Tag Archives: Tim W. Jackson

April 29, 2016 · 6:53 am

Back Breaker Integrated Weight Tourney Comes to Blacktip Island

back breaker

One of the Back Breaker competitor’s gear, rigged with a 30-year-old brass regulator to add extra weight to his rig. (photo courtesy of Catalina Luxfer)

Blacktip Island this week will host the five-day Back Breaker 2016 Integrated Weight Throwdown, with anonymous competitors vying to maim divemasters across the small Caribbean island. The winner will be determined by the number of divemasters injured and severity of those injuries.

“It’s like a traveling Fight Club for out of shape, passive-aggressive scuba divers,” Back Breaker organizer Catalina Luxfer said. “Divemasters are always telling us to dive with less weight. It’s so judgemental.

“This is payback,” Luxfer said. “We dive with however much weight we want, and we won’t be shamed into wearing less. They hurt our feelings; we hurt their backs.”

Back Breaker contestants say strategy is simple.

“The trick’s to make the BC look light, but still pack it chock-full of lead,” competitor Virgil Cracken said. “Then you tell the DM you just had surgery, and could they please lift your gear out of the water for you.

“You should see their eyes bug out when they start the lift,” Cracken said. “I tore up three backs and two elbows in the last tourney. I use my old Dacor 900 first stage just to add another eight pounds to my gear.”

Per Throwdown rules, divemasters are not told the competition is taking place until the end of the final day. Competitors will dive one day at each resort to allow equal access to all divemasters.

Injured dive staff will be examined by physicians and given x-rays and M.R.I.s to determine extent of injuries so points can be awarded accordingly.

“You score if one of your weight pockets slips out and crushes a divemaster’s toes, too,” Luxfer said. “Eighteen to 20 pounds per pocket’s a good target. Any heavier, it’s tough to disguise the bulk.”

Contestants will be disqualified if they drop below 100 feet/30 meters of depth.

“We can’t have a repeat of last year’s cock-up in Palau,” Luxfer said. “A guy with 32 pounds had a BCD inflator valve failure. He was just, WOOSH! Straight down the wall before anyone could say ‘boo.’”

Blacktip Island dive staff, alerted to the clandestine tournament, were unconcerned.

“Honestly, these bozos’ll be hard to tell from our regular guests,” Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel said. “I mean, everybody wears 16, 18 pounds these days. Some dude last week had 22. And he was skinny, with no wetsuit.”

An award ceremony for contestants and divemasters is slated for Friday evening. Winners receive a dive flag tattoo. Injured dive staff receive free drinks, Percocet prescriptions and titanium spinal implants.

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April 22, 2016 · 7:23 am

Blacktip Islanders To Choose, Punish Community Scapegoat Saturday

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Blacktip Island’s annual scapegoat will be buried chest deep on the Eagle Ray Cove beach Saturday to atone for the collective misdeeds of the island’s residents. (photo courtesy Ginger Bass)

Blacktip Island residents will celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday Saturday with the annual Choosing of the Scapegoat festival on the Eagle Ray Cove beach.

The scapegoat, chosen for offenses against fellow residents during the past year, will be buried up to the chest, recreating the final scene in Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus,’ where Aaron is partially buried as punishment for his crimes.

“When the island was first populated, the bickering settlers about killed each other,” island historian Smithson Altschul said. “‘Titus’ was a popular play at the time, and locals used the ending as a model for how to maintain social order throughout the year.

“They’d let bygones be bygones until Shakespeare’s birthday, then half-bury the biggest troublemaker and let the land crabs pick at him,” Altschul said. “The rest got a fresh start, transgression-wise. It was barbaric, but it held the community together.”

The contemporary scapegoating is nowhere near as brutal, organizers said.

“Back in the day, they left the scapegoat planted for days,” said the former-Reverend Jerrod Ephesians, festival chair. “Now we just leave them in a few hours, laugh at them and call all our sins absolved. And we cut out the crabs.

“We bury the ‘goat chest deep on the beach and wait for the tide to come in,” Ephesians said. “It’s kind of a time-out corner to think about what we’ve done. The ‘goat’s there for us all.”

The Choosing has become a family event on the island.

“It’s a teaching moment for the kids,” island resident Chrissy Graysby said. “It shows them what happens when you gossip and lie and cheat and steal. Now, those are the traditional island pastimes, but the Choosing gets all that negativity out of the community. It’s catharsis, you know. We’re sipping rum, but we can feel the pain.”

“No one knows who the scapegoat is until the final vote. If there’s a tie, both, or all, get buried,” resident Lee Helm said. “April on Blacktip’s a bit like, Yuletide what with everyone being overly nice to make up for the rest of the year.

“The land crabs still cause problems, but Jerrod has small children there to shoo them away,” Helm said. “For the most part. Dermott Bottoms lost an eyebrow to a crab last year, but he had it coming.”

Island youngsters are also kept busy with multiple rounds of Pin the Moustache on the Scapegoat. Other family-friendly activities include a Shakespearean sonnet contest, a Hamlet soliloquy hip-hop off, crab jugglers and stalls selling codlings, carbonadoes, cakes and ales.

As ever, there is intense unofficial wagering about who the scapegoat will be.

“My money’s on Dermott in a repeat,” Graysby said. “Though, as rough of a year as it’s been, people just might vote Jack Cobia in since he’s the mayor.”

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April 15, 2016 · 5:46 am

Psychoanalysts Hijack Blacktip Island Bird Watching Tournament

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A Blacktip Island brown booby, diagnosed with bipolar disorder by visiting mental health professionals on island for the weekend’s pro-am bird watching tournament. (Photo courtesy of Sula Beakins)

Blacktip Island’s annual bird identification tournament turned into an avian psychology exercise Friday morning when more than a dozen mental health professionals, who had misinterpreted the tournament’s name in an advertisement, stormed the registration table.

“It read, ‘Blacktip Island Pro-Am Bird ID Tournament,’” said visiting psychiatrist Carl Skinner. “The assumption was it was a tongue-in-cheek continuing education junket mocking antiquated Freudian structural analysis. You know, the old Id-Ego-Superego triumvirate.

“I spent days coming up with ways to quantify Freudian takes on tropical birds,” Skinner said. “To get here and find out I just read it wrong, well, it made me angry.”

Tournament organizers, faced with irate therapists, opted to run an impromptu avian analysis contest concurrent with the planned Pro-Am.

“Oh, the looks some of them got in their eyes when we explained the mistake,” Blacktip Island Audubon Society president Sula Beakins said. “When the third one started twitching, we told them to go ahead with their diagnosing, or whatever it is they do, and we’d come up with t-shirts for the winners.

“We agreed to sign off on their con-ed units, too,” Beakins said. “Their accrediting bodies won’t recognize us, but they’ll be off the island before they discover that.”

Tournament participants are excited to test their diagnostic skills on the island’s birds.

“Psychoanalysis supposedly only works with humans,” psychologist Anna Fromm said. “But that’s so exclusionary. People, birds, they’re subjects, each with a distinct personality.’

“We’re observing them and interacting with them like we would any other patient,” Fromm said. “And, not surprisingly, our findings jibe with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifications.”

Some therapists started early to get a jump on the competition.

“Blacktip Island’s famous for mental instability,” said pet psychologist Siggy Young. “So far the birds here have proved every bit as bat shit as the people.

“Since dawn I’ve found two bipolar boobies, three night herons talking to invisible friends, and multiple ground doves with generalized depression and panic attacks,” Young said. “There’s also a big grackle down at the Last Ballyhoo with textbook antisocial personality disorder. If we can help any of these birds live happier lives, our trip wasn’t wasted.”

Most competitors, however, are have taken a more relaxed approach after their initial shock.

“We’ll get laughed at back home,” Skinner said. “But, end of the day, it’s a free tropical vacation. And if this works out, next year we may branch out to psychoanalyze fish, too.”

The American Psychological Association refused to comment on the tournament and had not returned The Blacktip Times’ calls as of press time.

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April 8, 2016 · 8:57 am

Blacktip Island Dive Op Installs Roller Coaster Bow Seats

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A state-of-the-art RCS-5000 roller coaster seat at Blacktip Island’s  Club Scuba Doo prior to installation on a Scuba Doo Divers dive boat’s bow. (photo courtesy of Dusso Janladde)

 

Blacktip Island Club Scuba Doo this week installed roller coaster seating on the bows of its dive boats so guests can safely ride there in rough seas.

“People always want to sit on the bow, even when the waves get gnarly,” Scuba Doo Divers dive manager Finn Kiick said. “And they get cranked when we make them come back.

“With these new seats, though, they can have a thrill ride going to and from the dive sites,” Kiick said. “We strap ‘em in and let ‘em scream.”

The seats are amusement-park grade RCS-5000s, standard on most modern high-speed rides, with padded lap-bar restraints to keep riders in place.

“These jobs will take a three-meter wave at 15 knots – about four and a half gees of force – and stay latched,” Club Scuba Doo general manager Polly Parrett said. “Basically, a wave could smack you unconscious and you wouldn’t come out of the chair.

“We do charge extra for bow seating,” Parrett said. “But guests are happy to pay. There’s even occasional fisticuffs over who gets those few choice spots.”

Some industry experts, however, worry the seating may have a negative long-term impact.

“Those things are a disaster waiting to happen,” said scuba watchdog Wade Soote. “One broken neck or one drowning, and Blacktip’s tourism product will have a permanent black eye.

“Last week a guest had to spend the night on the bow when Finn lost the key to the lap bar,” Soote said. “And what happens after a few salt-water drenchings and a rusty latch fails?”

Scuba Doo touted the chairs’ reliability.

“On the mondo-wave days, we make people wear full scuba,” Kiick said. “Folks usually opt for that on their own, so it’s not a huge deal. And we have an awesome cutting torch of the bar ever gets stuck again.”

The bow seats have also received an unexpected endorsement from the International Coaster Enthusiasts roller coaster club.

“It’s a different ride every time, what with the seas always changing,” ICE president Busch Matterhorn said. “You don’t get that kind of unpredictability on a static metal tube ‘coaster. We had seasoned old timers squealing like little girls today.”

The resort offers new Bow Rider Diver specialty courses via most certifying agencies.

“It’s a pretty straightforward course,” Kiick said. “We blast you through a quick class, then do mask clears and out-of-air drills in the chair at full throttle. NAUI divers have to do the skills with only a mask and snorkel. PADI divers just pay double.”

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April 1, 2016 · 5:36 am

Blacktip Island Resort Launches Virtual Reality Scuba Diving

virtual reality

A virtual hawksbill turtle swims across the virtual Blacktip Island hardpan during an Eagle Ray Divers virtual reality scuba dive on Thursday. (Photo courtesy Leah Shore)

 

Blacktip Island’s Eagle Ray Cove resort this week unveiled a new virtual reality scuba program for guests who are unable to swim or are afraid of the water.

“We stick them in a V.R. suit, strap them in a harness and hang them in the conference room on bungee cords,” Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner said. “They can kick and flail and bounce around just like our regular divers.

“We pipe in sounds of regulators, bubbles, pistol shrimp and boat propellers to add to the realism,” Latner said. “We have a divemaster to tell bad jokes between dives, too, and give virtual fire coral and jellyfish stings when needed.”

Local underwater videographers have been hired to provide a variety of reef scenes.

“What each diver sees totally depends on what they do while they’re hanging,” said local cameraperson Leah Shore. “We’re shooting non-stop so there’s as many options as possible.

“Anything you’d run into on a real dive, you get in the V.R. room,” Shore said. “A current could kick up, a shark could chase you, the viz could go to hell, you name it. A guest freaked yesterday when she hit a downwelling and dropped 50 feet down the wall.”

Critics object to the program’s pricing as well as its secondary use as punishment for scuba divers who damage the reef with poor diving practices.

“They’re hanging folks on rubber bands and charging them the same as if they were on a boat,” dive tour organizer Kelly Cottonwick said. “That’s not right. Neither is making divers dangle in a cubicle if they bump the coral a few times.”

Eagle Ray Divers defended both practices.

“Those V.R. suits aren’t cheap,” Latner said. “And we have staffing costs to cover. Bottom line, we’re not forcing anyone to do anything. Except coral-crashing yahoos.

“Reef conservation’s a bonus,” Latner said. “Blacktip Island’s reefs are so healthy because we protect them. Reef trashers get two warnings, then they hang in the conference room and think about what they’ve done. It’s in the waiver they sign.

“If they can demonstrate improved buoyancy, they’re welcome back on the dive boat,” Latner said. “We’ve been selling buoyancy classes like crazy this week.”

Guests, meanwhile, rave about the experience’s authenticity.

“There was a ton of virtual surge today,” virtual diver Buddy Brunnez said. “The divemaster had to bring buckets for a couple of us to barf in. And a guy yesterday was complaining about decompression sickness.”

Latner said the resort will soon offer virtual reality specialty courses in night diving, navigation and nitrox.

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March 25, 2016 · 5:53 am

Gentically-Modified Leeches To Solve Blacktip Island Medical Woes

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Genetically-modified medical leeches cling to the rubber waders of a Tiperon University-Blacktip researcher in Blacktip Island’s booby pond nature preserve. (photo courtesy Christian Fisher)

 

A dearth of medical professionals on Blacktip Island has prompted local geneticists to breed strains of medical leeches to address the isolated Caribbean island’s health needs, island health authorities announced Thursday.

“Health care on Blacktip Island is hit-and-miss,” Public Safety director Rocky Shore said. “We don’t have full-time doctors or nurses, so we rely a lot on volunteers. You’re never sure who you’ll get at the clinic.

“Talking with researchers at the university, this back to the future approach seemed our best bet,” Shore said. “They’ve engineered seven different types of leeches to take care of the most common island ailments.”

Tiperon University-Blacktip scientists say the throwback to Medieval medicine is a natural on Blacktip Island.

“Blacktip’s pretty rustic, and it’s lousy with leeches,” said Dr. Azul Tang, head of TU-B’s nuclear biology department. “Not the ones hanging out at resort bars. The ones that crawl out of the booby pond after a good rain.

“Standard wound cleaning leeches were a given,” Tang said. “We’ve also bred specialized strains to treat diabetes, high blood pressure, substance abuse, depression, food poisoning and perform liposuction. They’re local, holistic, reasonably natural and you don’t get much more organic that the booby pond.”

Some locals, though, are leery of the new protocols.

“There’s major bio-ethical concerns here,” government watchdog Wade Soote said. “They’re creating new species, then slapping them on people without any clinical trials or any sorts of safeguards. This isn’t medical care. It’s a bad horror movie.

“We’re picketing the university labs this afternoon,” Soote said. “We’re urging everyone to boycott the clinic, too. Unless it’s something life threatening.”

Shore was quick to allay residents’ concerns.

“With no doctor on island, it’s this or nothing,” Shore said. “And these leeches come out of the pond muck already mutated. We just tweaked their DNA a bit more.

“We gave them plenty of trials, too, in the clinic,” Shore said. “These suckers make better financial sense than doctors. We don’t have to pay salaries or benefits, we can chuck them back in the pond when they stop working, and insurance pays for them.”

A handful of locals, meanwhile, have embraced the new treatment option.

“You can’t argue with success,” said island resident B.C. Flote. “Couple of swallowed leeches worked wonders for my wife’s eating disorder. And they cured little Shelley Bottoms of her anxiety attacks after her run-in with the mersquatch Christmas morning.

“Plus, come Sunday morning, there’s nothing like a leech to the forehead to get rid of a hangover,” Flote said.

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March 18, 2016 · 5:53 am

Lionfish Shortage Sparks Blacktip Island Captive Breeding Program

Common Lionfish

An invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish rests on the bottom of Blacktip Island’s new captive breeding pond Thursday afternoon. (photo courtesy of Daniel Dietrich)

 

A lionfish scarcity on Blacktip Island reefs has spurred local entrepreneurs to start a lionfish captive breeding program to supply the island’s restaurants. The facility, unveiled Thursday, is the first aquaculture program of its kind in the Caribbean.

“For years we’ve culled the hell out of lionfish to save the reef,” said Jay Valve, the program’s creator. “Local chefs put lionfish on their menus to encourage culling. Lionfish fingers, tacos, soufflés, you name it. It’s become an island staple.

“The cullers were so good, though, now there’s not enough lionfish to go around,” Valve said. “Both restaurants were going to have to take lionfish off their menus, or use dodgy substitutes.”

Island authorities say the shortage caused a public health risk.

“There’s a cutthroat black market for lionfish meat – real and fake,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Yobbos are selling parrotfish, day-old land crab, you name it, as lionfish. The clinic’s full of sick tourists. A supply of farm-raised fish should put an end to that.”

To create a suitable facility, Valve enlisted the aid of local marine biologists.

“We’re using an abandoned 20,000-gallon cistern out back of Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort,” said lead scientist Peachy Bottoms. “It’s the only place on Blacktip big enough. We tried doing it in the resort pool, but there were a couple of ugly incidents with small children. And a cat.

“The real trick was getting them to breed,” Bottoms said. “They’re nocturnal pelagic spawners, so we had to set up mirrors and video screens to simulate the open ocean. And a disco ball to simulate a full moon.”

Animal welfare groups, however, oppose the farm.

“These genetically-modified fish are raised in crowded, filthy conditions,” said Harry Pickett, president of Blacktip’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chapter. “Instead of the natural joys of seeing coral or hunting their own prey, they spend their lives in total confinement from the moment they hatch until the instant they’re slaughtered.”

The program’s creators say the fish are better off than their wild counterparts.

“Our lionfish have it made,” Valve said. “They have no predators, besides us, and we raise them free of ocean pollutants. We don’t use hormones or antibiotics or free-radical gluten like other fish farms, either.

“They get a nutrient-rich diet of wet and dry cat food,” Valve said. “And Oreos. It speeds their growth and gives the flesh a fresh, sweet flavor.”

Local businesses are jumping on the aquaculture bandwagon despite the P.E.T.A. protests.

“We’re building an interactive theme park around the place,” said resort owner Sandy Bottoms. “Calling it ‘Lionfish World.’ Gonna have lionfish feeding pools, lionfish petting pools, Kevlar glove rentals and the chance to pick out which fish you want speared for dinner.”

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March 11, 2016 · 6:08 am

Eagle Ray Divers Starts Depth-Based Loyalty Points Program

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Eagle Ray Divers scuba diving guests like Kenny and Connie Chromis, pictured, now have the opportunity to earn free dives or better seats on dive boats based on how many feet they accumulate while diving with the Blacktip Island dive operation. (photo courtesy of noblejoanie)

 

Blackip Island’s Eagle Ray Divers has instituted a frequent diver rewards program, similar to airlines’ mileage rewards programs, based on the cumulative depths their scuba diving guests accrue during dive vacations.

“We call them ‘frequent-diver feet,” said Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner. “Log enough depth points on our boats, you’re eligible for an upgrade. Twenty-five thousand feet gets you a free dive or a seat on the bow. Fifty thousand, you can talk to the boat captain. If you don’t ask any stupid questions.

“Your average dive guest racks up 1,000-1,200 feet per week of diving,” Latner said. “More if they night dive. That kind of thing ads up.”

The program is proving popular with the resort’s guests.

“We just signed up, so we don’t have many points yet,” said Eagle Ray Divers guest Kenny Chromis. “But I guarantee we’ll be doing all our diving with E.R.D from now on. Just today I racked up 220 feet on three dives. Our buddies diving with Club Scuba Doo are majorly jealous.”

Critics, however, say the plan will result in divers going unreasonably deep solely to earn reward points.

“This is gonna get divers hurt,” said Club Scuba Doo dive manager Finn Kiick. “Our guests already add 10 feet to every profile we give them. Ger’s divers’ll be going 150, 200 feet just for the points.

“What’s next, people doing two-hour dives to earn frequent diver minutes?” Kiick said.

Eagle Ray Divers management bristled at that criticism.

“Our divers’ll lose a point for every foot beyond the profile they go,” Latner said. “And they don’t get credit for their depth unless they show their gauges to one of our divemasters.

“Finn’s just muddying the water, blabbing about dive time points,” Latner said. “That’d be crazy. We’d never get back in time for lunch. Or by the time the bar opens.”

The Eagle Ray Divers dive staff, meanwhile, has embraced the plan.

“We’ve got a system to keep our wallies in line,” said Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel. “They lose double points if they go into deco. They lose all their points if we have to break out the O2, the defib or send them to the chamber.

“We dock points for wearing a Speedo, too,” Diesel said. “We’re not gonna encourage that sort of thing.”

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March 4, 2016 · 12:01 pm

Sand Flea Festival Highlights Blacktip Island’s Weekend

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Sand fleas swarm over seaweed strewn on the Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort beach in preparation for Saturday’s Blacktip Island Sand Flea Festival. The festival culminates with a winner-takes-all naked crawl across the flea-infested beach. (photo courtesy of Lamiot)

 

Blacktip Island residents are bracing for Saturday’s annual Sand Flea Festival honoring local monks slain by Norse raiders.

“It’s the first gala fête of the Blacktip Island party season,” said event’s organizer Payne Hanover. “It’s a great mid-winter pick up. And having it during Lent means everyone can suffer, regardless of religious affiliation.”

The festival has its roots in Medieval times.

“For Lenten penance in the 13th and 14th centuries, island monks would fast, drink coconut mead, then strip naked and roll on the beach at sunrise and sunset to get as flea-bitten as possible,” Island historian Smithson Altschul said.

“In 1557 Norse raiders were blown off course, landed on Blacktip and slaughtered all the monks wriggling in the sand,” Altschul said. “After the Vikings left, locals kept up the sand flea tradition to honor the fallen monks.”

Recently, the festival morphed into a celebration of an island scourge.

“We figure if we can’t beat the no-see-ums, we might as well embrace them,” festival committee member Kay Valve said. “We throw a big party in their honor. Of course, on this island, we’ll throw a party in just about anyone’s honor.”

The festival, at Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort this year, will feature flea-themed food and drinks, a flea circus and a flea-bite henna tattoo stand.

Live music will be provided by local favorites The Social Morays, TURTLE!!!, and Young Jacques and the Double Hose.

As ever, the highlight of the festival will be the 100-meter naked beach crawl at dusk, with the winner being the contestant who takes the most time to complete the course. The victor will receive a case of Benadryl and be compensated for all medical expenses.

Prizes will also be awarded for most sand flea bites, largest bite and most painful-looking bite. Winners of each category will receive a Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort tank top and a year’s supply of calamine lotion.

“This is such a wonderful event,” Sandy Bottoms guest Suzy Souccup said. “I met my husband at Flea Fest years ago. We were on the beach in our skivvies, our eyes met, and fireworks went off.

“These were actual fireworks, you understand, from the resort,” Souccup said. “We stood staring at each other for so long, the sand fleas about ate us alive. We spent the rest of the night side-by-side in the clinic, getting IV cortisone and rubbing calamine on each other. It was magical.”

The festival is sponsored by Benadryl.

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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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