Tag Archives: scuba dive sites

September 19, 2014 · 7:19 am

Blacktip Island Braces For Palindrome Slam

The winner of Saturday’s palindrome slam will name one of the Caribbean island’s new scuba dive sites.

Saturday brings Blacktip Island’s third annual Palindrome Festival to Blacktip Haven resort, celebrating words and phrases spelled the same backwards and forwards.

“It’s a celebration of our cultural heritage,” event organizer Emma Lamme said. “Blacktip has been at the forefront of international palindroming for generations. People think of Blacktip Islanders as a bunch of beer-swilling scuba bums and fishermen. This event shows we’re so much more than that.”

The island’s top palindrome artists are expected to compete in Saturday evening’s palindrome slam.

“Show up with something weak like ‘racecar’ or ‘do geese see God,’ you’re going down hard,” contestant Lee Helm said. “Last year I threw down ‘go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog’ and finished dead last.”

“There’s several dyslexic locals who are absolute wizards at palindromes,” Emma Lamme said. “We wanted to disallow them this year, but we got the ballots reversed.”

In a break with precedent, the composer of this year’s winning palindrome will get to name one of the island’s new dive sites.

“Years past we let them name a site after the winning whaddya-call-it,” marine parks spokesperson Val Schrader said. “That’s how we ended up with Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas reef and wall. We’re not having a repeat of that nonsense.”

Last year’s runners up included:

Tarzan raised Desi Arnaz’ rat
Eliot nixes sex in toilet
Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Eros? Sidney, my end is sore

“Payne Hanover won an honorable mention for ‘rum, rum, I murmur,’ but I don’t think he knew he was competing,” Lamme said. “Frankly, I’m not sure he was fully conscious.”

Island authorities are prepared for unruly crowds after last year’s brawl between rival palindromers spilled into the street, sending six festival-goers to the island clinic.

“It was a question mark that caused the ruckus,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Alison Diesel rattled off, ‘Golf? No sir, prefer prison flog,’ Jessie Catahoula wanted it disqualified because the punctuation didn’t work in reverse, then all hell broke loose.”

The festival will also feature palindrome-related music and film.

“We’ll be playing ABBA and Emily’s Sassy Lime all weekend,” Lamme said. “We’ll also be showing select movies in forward and reverse. Most people don’t realize Oklahoma! played backwards is Paint Your Wagon. You just have to squint. And pinch your ears.

“After midnight there’ll be a reverse beer drinking contest out back, too,” Lamme added, “but that’s not an officially-sanctioned part of the festival.”

Divemaster Strike Closes Blacktip Island Reefs

Protesters have blocked the Blacktip Island airstrip, preventing resort owners from flying in replacement divemasters.

In a move sending shock waves through the Caribbean scuba diving community, dive staff at all Blacktip Island’s resorts have gone on strike demanding better compensation.

“We tried talking to the resort owners rationally,” Divemaster’s Local #138 president Finn Kiick said. “They turned a deaf ear. Now we’re playing hardball, shutting down the dive sites. We’re the ones who built up these dive operations and keep them running every day while the owners sip champagne.

“They’re exploiting us, and their greed perpetuates the economic gulf in the island’s society.”

“Exploiting, hell,” Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort owner Sandy Bottoms said. “We give these people jobs, pay their wages. They want a scapegoat for their personal failings and lit on us.”

“What proper society isn’t greedy?” Eagle Ray Cove owner Rich Skerritt said. “Greed transformed this island from mass subsistence to mass prosperity. Left to their own devices, these damn scuba hippies wouldn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”

At the heart of the strike is the divemasters’ pay and benefits.

“We get whacked in the face with peed-in wetsuits,” union president Kiick said. “We get weight belts and scuba tanks dropped on our feet. We laugh at the same stupid jokes week-in and week-out. All without complaint.

“We’re simply asking for a livable wage. And health insurance that includes mental health coverage,” Kiick said. “Mental stability’s a huge issue on this island.”

“They need to stop the drug and alcohol testing, as well,” said union member Lee Helm. “That’s pure systemic repression, that is.”

The strike has left island dive guests furious.

“I save up money all year to come diving, and these yahoos shut down the dive sites?” a Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort guest said. “Hell, I’d do their job for free!”

“We tried letting guests act as divemasters and boat captains,” Blacktip Haven owner Elena Havens said. “We lost a group of eight divers the first morning and had to drag our boat off the reef. We’ve had our guests watching old Sea Hunt episodes in full scuba gear ever since.”

“We’re flying in replacement staff from the big island,” Eagle Ray Cove’s Skerritt said. “For every union-boy, there’s a hundred divemasters begging to take their place. We’ve cut off our dive staff’s bar privileges, too.”

Union organizers have responded by blocking the island’s lone airstrip.

“We have picketers lined up three deep across the runway,” Kiick said. “They can’t bring in scabs if they can’t land an airplane. We have picketers on scuba at all the dive sites, too, in case guests get the notion to shore dive.”

In the interim, resort owners have hired local residents to fill in as dive staff.

“I usually drive the garbage truck,” island resident James Conlee said. “Hauling tourists can’t be that different.”

“I’ll lead dives myself before I knuckle under to these Bolsheviks,” Skerritt said. “They’ll be begging to shovel iguana crap by the time I’m done with them!”

“If guests understood the issues, they’d back us 100 percent,” picketer Helm said. “Plus, if football players making £5 million to work half a year can go on strike, why can’t we?”

Tollbooths Installed on Island Reefs

A Marine Park ranger monitors one of Blacktip Island’s new reef tollbooths.

The Blacktip Island Marine Park Service is installing underwater tollbooths on all the Caribbean island’s scuba dive sites this week. The move is a response to dwindling public funding and increased diver impact on the island’s reefs.

“Think of it as a graduated impact fee,” Park Service spokesperson Val Schrader said.

“Instead of charging every diver a flat marine park fee, we’ll be charging based on how much of the reef they actually see.

“The old system wasn’t fair to new divers who blow through their air and surface in twenty minutes. Or to the Type B divers who stay close to the boat looking at one coral head.”

Collection boxes fashioned as oversized conch shells have been installed at all popular coral heads and swim-throughs.

“They’re big and obvious enough that divers will know what they are,” Schrader said, “but not so outlandish they detract from the diving experience.”

Divers can buy scan cards that clip onto their BCDs, and add credits in $10 increments. Alternately, divers may carry Tiperon currency to drop into collection boxes.

Divers purchasing a Park Service Reef Pass will have their dives charged directly to their hotel room or credit card at a reduced rate.

The plan’s opponents vowed to fight the tolls.

“We’ll go in from shore, on sites where there’s no collection bins,” local resident Barry Sennett said. “These reefs don’t belong to the Park Service or the government. These reefs are your reefs, these reefs are my reefs.”

Other protestors plan to take a more active approach.

“They’ll have a hard time collecting if their precious conch shells get dropped 6,000 feet down the wall,” said a local diver who wished to remain anonymous.

“We’re installing cameras,” Schrader said. “Hidden ones. To keep an eye on things. Divers caught illegally diving will be fined and have their scuba gear confiscated.”

The Park Service has also mandated all BCDs on Blacktip Island be fitted with remote inflator valves. Scuba divers not paying the tolls will have their BCDs auto-inflate them to the surface, where a red dye will be released.

“We’re definitely using shame as a deterrent,” Schrader said. “Sometimes a stiff fine just won’t do the trick.”

Snorkelers will be charged at reduced rates. Free divers will be charged according to the number of dives they do as well as the depth of each dive. Blind divers will be allowed to dive free of charge.

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Filed under Caribbean, Scuba Diving

Tagged as Blacktip Island, blog fiction, coral reefs, Divemaster, humor, islands, marine parks, scuba dive sites, Tim W. Jackson