving.

“It’s rough looking, but it works,” said Gage Hoase, the team’s third member. “For now the L’AM’ll only convert water into pure O2, so we can’t go below 20 feet. But we got plans to rig one with an oxystat that’ll let you dial in whatever O2 percentage you need.

“On deeper tech dives you’ll be able to crank the O2 down as you descend, then turn it back up as you decompress,” Hoase said. “No more being weighed down with doubles and side mounts and pony bottles.”

The device is not without its skeptics.

“A bunch of drunk scuba bums cooked up The Holy Grail of scuba after a night at the bar, then got rat-faced again while they built the gizmo?” said local scuba enthusiast Barry Bottoms. “That’s not a breakthrough. That’s an accident waiting to happen.

“They say they have a specialty course in the works, too,” Bottoms said. “What’re they gonna call it, ‘Dumb-Ass Diver?’ ‘Dead Diver?’”

Local entrepreneurs, though, are eager to back the project.

“Assuming the L’AM tests to specs, we’re gonna handle the manufacturing and marketing,” said Piers ‘Doc’ Plank, owner of the island-based organic scuba outfitter Bamboo You. “Making this out of locally-sourced, renewable bamboo’ll be boon for the economy, too.

“This’ll be a top of the line reg, and eco-friendly, what with the bamboo O2 filters. This thing could sell better than our Nitrox snorkels.”

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February 12, 2016 · 9:16 am

Fish ID Invitational Returns To Blacktip Island

fish ID

The discovery of a rare scratcher wrasse was the highlight of the last Blacktip Island Invitational Fish Identification Tournament. (Photo courtesy of Lonnie Huffman)

 

The Society to Protect Aquatic Wildlife Now’s 43rd Fish Identification Invitational Tournament returns to Blacktip Island this Saturday and Sunday after a two-year hiatus.

“We got blackballed three years ago after the culling fiasco,” island mayor Jack Cobia said. “No one told us an island-wide lionfish hunt was going on that same day.

“The counts were horrible, and five, six competitors got speared by over-aggressive cullers,” Cobia said. “There were reports of non-lionfish getting culled, too. SPAWN banned IDing here until we could get that situation under control.”

Tournament organizers are excited to be back on Blacktip.

“Blacktip Island’s one of the region’s premier competitive fish ID spots,” said SPAWN president Olive Beaugregory. “The marine parks ensure great species diversity, and the Central Caribbean Drift goes right past here, bringing nutrients and exotic species.

“We’ve found gassy basslets, jack blennys, even a scratcher wrasse here,” Beaugregory said. “We’ve been itching to bring this tournament back to these reefs, so long as we can do that safely.”

As ever, participation in the tournament is restricted to fish identifiers who have won or placed in previous regional tournaments this fish ID season.

Among the competitors are points leader Bess Porgy, defending champion Laika Sturgeon, and local IDing phenom Ginger Bass, who’s having a stand-out sophomore year in the pros.

“Competitive IDing’s a fish-eat-fish world,” Bass said. “Sure, Blacktip’s my home turf, but I’ll still have one eye on the fish and the other behind my back.”

Teams of two SPAWN-certified judges will accompany each competitor to verify findings and to deter the unsportsmanlike behavior that has crept into the sport recently.

“Used to be, you’d stick canned tuna in your competitor’s BCD pocket, or rub them down with squid juice,” Beaugregory said. “Then last year in Belize it escalated to clipping mini chumsicles on your competitors to draw sharks. This year our people will make sure nothing fishy happens.

“Two judges per IDer means one can come up to swap out an air tank while the other keeps watch,” Beaugregory said. “And we’ll be patting down all the divers each morning, whether they like it or not. Most do.”

The tournament winner will receive the coveted Golden Coney trophy, $1,000 and a 10-point bump league standings.

Other tournament-related activities include a fish fry, and underwater chili cook off, a children’s Go Fish card tournament and free screenings of the 1960s Hollywood classics “Hello Down There” and “The Incredible Mr. Limpet.”

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January 29, 2016 · 7:22 am

Divers Scared By Blacktip Island Scuba Mafia

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Scuba divers on Blacktip Island say they’ve been forced to pay extra to safely look at the Caribbean Island’s underwater creatures, such as these reef squid.

 

Blacktip Island authorities announced Thursday they are looking into allegations of an organized crime syndicate targeting scuba divers and the Caribbean island’s dive operations.

Local investigators say a loosely-organized group is extorting money from dive operators and independent divers in exchange for safety while scuba diving.

“Call them ‘wise guys’ or ‘gooddivers’ or whatever, a shakedown’s a shakedown,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Divers are being forced to buy bogus Marine Parks tags, and someone topside’s been chumming for sharks around divers who don’t pay.

Frightened scuba divers recounted a recent encounter.

“We didn’t buy that silly tag,” said Sheena Goode, a guest at Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort. “In the water, these big, bulky guys in all-black dive gear came out of nowhere. One shut off my air. Another one cut my husband’s octo hose.”

Locals say the problem has existed for months, but divers have been afraid to report it.

“Everybody knows it’s Cal Amari’s behind it all,” said a long-time resident, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He works out of The Last Ballyhoo bar down on the south end. Cal’s got his tentacles in every scuba racket on the island, from cut-rate nitrox to fake dive certs, and he’s hell to cross.

“Last week a shore diver got beat something fierce,” the source said. “Cracked the guy’s kneecaps. He’ll never scull-kick again. And the Blacktip Haven dive boat burned one night after Elena Havens refused to pay for protection.”

Island entrepreneur and restaurateur Amari dismissed the stories.

“Scuba’s risky. People get hurt,” Amari said. “I’m a respectable businessman concerned with the island’s economy. Dive staffs are stretched thin. The worry’s a dive accident could kill Blacktip’s tourism product.

“Do I have people in the water following divers? Sure. For safety,” Amari said. “My guys make sure people stay healthy. These mooks should be thanking us.”

The island’s dive professionals, meanwhile, denied any wrongdoing.

“No, the dive tags aren’t required, but divers love to collect those geegaws,” Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort dive manager Whitey Bottoms said. “Nothing illegal there. Our guests come up smiling. That’s our bottom line.”

Amari shrugged off allegations both he and the island’s resorts have unfairly benefitted from his actions.

“We do business with people who do business with us,” Amari said. “If Sandy’s cash is flowing better lately, good for him. But it’s pure coincidence, not cause and effect.”

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January 15, 2016 · 8:56 am

Blacktip Island Fisherman Militia Seizes Marine Park

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Blacktip Island fisherman militia members set out Thursday morning to reinforce their Blacktip Underwater Marine Park blockade.

 

An anti-government fisherman militia Wednesday seized Blacktip Island’s world-renowned Blacktip Underwater Marine Park, demanding scuba diving there be banned and the mooring sites returned to local fishermen.

Militia members armed with pole spears, hand lines and fishing poles tied skiffs to all mooring balls off the coast and blocked shore access to the park.

The action is the latest in a series of fisherman versus scuba diver confrontations on the small Caribbean island.

“The government had no right to set this stretch of coast aside for foreigners. No right to outlaw fishing,” local fisherman Dermott Bottoms said. “This is generations of resentment finally boiling over.

“We’re a democracy, you know, and no one voted on the park, or was even asked about it,” Bottoms said. “This is our vote to ban divers. It’s our water. We’re taking it back.”

The action has divided families in the small community.

“Scuba tourism’s our only industry,” said Sandy Bottoms, owner of Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort and Dermott Bottoms’ cousin. “With the park shut down, there’s no reason for divers to come here. This’s killing us. I got payroll to meet, mouths to feed, a swimming pool to pay for.

“Dermott and his buddies waving gaff hooks at people doesn’t help, either,” Sandy Bottoms said. “They can say those spears are for defense all they want, but our guests are intimidated.”

The protestors defended their right to carry fishing implements.

“These are legal pole spears,” Dermott Bottoms said. “Gaff hooks, too. Some divers get scared, that’s their doing, not ours. I’ll give up my fishing pole when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

Visiting scuba divers are angry at not being able to dive in the park.

“I don’t give a wrasse’s ass what these yahoos are protesting,” Eagle Ray Divers guest Leah Shore said. “I paid a ton on money to come here and look at fish, and by God, that’s what I mean to do.”

Violence was averted Thursday afternoon when island authorities stopped a group of divers wielding tank bangers from storming the militia’s lines.

“We nipped this one before things got ugly,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Bussed the divers over to the east side and told them that was a marine park, too.

“We’ve hesitated to confront militia members for fear of things escalating,” Marquette said. “If we try to force the fishermen out, a peaceful situation could turn violent. Also, there’s about 35 of them and only one of me.”

Militia members, meanwhile, vow they won’t leave anytime soon.

“Happiness is a warm hand line spool,” Bottoms said. “‘Specially when you whack it upside some bureaucrat’s pointy head.”

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January 8, 2016 · 5:58 am

Scuba Divers Find Lemming Crab Graveyard Off Blacktip Island

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Lemming crab shells litter the sand 200 feet beneath the surface on Blacktip Island’s south end. Local biologists say the shells, found by technical scuba divers, confirm rumors of the crabs committing mass suicide the first of every year.

 

Technical scuba divers on a training dive Wednesday discovered what is believed to be Blacktip Island’s legendary lemming crab graveyard off the island’s remote southeast coast.

“The crab population drops dramatically every January, and we suspected a site like this existed,” said local wildlife manager Crusty Station said. “The salt-cured, faux-ivory carapaces wash up on south end beaches all the time. They’re the Holy Grail for beachcombers, jewelers and oriental homeopaths.

“They found the shells down past 200 feet, just below the bluff,” Station said. “Every indication is thousands of crabs charged off the cliff en masse.”

Lemmings crabs are a subspecies of the common Caribbean land crab, found only on Blacktip Island. Their name is derived from their suspected mass suicides, akin to those of the Scandinavian rodents.

“Where they go has always been a mystery,” long-time resident Frank Males said. “One day the island is overrun with crabs, the next there are none to be found. There’ve always been tales of them running off the bluff behind The Last Ballyhoo, but there’s also tales of a talking platypus back there, too.

“This evidence of mass suicide smacks of a post-holiday depression sort of thing,” Maples said. “It’s a stressful time for everyone.”

Island researchers are eager to study the site.

“We’d speculated that once the crab population hits a tipping point, something snaps species-wide,” Tiperon University-Blacktip behavioral biologist Porgy Cottonwick said. “The population shift from maximum carrying capacity to near extinction was more than natural predation or hungry holiday revelers could account for.

“Our studies will focus on whether this is an attempted migration gone wrong, or possibly an instinctive suicide urge to preserve the species,” Cottonwick said

Locals say such behavior is to be expected on the small Caribbean island.

“Biological urges are hard to overcome,” local handyman Dermott Bottoms said. “See this kind of thing at the Last Ballyhoo and the Sand Spit bars every night.

“See the same thing in divemasters, too,” Bottoms said. “Now they’re here, now they’re gone. Of course, divemasters aren’t killing themselves, but there’s those who wish they would.”

Island officials, meanwhile, have cordoned off the area to stop treasure hunters from diving to the extreme depths to collect the valuable shells.

“Those shells bring a pretty penny on the black market,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Folks grind them up, use them for back pain. And as aphrodisiacs. But your chances of coming back alive from that deep are slim.

“We’re not going to have divers dying trying to get crab shells,” Marquette said. “They wash up dead on resort beaches, that’s bad for business.”

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January 1, 2016 · 2:34 pm

Blacktip Island Entrepreneur Repurposes Selfie Sticks As Safety Aids

selfie sticks

A prototype of Blacktip Island entrepreneur “Doc” Plank’s A Grand Eyes bamboo gauge extender. The device takes its inspiration from the ubiquitous selfie sticks.

 

Blacktip Island scuba manufacturer Bamboo You kicked off the new year Friday by unveiling its new line of repurposed selfie sticks designed to help older scuba divers better see their gauges underwater.

“As divers get older, their close-up vision goes to hell,” said Bamboo You founder Piers “Doc” Plank. “Gauges with bigger numbers can only do so much, no matter how far away the divers hold them.

“People keep joking they need longer arms,” Plank said. “Seeing everybody running around with these telescoping sticks, using them as gauge extenders was a no brainer.”

Marketed as A Grand Eyes, the sticks are made from locally-sourced bamboo.

“A Grand Eyes do so much more than address our customers’ presbyopia,” Bamboo You marketing director Christina Mojarra said. “Like all Bamboo You products, they’re 100 percent natural and made from a renewable island resource. They’re good for Blacktip and good for the planet.”

The new devices have already won the praises of dive professionals.

“We banned those damned camera sticks on all our boats a while back,” Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner said. “People kept jamming them into the reef, and there were several unfortunate incidents when sticks got stuck in uncomfortable places on a rolling dive boat.

“Now, though, Doc found a way to turn them to a useful purpose,” Latner said. “We got a lot less divers going into deco because they can’t see their depth or time or nitrogen loading.”

Scuba divers who tested the sticks were impressed as well.

“I was about to give up diving,” said dive guest Buddy Brunnez. “This gizmo’s a game changer, though. Now I just zip my computer out as far as I need. And if my eyes get worse, well, I can zip the stick out farther.”

Some of the Caribbean island’s dive staff, however are dubious of the new devices.

“Whether it’s a camera or a gauge console on the end of the stick, they’re still a hazard,” Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Lee Helm said. “Divers are still bashing the reef, but this time under the guise of safety. It’s lipstick on a pig, really.”

Bamboo You officials remain unfazed by the criticism.

“With scuba diver demographics skewing older every year, A Grand Eyes are the wave of the future,” Mojarra said. “Divers can accessorize with extra long high pressure hoses to get gauge consoles as far away as they need to read the numbers.

“We’re marketing the sticks to island restaurants as menu extenders, too,” Mojarra said. “We expect this to be one of our best selling products, right up there with bamboo weights and nitrox snorkels.”

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December 11, 2015 · 10:39 am

Blacktip Island Plane Wreckage Could Be Amelia Earhart’s

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The Lockheed Electra’s broken wings rest upside down in the shallow waters off Blacktip Island’s northeast coast. Aviation experts say the airplane could be that of Amelia Earhart, who disappeared along with the plane in 1937.

Recreational scuba divers Wednesday discovered the remains of a 1930s twin-engine aircraft off Blacktip Island’s rugged northeast coast local authorities say could be that of famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

“The aircraft looks to have been a Lockheed Model 10 Electra,” said local aviation expert Whitney Pratt. “It was modified with a large fuel tank, and some of its windows were intentionally obscured.

“An Electra with those modifications fits the description of the one flown by Amelia Earhart on her unsuccessful attempt to circumnavigate the globe,” Pratt said. “There’s also the matter of the initials ‘A.E.’ scrawled on the fuselage.

“If it is Earhart’s plane, the big question is how it got here,” Pratt said. “She disappeared over the South Pacific.”

Marine scientists say the soft coral growing on the wreckage deepens the mystery.

“The wings have live carnation coral on them that’s indigenous to the southern Pacific ocean,” Tiperon University-Blacktip biologist Goby Graysby said. “We’re 5,000 miles from where any Dendronephthya should be. I can’t speak to the aircraft details, but yeah, there’s a South Pacific connection somewhere.”

The find has sparked talk of the so-called Blacktip Triangle where hundreds of boats and aircraft are reported to vanish, sometimes reappearing years later.

“All kinds of compass variations out there, you know,” longtime resident Antonio Fletcher said. “Space and time work different in the Triangle. Boats go missing. Lots of scuba divers get lost, too, but that’s something else. Bloody Marys, mostly.

“Plane could’ve crashed somewhere else and been transported here, like those Flight 19 bombers that got zapped to Kathmandu,” Fletcher said. “Happens all the time, you just don’t hear about it.”

Island officials are skeptical of the Blacktip Triangle theory.

“Most of those disappearances are exaggerated, or flat out made up,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Civil Aviation divers are examining the wreckage. If this is Miss Earhart’s airplane, there’s lots of non-supernatural explanations.

“If someone wanted to fake their death and disappear forever, transmitting a false position and then flying halfway around the world’d be a great way to do it,” Marquette said.

Blacktip Island community leaders, meanwhile, are drawing up plans for an interactive educational facility devoted to Earhart.

“We’re gonna soak visitors in what it was like to be Amelia Bedelia. I mean Earhart,” local entrepreneur Rich Skerritt said. “The centerpiece’ll be a life-sized mockup of that plane linked to a flight simulator so folks can have a feel what flying it was like. We’ll have shirts and caps and coffee mugs for sale, too.

“Our goal’s to make Blacktip Island the hottest destination in the Caribbean. Or the South Pacific,” Skerritt said. “You got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?”

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December 4, 2015 · 9:55 am

Blacktip Island University To Offer Ph.D.s In Divemastering

DM PhDs

Divemasters working on Blacktip Island’s dive boats will soon be able to earn their Doctorate of Scuba Diving at Tiperon University’s Blacktip campus.

 

Tiperon University-Blacktip officials announced Thursday the school will offer advanced degrees in divemastering when the winter semester begins next month.

Dubbed the ‘Ph. Dude’ by local dive professionals, the program will place less emphasis on pedagogy and more on scuba research, its creators said.

“Every divemaster has been trained to teach,” TU-B professor Ernesto Mojarra said. “Our studies will focus on the more cerebral aspects of divemastering that are too often overlooked. We’ll question why we dive and why that matters, with a goal of addressing the existential angst in the heart of every scuba diver.

“This being a scuba-based degree, doctoral dissertations will be written on underwater slates,” Mojarra said. “Oral exams and thesis defenses will be done underwater via an expanded series of hand signals we developed to convey the requisite nuances of thought.”

Island dive managers have embraced the program.

“Diving’s seeing that radical credential creep like everywhere else,” said Club Scuba Doo dive operations manager Finn Kiick. “Used to, you could blast through a DM course and jump on a boat. Now there’s wannabes with diplomas, even bachelor’s degrees.

“You don’t need the doctorate to do the job,” Kiick said. “But you totally need it to land the job.”

Industry analysts, however, aren’t as upbeat.

“It’s a status thing,” said Lou Luxfer president of the Dive Industry Coral Keepers. “Ops managers like to beat their chests about how highly trained their staffs are. They overlook whether customers are getting better supervision because of these advanced degrees.”

Local dive professionals echoed Luxfer’s concerns.

“It’s an empty piece of paper that doesn’t ensure diver safety,” said Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Lee Helm. “The university’s encouraging silly credentialism, and making a fortune in the process.

“The research and the dissertation require years of work,” Helm said. “With the uni collecting tuition and fees the whole time. There’s no way to pay off that sort of debt on a divemaster’s wages.”

TU-B’s Mojarra brushed those criticisms aside.

“Most of our candidates aim to work in academia,” Mojarra said. “Expensive? Sure. But what better way to break free of the dive bum lifestyle that traps so many people for decades? You divemaster for more than five years, people start looking at you funny. As well they should.”

NAUI, SSI and IANTD have approved the program for their dive leaders. PADI does not yet recognize the program’s accreditation, though the agency is working on a PADI-specific divemastering doctorate of its own.

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November 27, 2015 · 11:36 am

Blacktip Island Fishermen, Environmentalists Create Fish-Kill Zones

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If the planned fish-kill zones are approved, large stretches of Blacktip Island’s coast such as Spider Bight will be off-limits to scuba divers.

Blacktip Island’s fishermen and environmentalists this week formed an unlikely coalition aimed at safeguarding the Caribbean island’s critically-threatened Tiperon skunk bass population.

The skunk bass, the Tiperon Islands’ national fish, has become rare on island reefs due to overfishing and habitat destruction. The plan calls for the creation of no-dive zones where only fishing would be allowed.

“First we thought the bass’d stopped biting,” said fishing advocate Clete Horn. “Then we realized the bass left about the time the scuba diving industry took off. Divers come here from all over the world. They scare the fish and damage the coral.

“If there’s diving-only marine parks on the island, there should be fishing-only parks, too,” Horn said. “Get rid of the divers, the fish’ll come back. Then we can kill bass like we used to. And teach our kids how, so they can teach their kids.”

Many Blacktip residents were surprised when local environmentalists backed the concept.

“We can’t stop overfishing, so the hope is we can limit it to certain areas,” environmental activist Harry Pickett said. “It’s a compromise, but without the fishermen’s support, no conservation plan’s going to work.

“The theory’s if all the skunk bass are removed from one area, it’ll create a vacuum,” Pickett said. “Fish from other areas will move in to fill that void and encourage increased spawning in the protected areas. Sure, a lot of bass will be killed, but this way at least some of them have a chance.”

The Department of Fisheries officials, though skeptical, also back the plan.

“Skunk bass have zero protection now,” Fisheries spokesperson Reg Gurnard said. “Some protection’s better than no protection, right?

“Will it piss off some divers? Yeah. But it won’t keep them away. And it’s not like Clete and his buddies could ever fish the reefs clean.”

The plan has met stiff opposition among island entrepreneurs.

“Banning divers’ll kill our business,” Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner said. “And divers won’t come here is there’s no fish to look at. If the dive industry goes under, what passes for an economy on Blacktip will go under, too.”

Fishermen are not swayed.

“These are Blacktip Island fish. They’re family,” said local angler Antonio Fletcher. “We know what’s best for them. Foreigners are welcome to come look at them, but not if it spoils our fishing.

“We’re fighting for our heritage,” Fletcher said. “We got to save these skunk bass from foreign influences so we can kill them. The fish, not the foreign influences.”

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November 13, 2015 · 5:07 am

Blacktip Island’s Sea Slug Roundup Sparks Controversy

Two head-shield sea slugs cavort in a kraal during last year’s catch and release Blacktip Island Sea Slug Rodeo.

Two head-shield sea slugs cavort in a kraal during last year’s catch and release Blacktip Island Sea Slug Rodeo.

A Blacktip Island fall tradition came under fire Wednesday when protestors occupied the beach where the two-day Blacktip Island Sea Slug Roundup is slated to launch this weekend.

“Our forefathers were farmers and fishermen,” said event organizer Led Waite. “Slugs were a threat to their fall seaweed crops and had to be culled from the shallow reefs.

“The roundup celebrates that heritage,” Waite said. “Those hippies with signs are just attention mongers. Last week they were all up in arms about development or some such nonsense.”

The protestors decried the roundup as inhumane.

“Forcing nudibranchs into those little pens isn’t natural,” said Harry Pickett, president of the local People for the Ethical Treatment of Slugs. “You get that much slime in that small an area, slugs suffer. Coral dies.

“The sea slug population’s just now bouncing back from near extinction,” Pickett added. “This so-called celebration jeopardizes that recovery process.”

Organizers refute those charges.

“The roundup’s been catch and release for years, and no slugs have ever been harmed,” Waite said. “Two goals of the event are to document sea slug numbers and preserve a viable breeding population. Harry knows that. He just likes saying ‘nudibranch’ in public.”

Local businesses are concerned about the protest’s economic impact.

“Guests plan their scuba vacations around the roundup,” Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner said. “Dozens jump in on scuba to watch the action. It’s a gold mine in terms of gear rental and t-shirt sales.”

“It can be a bit tedious for the uninitiated,” said longtime dive guest Max Straap. “You can’t hurry slugs. But for the aficionado, it’s as riveting as a grand master chess match. “We got the kids certified when they were 10 just so they could see the herding first hand.”

Organizers, meanwhile, stressed the roundup’s eco-friendly nature.

“Slugs must be herded in the kraals under their own power,” Waite said. “We’re not having a repeat of last year’s fiasco where Lee Helm nudged head-shield slugs into the pen.”

“Lee’s an idiot,” slug wrangler Alison Diesel said. “Everybody down there has cameras. You scratch your butt, 20 people’ll put it on YouTube. And there’s Lee, flicking slugs across the sand like paper footballs.”

“That’s precisely the sort of cruelty we’re protesting,” Pickett said. “And the children’s greased sea cucumber roundup Saturday afternoon shows how that ignorance is being passed on to the next generation.”

The roundup winner will receive the coveted Golden Slimy Doris trophy. All proceeds go to the Blacktip Island Retired Seaman’s Guild.

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